Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Sense and Sensibility

Was just sitting here in the common room watching Harshad chat with one of his old friends in Marathi and talking to Goonjan...and then a thought suddenly struck me (which I subsequently voiced out to an incredulously sarcastic reception by Goonjan - even now he's commenting what I'm writing...you can hear his Goonj here)...

Anyways, the thought runs something like this...Words are nothing but gibberish...For a person who doesn't know a particular language, sentences spoken in any foreign/alien language sounds nothing better than monkeys' chatter coming from the mouths of humans. But when he knows the language, that same mindless, senseless chatter is transformed into something meaningful - whereby every sound has a purpose, every word a meaning and every sentence some sense attached with it.

For me, this is the power of language...this power lies in the ability to transform the meaningless into the meaningful...the alien into our very own...

As they say, 'Nuff said!' (Enough said, that is!)

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