THE SOUND OF CHINA

Communication is primarily a matter of sound. As human populations emerged round the world, the sounds made by the various individuals within a particular group to communicate with each other, and therefore, by some common consent referred to specific objects or ideas, became that groups language. Over a period of time various group languages developed, becoming more refined, sophisticated and subtle. As these groups encountered each other and began to interact, it became apparent that the same objects and ideas were being referenced by different sounds. Translation was possible. Individuals could learn each other’s sounds. It also became apparent that due to separations, migrations and movements of certain individuals from one group, some languages were more closely related or had similar roots, and nearly similar sounds were made to indicate the same things. Hence English - dog or hound, German - hund, Danish - hund, Dutch - hond,  Swedish – hund, Norwegian – hund, or  Latin – canis, Italian - cane, Spanish - can, Portuguese - cão, Romanian – câine.

Still nothing changes the fact that the sounds made to name things, were entirely arbitrary, and arrived at by some common consent in order to facilitate communication within a group. As groups became more complex and interactive, various forms of writing developed. 

Writing involved a far less arbitrary approach. Writing of necessity involved reading. Writing, when read would have to produce the necessary sounds in order to be understood. It had to produce the phonetics and structure with the same efficacy as the spoken word, and as a result various alphabets developed in order to reproduce the sounds of the language being written. Some languages adopted a pictorial or logographic approach, some used syllabaries and still others used phonemic orthography, or some combination of writing systems. Whatever system was used it had to reflect the sounds of the language.

TEXTUAL TEXT TEXTILE TEXTURE

I recently looked up the word  ‘textual’ and came upon this entry:

I then copied and pasted the entry to reveal the following:

This pasting revealed a whole load of additional words that are not apparent on the original page. Is this what is meant by subtext?

I rather like the opening paragraph:

BOTTOM headword thingies (variations) BOTTOM headword thingies (inflections) headword: mobile headword: mobile view BOTTOM headword thingies (variations) BOTTOM headword thingies (inflections) Definition header

What is a bottom headword thingy? What variations and inflections? What is a mobile headword or mobile view? What about sense blocks? What are sense block numbers and labels?

The subtext of text does indeed have variations and inflections. In looking at the word ‘text’ we find:

1300-50; Middle English < Medieval Latin textus text, terms, Latin: text, structure, orig., pattern of weaving, texture (of cloth), equivalent to tex (ere) to weave + -tus suffix of v. action

which leads us to ‘textile’ where we find:

1520-30; < Latin textilis woven, textile (noun use of neuter) woven fabric, equivalent to text (us), past participle of texere to weave + -ilis, -ile -ile

and on to ‘texture’ where we find:

1400-50; late Middle English < Latin textūra web, equivalent to text (us) (past participle of texere to weave) + -ūra -ure

Clearly the definition ‘relating to or based on a piece of writing (such as a book or magazine)’ is inadequate.

The sub text revealed by the copy and paste action, following on from the definition:

“usage note snote called also directional cross references link to a page with synonym paragraph link to a page with usage discussion verbal illustrations bc mark inline synonyms definition_text usage note snote called also directional cross references link to a page with synonym paragraph link to a page with usage discussion verbal illustrations”

is an indication that all text is a woven multi-textural multi-layered fabric, and like any artifice has many variations, inflections and directions.

In brief, there is a performance in every text, or some such thingies.

As to the question ‘What made you want to look up textual?” I cannot now remember.

ON LOOKING INTO APHASIA

During my musings on aphasia, I came across a treatment for communication disorders. Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) is a therapeutic process used by music therapists and speech-language pathologists to help patients with communication disorders caused by damage to the left hemisphere of the brain. This method uses a style of singing that is supposed to stimulate the intact right hemisphere to facilitate speech and language recovery in the damaged portion of the left hemisphere. However, according to recent research, it may not be singing that is the crucial element in MIT, but rhythmic pacing and the intensive use of conversational speech formulas.

