Part 4 (1/2)

Yes, America is illiterate to the extent that it constituted itself as an alternative to the world based on the underlying structures of literacy The new pragmatic framework that the USA embodies does not automatically free it froates, and the current angst over the state of literacy is a manifestation of this As an embodiment of the civilization of illiteracy, Aether by comatics succeeds or fails on its own ter principles of adaptation, openness, exploration and validation of new matically based institutions are pursued, the result is the expected efficiency Soh-unemployment, dislocation, retrench for The price includes the ability or willingness to consider all aspects involved in a situation-political, environious These aspects transcend the tangible and necessitate taking the broad viehich literate civilization allowed for, over the specialized, narrowly focused, short- sighted, parochial view Other tih there are no alternatives

But in the long run, no one would really want to go back to the way things were 200 years ago

Book two

Froes are very different So are literacies The differences go well beyond hoords sound, how alphabets differ, how letters are put together, or how sentences are structured in the various languages used around the world In soender, nueneral stateists noted that in soesone word) snow and for activities involving it; in Arabic, iven to camel; in Mexico, different na to function, not for beans, cazuela for cooking stews The japanese and Chinese distinguish arained, shucked, kernels George Lakoff ory balan includes fire, dangerous things, women, birds, and animals such as platypus, bandicoot, and echidna

In other languages, the effort to categorize reveals associations surprising to individuals whose own life experiences are not reflected in the language they observe The questioning attitude in the Talmud (a book of interpretations of the Hebrew Torah) is based on 20 ter different kinds of questions

Shuzan is calculation based on the use of the abacus Hissan, hiding the japanese word hitsu that stands for the brush used for writing, is calculation based on the use of Arabic nue such as Chinese (to be literate in Chinese) is different frolish, and even es These exauage is constituted belongs to the broad prag as an abstract language Areat differences in vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, as well as in the idiosyncratic aspects implicit in them, reflective of the experience of their constitution

Despite such differences-soe is the common denominator of the species homo Sapiens, and an important constitutive elee Those who state that language follows life consider only one side of the coin Life is also fore constitution The influence goes both ways, but humatic fraical structure in the practical act through which they identify thee can be traced in what ically, socially, culturally), what causes different kinds of language use, and what brought about change Necessity and agents of change are not the sauish between the habits and new life styles are, asthematic framework of our continuous self-constitution We still have ten fingers-a structural reality of the human body projected into the decimal system-but the dominant nuards the simplistic notion that words are coined when new instances er required In fact, many times words and other means of expression constitute new instances of life or work, and thus do not follow life, but define possible life paths

There are several sources froe constitution and its subsequent evolution can be derived: historic evidence, anthropological research, cognitive y Here is a quote froh not uncontroversial) books on the subject: Language ”enabled e and complexity was different in kind froanization of anienetically transely learned and transe,” (cf Jack Goody and Ian Watt, The Consequence of Literacy) The general idea pertaining to the social ie is restrictive but acceptable

What is not at all explained here is how language coenetically transanization (of animals) would not suffice, or even be tantas As a e, as perceived in the text cited and elsewhere in literature, beco device, not a for tool of sorts, even a tool for es have to be understood in a es have an evolution in tie can be identified What ree disappears (and we know of some that have disappeared) are elee itself for our better understanding of what e also helps us realize how the life of a language takes place through the life of those who made it initially possible, afterwards necessary, and finally replaced it with means more appropriate to their practical life and to their ever-changing condition Research into pre-linguistic tienetic research) has focused on itegests that before a relatively stable and repetitive structure was in place, people used sounds, gestures, and body expressions (face, hands, legs) pretty e, in its constitutive phases, left behind a wealth of testimony to patterns of action and, later, to behavioral codes that result in some sense of cohesion

Distant forebears developed patterns in obtaining food and adapting to changes affecting the availability of food and shelter

Before words, tools probably embodied both potential action and communication Many scholars believe that tools are not possible without, or before, words They clai to the(hoe In the opinion of these scholars, tools extend the arenerality not accessible otherwise than through language It ht well be that nature-based ”notation” (footprints, bite marks, and the stone chips that soe Such notation was , and corresponded to a cognitive state, as well as to a scale of existence, preparing for the e systems (the work of Scribner and Cole, for instance, and ins of writing in the notations found at Vinca, in the Balkans, near present-day Belgrade) has allowed us to understand how patterns of sounds and gestures beca was established, new huer scale of work, becauages (Rosch's studies of Dyirbal, reported by Lakoff) is a lesson in the foundation of such languages and their derammar and phonetics and more about a type of hu the supporting biological structure of those involved in it, the role of the scale of hues due to a multitude of conjectures

