Language
Read TIme – 6 min
Wandering Time – ∞
I have always wondered and thought about the words that come from our mouth and the
rhythm it carries with it.
I remember watching videos where they keep some fragmented particles on some evenly
oscillating/vibrating sheet and and then passing sound through at variable frequency for the
particles to take a geometric shape. Whatever be the science behind it. I also remember
watching one more video where this person passes sound frequency through tap water and
the water coming out the tap changes its flowing shape. Very intriguing and remarkable. I
also remember somewhere listening how the way the mantras are spoken, it changes how it
effects the body. Any word that comes of our body. It vibrates the body.
How do I know that? I remember sitting on wooden benches in school and there when this
old friend of mine spoke, the whole bench vibrated. Condition, I think was, that his back had
to be in contact with the back rest and the voice had to come from the chest.
There was this person from school I remember, Junior. He always talked about how he had a
very content life and wanted to achieve the things he wanted to achieve, until one day he
was standing near a heavy bass speaker, and he felt some pain in his heart or chest due to
the heavy bass.
And from that day, he had always been depressed and had suicidal thoughts for atleast the
time we were in touch. He himself noticed this and pointed it to me.
I personally never experienced the effects of sound on my body or mind. I have only given it
a thought and from where I see it, the trail of thoughts makes sense to me on personal level.
As a child, since I am born and brought up a Haryanvi household and environment, atleast
geographically. The dialect in this part of the region I was born in, was not the original
Haryanvi dialect, it is an imitation of the original. I have experienced the original language
only when I had visited my Maternal Family. That dialect has been the one which I enjoyed
speaking and just knew whenever I visited it.
I can still speak this dialect, given I am around the people who speak it. I have never been
able to speak it in Gurgaon. Maybe it is because half of the people are just imitating it. And
rest of the people are using it intimidate each other.
And also, the imitated language was the one spoken around me, therefore, my mother never
wanted me and my brothers to learn how to speak it altogether and to learn it.
Such a nice language is just being ripped apart by such activities. I sometimes wish, if she
had taught us her dialect, it would have been really nice.
I think, I am shifting from my topic.Since this is the language I had sometimes spoken when I was a child. When I say child, I
mean during the time when I was doing childlike activities, not thinking much and just doing
what I wanted to do, without thinking of the consequences.
And when slowly I had to stop speaking it altogether, still as a child.
I now realise a change and shift in personality or say behaviour had happened due to this. I
now realise that when I was speaking the language, I was speaking without thinking, it
became natural and it just flowed through me. But when I was slowly un-learning it and
learning to speak in Hindi and English. I became conscious of my thoughts. And from there
on I could never speak fluently in any language. When I say fluently, I mean without thinking
my next words and letting the purpose of the conversation take over and automatically
passing on the message. Me being only a medium of the message.
Seems like I have let emotions and philosophy take over me and made such a simple
statement so overcomplicated.
School also played a part in it. Since it was an ICSE school, English was sort of a mandatory
in any communication with the teacher, although we never spoke between ourselves. But we
were also hesitant to speak in our native dialect, since we were not even allowed to speak in
Hindi, speaking in our native dialect seemed a far fetched idea? There could a whole good
amount research that could done here. How the less use of native language in schools
affects the thought process and actions in the world. How they become hesitant not just in
their speech, but in their actions and the tone of speech. Therefore making them
unconsciously handicapped in some way for a long time, until they become conscious of that
handicap. I also have experienced this handicap. I am not sure, if people around me with
whom I was studying had experienced this or not, but thinking back now, I feel they also
were experiencing the same.
Now, at present, when I think about it or try to speak or imagine a narration or line in my
head through my native dialect. I feel a flow. This flow I have never felt in English, even
though I have become quite fluent in it. I feel the words coming together to create, I wouldn’t
say music. It is more of like how water flows. There are no sudden breakage between the
words. Every word seems connected to each other. And if now when I think of a single letter
and its pronunciation, the word starts to take a visual form.
So maybe, what we speak changes what we see and experience.
As a child, we are not conscious individual. We do, what we feel inside. We express, what
we feel inside. If we are sad, we express that in whatever way we can, without thinking
twice. Probably something true to ourselves. Our external expression are aligned with our
internal being.
We externalise our inner emotions or world of emotions through every means we have to
express it. Be it our body, be it our face, be it the words/sound that come of our mouth. As a
child, every expression happens in a flow. Including the expression through language.Maybe that is why the language we speak in our childhood becomes the language closest to
us and the most impactful language on our psyche, if anyone wanted to use it.
When a native person speaks his or her native language in a way they had spoken in their
childhood, maybe then the language is most impactful whether it be used to express anger,
sadness, happiness, etc ?
Because the the inner thoughts and the material medium aligns together to create a solid
flow?
It cannot be just one way only. It must be two ways. If the language effects our flow of
thoughts, then the flow of thoughts must also effect how the language is spoken.
Anyway. my point to myself is, Language when spoken creates visual form, specifically
native language which in turn shapes our experiences, which in turn shapes our reality. I
have felt the same when I was in Bengal. I have felt the same when I listen to Punjabi. I felt
the same when I listen to Marathi, Malayalam. The language people speak can shape their
behaviour, personality, experiences and ultimately, reality.
And now when I am reading a book by V. Ganapati Sthapati on Architecture. He also talks on
the same lines, but of course he has valid references and more authority over his claims and
learnings to say that. I am glad and overjoyed by the circumstances, events, my higher self
or ‘the’ higher self or whatever that played throughout life, that made me reach to a same
realisation that such a great guy is stating and wants to tell the world through his book.
I think I am missing a major conclusion, which I wanted to draw, for which I even started
writing this.