As I surfed along, my eye then fell on a little bit of British history:

Two hundred and fifty six years ago, today, on the 15 January 1759, the British Museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. On 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament, The British Museum Act 1753, which established the British Museum. The body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759.

Lord Elgin

What is remarkable is its vast collection of stuff, largely the result of its catholic methods of acquisition. The Elgin Marbles are an instance in point.

Lord Byron did not care for the sculptures, calling them "misshapen monuments". He strongly objected to their removal from Greece, denouncing Elgin as a vandal.

John Newport

Sir John Newport said:

"The Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most unjustifiable means and has committed the most flagrant pillages. It was, it seems, fatal that a representative of our country loot those objects that the Turks and other barbarians had considered sacred."

Since then, other voices, in the House of Lords, have raised more acute concerns about the fate of the Elgin Marbles if they were to be returned to Greece. In an exchange on 19 May 1997, Lord Woodrow Wyatt, asked:

Woodrow Wyatt

“My Lords, is the Minister aware that it would be dangerous to return the marbles to Athens because they were under attack by Turkish and Greek fire in the Parthenon when they were rescued and the volatile Greeks might easily start hurling bombs around again?”

Woodrow Wyatt was a great friend of the Queen Mother, Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch and was Chairman of the Tote.

In a review by Craig Brown of The Journals Of Woodrow Wyatt : Volume Two published in the Daily Mail on 28th May 2008, Brown wrote:

“In 1989, Mrs Thatcher asks Woodrow Wyatt how she can tune into the new channel, Sky. He doesn't know. That night at the launch party, he personally asks Andrew Neil, at that time the Chairman of Sky, but he has no idea. He then asks Rupert Murdoch, who owns it, but he doesn't know either. Somehow, this is the perfect parable for the hollow populism of the Thatcher years.”

The things you find when looking into aphasia.

AN UNIVERSITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGES

Emerson

Queen Victoria ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom on the 20^th June 1837.  A New Age had begun. Two months later on the 31^st August 1837 a young Ralf Waldo Emerson delivered a lecture to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts, asserting the emancipation of “The American Scholar” In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe. A new age indeed. Emerson stated, inter alia:

Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is, the new importance given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual, — to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state; — tends to true union as well as greatness. Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

Emerson referenced Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (who had died 10 years earlier) a Swiss educationalist and surgeon who wrote:

Pestalozzi

"The ideal system of liberty, also, to which Rousseau imparted fresh animation, increased in me the visionary desire for a more extended sphere of activity, in which I might promote the welfare and happiness of the people. Juvenile ideas as to what it was necessary and possible to do in this respect in my native town, induced me to abandon the clerical profession, to which I had formerly learned, and for which I had been destined, and caused the thought to spring up within me, that it might be possible, by the study of the law, to find a career that would be likely to procure for me, sooner or later, the opportunity and means of exercising an active influence on the civil condition of my native town, and even of my native land.”

How does “"I learned that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." square with "The ideal system of liberty…increased in me the visionary desire for a more extended sphere of activity, in which I might promote the welfare and happiness of the people.”  and “…it might be possible, by the study of the law, to find a career that would be likely to procure for me, sooner or later, the opportunity and means of exercising an active influence on the civil condition of my native town, and even of my native land”.

Do these sentiments, prompted by the ideal system of liberty, direct one to suppose they would lead to “the new importance given to the single person”, and encourage that person to become ‘an university of all knowledges’?

Some forty years later, beginning as early as the summer of 1871 or in the spring of 1872, Emerson started having memory problems^[ and suffered from aphasia. By the end of the decade, he forgot his own name at times and, when anyone asked how he felt, he responded, "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well".  The problems with his memory had become embarrassing to Emerson and he ceased his public appearances by 1879. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "Emerson is afraid to trust himself in society much, on account of the failure of his memory and the great difficulty he finds in getting the words he wants. It is painful to witness his embarrassment at times".

The recommended treatment for aphasia is:

•    Exercising regularly

•    Eating a healthy diet

•    Keeping alcohol consumption low and avoiding tobacco use

•    Controlling blood pressure

Has anything changed in the last 178 years?