The differentiation introduced above a systees is simultaneously a differentiation of kinds and types of hu hue their reality in the world they live in Drawing attention to oneself or to others does not require language Sounds suffice; gestures can add to the intended signal In every sound and in every gesture, humans project theh a sound's pitch, tiesture can be slow or rapid, tiressive, or a mixture of these characteristics Once the saesture, or the saestures is used to point to the sa, this stabilized expression becon

Sen systems used by humans reaches well back to ancient times But it was only after renewed interest in sens (sen)-that researchers frons and their use by hurowth of expression and coe

Interaction between hureat deal of this interest

Language-oral and written-is probably the ns that researchers are aware of Although the word language con systems, it is by no uage, humans constituted themselves in experiences of simpler estures, drawings, ritualized movement, and all kinds of ressive projection of the individual onto the environn I of one's own individuality-as distinct froh competition, cooperation, or hostility-is most likely the first one can conjure It n of the other, since I can be defined only in relation to so different, ie, to the other In the world of the different, so, others acco These qualifiers could not be simply translated into identifiers They were actually projections of the subject as it perceived and understood, or misunderstood, the environe and literacy, a short account of the pre-verbal stage needs to be attein of language It is a subject as fascinating as the origins of the universe and the origin of life itself My interest is rather in the area of the nature of language, the origin being an iination I have already referred to what are loosely called tools and to behavioral codes (sexual, or relating to shelter, food-gathering, etc) There is historic evidence that can be considered for such an account, and there are quite a nues in climate, extinction of soe The re infors sis once were constituted their signs as an expression of their identity

These signs reflected the outside world, but moreover expressed awareness of the world ical condition

The very first sentence of the once fa as an explanation of our thoughts by signs invented for this particular purpose The sans I take the position that the transition from nature to culture, ie, from reactions caused by natural stimuli to reflections and awareness, is marked by both continuity and discontinuity

The continuous aspect refers to the biological structure projected into the universe of interactions with similar or dissiical changes in brain size, vertical posture, functions of the hands

The pre- verbal (or pre-discursive) is immediate by its very nature The discursive, whiche Closeness to the natural environh I am rather suspicious of claims made by contemporary advocates of the psychedelic, in particular McKenna, I can see how everything affecting the biological potential of the being (in this case psilocybin, influencing vision and group behavior) deserves at least consideration e approach the subject of language

Signs, through which pre-verbal hus projected their reality in the context of their existence, expressed through their energy and plasticity what huns captured as perceived as alike in others, objects or beings, and likeness becans This was a time of direct interaction and i delayed or unexpected constituted the realm of the unknown, of mystery The scale of life was reduced All events were of li individuals constituted thens of presence, that is, of a shared space and tins could thus refer to here and now as immediate instantiations of duration, proxi before the notions of space and time were forns, the absent or the coested, and the dynamics of repetitive events could be expressed It was only after this self- expression took place that a representational function becah-pitched cry not just for pain, but also for danger that ht cause pain; an arm raised not only as an indication of firm presence, but also of requested attention; a color applied on the skin not only as an expression of pleasure in using a fruit or a plant, but also of anticipated similar pleasures-an instruction to bepart of the expressed, the individuals projecting themselves in the expression also projected a certain experience related to the li for associations of events (clouds with rain, noise of hooves with animals, bubbles on a lake's surface with fish) were probably as much representations of those sequences as an expression of constituted experience shared with others living in the sa experience beyond the here and now, in other words, transition from direct and unreflected to indirect and reflected interaction, is the next cognitive step It took place once shared signs were associated with shared cons that could report on new, siical witness to the process in which it was constituted and of the scale of the experience A whisper addresses one other person, maybe two, very close to each other A shout corresponds to a different scale Accordingly, each sign is its shorthand history and a bridge from the natural to the cultural

Sequences, such as successions of sounds or verbal utterances, or configurations of signs, such as drawings, testify to a higher cognitive level Relations between sequences or configurations of signs and the practical experience in which they are constituted are less intuitive To derive fron relations son system was an experience in human interaction Later in time, the immediate experiential coe The constitution of the language is the result of the change of focus fro them Grans are put together (syntax), nor of how signs represent so new signs to be constituted in a e was constituted as an intermediary between stabilized experience (repetitive patterns of work and interaction) and future (patterns broken) Signs still preserved the concreteness of the event that triggered their constitution

In the use of language, the hureat deal of individual projection Language's degree of generality becans theuage, the characteristic function of this sign system was the constitution of practical experiences, not the representation of n, and ical and the artificial collide When the biological elen experiences take place as reactions When the cultural doe experience becomes an interpretation, ie, a continuation of the semiotic experience Interpretation of any kind corresponds to the never-ending differentiation froical and is representative of the constitution of culture Under the name culture as used above, we understand huanizations, ideas, attitudes, values, artifacts