|
The Evolution of Language HUMAN language was born out of the necessity of inter-communication among human beings living together. The necessity naturally related to the physical life and its demands and requirements. Man being a mental being sought intercommunication through his mind. So mind yoked to the physical demands gave the first form and pattern to human speech. Language in the beginning must have been an echo or a graphic expression of man's sense-bound mind. But as the mind developed, became more and more rational and intellectual, language also tended to become more and more abstract and. intellectualised. Even so at its best, language could be the vehicle and embodiment of man's mental and intellectual world. But man moves on, his mind opens on new horizons, his consciousness is not tethered to sense-experiences nor even limited to the region of thought and ideation built or grown in accordance with the mode and schema of sense-experiences. Man began to possess, to acquire intuitions and inspirations, that is to say, movements of consciousness that lie beyond the frame given by the sense-mind. These new perceptions could naturally be expressed with difficulty through what one may call the earth-nurtured or earth-bound language. The aerial luminous character of the mystic consciousness is always said to be beyond speech, beyond even mental formulation. And
yet poets, mystic poets have always sought to express themselves, to express
something of their experience and illumination through the word, the human
tongue. It is extremely interesting to see how a material, constructed or
formed to satisfy the requirements of an ordinary physical life
Page – 214 is being turned into an instrument for luminous and effective communication and expression of other truths and realities in the hands of these seer-creators (kavi-kratuh). They take the materials from ordinary normal life, familiar objects and happenings but use them as images and allegories putting into them a new sense and a new light. Also they give a new, unfamiliar turn to their utterance, a new syntax, sometimes uncommon construction and novel vocabulary to the language itself so that it has even the appearance of something very irregular and twisted and obscure. Indeed obscurity itself in the expression, in the form of the language has often been taken as the very sign of the higher and hidden experience and illumination. The
Vedic rishis speak of the different levels of speech-the human language is only
one form of speech, its lowest, in fact the crudest formulation. There are
other forms of speech that are subtler and subtler as one rises in the scale of
consciousness. The highest formulation of language, the supreme Word –vâk
– is ' Our
human language cannot expect to attain that supreme height of felicity of
expression but wherever something of the vibration has been communicated to it
by the magic hand of the creative poet, we have the 'mantra', the supreme, the
mantric poetry. Page – 215
|
