David Bohm, theoretical physicist, near the end of his life, ditched his primary field of research (not entirely, of course) for a deep dive into language, and ended up working on developing what he called the rheomode, a verb based language that allowed the speaker to more accurately and reverently acknowledge the world not as a cluster of nouns, fixed and immovable persons places and things, but as existing in a continual state of process. The Algonquin family of languages was created similarly — they would never say, “there’s a river” they would instead say, “that water is rivering over there,” because they know it hasn’t always been a river and it won’t always be.
thank you, i'm glad it was of interest. wrt Bohm, I had heard before something about that, and it sounds interesting, and i also agree with the idea of 'process' rather than 'stasis'. BUT, and it's a very big one, the idea of developing a language seems to me to be completely missing the point, and it goes against my intuition of a primordial language, and our need to 'work with what we have', so to speak.
This is a wonderful intro. I have a much better grasp of how you’re using that word. You are doing with etymology what Joseph Smith did with Christianity. Referencing knowledge while going boldly where no man has gone before. We need to take chances if we ever want to escape the limits of our study and reasoning.
I hadn’t heard this but I’ve been thinking like this internally for a while, reversing frames as a habit. It’s always worth considering your perspective and how it might be different.
David Bohm, theoretical physicist, near the end of his life, ditched his primary field of research (not entirely, of course) for a deep dive into language, and ended up working on developing what he called the rheomode, a verb based language that allowed the speaker to more accurately and reverently acknowledge the world not as a cluster of nouns, fixed and immovable persons places and things, but as existing in a continual state of process. The Algonquin family of languages was created similarly — they would never say, “there’s a river” they would instead say, “that water is rivering over there,” because they know it hasn’t always been a river and it won’t always be.
Excited to read the next installment!
thank you, i'm glad it was of interest. wrt Bohm, I had heard before something about that, and it sounds interesting, and i also agree with the idea of 'process' rather than 'stasis'. BUT, and it's a very big one, the idea of developing a language seems to me to be completely missing the point, and it goes against my intuition of a primordial language, and our need to 'work with what we have', so to speak.
This is a wonderful intro. I have a much better grasp of how you’re using that word. You are doing with etymology what Joseph Smith did with Christianity. Referencing knowledge while going boldly where no man has gone before. We need to take chances if we ever want to escape the limits of our study and reasoning.
that is very high praise, and i do not feel worthy of it, but thank you for the kind words.
I hadn’t heard this but I’ve been thinking like this internally for a while, reversing frames as a habit. It’s always worth considering your perspective and how it might be different.
I await chapter one.