language
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
the power of language
The more powerful communication technologies become, the more people will fight wars over words instead of territory. Language, when wielded at scale, is among man's most powerful weapons.
an online dictionary of idioms and expressions contributed by native speakers all over the world