language
Babelification
Language, as a social instrument, is more than its content. It’s also a signifier defining the speaker. Therefore language, whether expressed as slang, dialects, patois, or accents, is a marker of cultural identity. The language you use signals to other people: am I like you? Do we come from the same place? Do we share perspectives?... See more
Language, as a social instrument, is more than its content. It’s also a signifier defining the speaker. Therefore language, whether expressed as slang, dialects, patois, or accents, is a marker of cultural identity. The language you use signals to other people: am I like you? Do we come from the same place? Do we share perspectives?... See more
Computational Law, Symbolic Discourse and the AI Constitution—Stephen Wolfram Writings
Stephen Wolframwritings.stephenwolfram.com
a beautiful passage from sublime’s innaugural zine on why language matters, in the context of building a different web.
“historically, the English had banned the Irish (Gaelic) language - books in Gaelic were confiscated. Now, Gaelic history and culture is largely oral, so this effectively meant banning everything about the culture. In an attempt to try preserve the language, they loaded this ship with a ton of Gaelic books and old manuscripts filled with all kinds of knowledge. Sort of as their perceived last hope at preserving the language, which is over 2000 years old, but the ship hit a rock not far from shore and sank in full view of the people. So this song is a lament of the loss of all that knowledge and, ultimately, the culture” - Bri
Protagoras observed a strange paradox about language. Despite the perpetual flux and change of the physical world, language lends the mistaken impression that the world is not in flux, that it is stable. As the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles had observed only a few years before, ‘there is no birth for any mortal thing, nor any cursed end in
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