Lessons in the Old Language

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December 5, 2020

a project of ServiceSpace

To have another language is to possess a second soul

- Charlemagne -

Lessons in the Old Language

The "old language" that unites the human and more-than-human worlds is a recurrent archetype in the stories of indigenous peoples, those who have lived in intimate proximity with a particular bioregion for time immemorial. The word in its primordial force runs through us like a current: what we say still comes alive, or dies in the telling. Indeed, the power of language to create reality is a constant of the human experience. But this and other lessons of the old language have been largely obscured in the transition to modernity and industrial-technological civilization. When we contrast indigenous and western languages and worldviews, we can begin to reclaim aspects of the old language that undergird both. Read on for three distilled insights on how we can begin to integrate what language truly IS and does
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Be The Change

The author describes how certain languages like English have an inbuilt emphasis on nouns while some others have a verb-based grammar emphasis. Do you have or could you learn a different language that operates on a verb-based cosmology? How would that change your view of Life and Animacy?

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