Language initially enters the purview of human experience as an instrument of communication. As toddlers, we experience the world around us while having very little means at our disposal to communicate the former. Any kind of articulation at that stage is often monosyllabic where the recipients of our incoherent babbles make all the effort to understand our intentions. Language in such a primitive form proves to be of little value because the need to understand is seldom matched by a clarity in expression. Although one could still derive meaning from them by either accounting for non verbal cues or placing words in their context, language still remains predominantly unilateral.
Without the aid of any formal training whatsoever, our use of language evolves from a mere expression of fundamental desires into a vessel for thought. Thought and language develop almost synonymously, each complementing and reinforcing the growth of the other. We become capable of comprehending complex symbolism and abstractions. Find ourselves correlating the meaning of fictional narratives to real life. We are, in a sense, transformed as the seed of language grows to its fruition, furnishing us with ever new means to not only express what we think and feel but also to peer into the minds of others who deign to do the same.
As much as language attempts to bridge the chasm that separates human experience, it still remains far from obvious if it sometimes does not also have the opposite effect. It seems to me that like any human invention, the utility of an object is partly determined by the manner in which we employ it. So it naturally follows that the utility of language must also be determined by those who can either seek to demystify or elude that which is already obscure. But sometimes we encounter individuals who demonstrate an almost uncanny ability to comprehend what we think and feel, even if our experience is deliberately veiled in abtruse wordings.
There also others who, despite our most ardent efforts to articulate precisely, fail to grasp even the most elementary meanings of what we say, let alone understand our hopes and wishes. In such instances, we often say that that the person speaks or rather fails to speak "our language". So ultimately language appears to be an affair that exists, not in isolation, but in this nebulous sphere of contact that is brought about by the meeting of two individuals.
If this were to be true, in addition to the plethora of dialects and semantics that superficially demarcate one language from another, there also seems to be encapsulations that develop within a specific language itself. Encapsulations that arise as a result of communication with an individual for a sustained period of time. Within this tenuous fabric, words acquire meanings and connotations that might either agree or altogether contradict that of the vernacular. Nonetheless despite such similarities or differences, for those within the fabric words always mean the same. But they also mean more.
It is quite apparent that there is an element of beauty to this. The fact that language not only facilitates the mere expression of ideas but can also be employed as a medium through which people can often mean more than what they say is clearly a testament to human ingenuity. Writers, after all, find themselves constantly pushing and redefining the boundaries of their own fabric to be able to convey to everyone something only they seem to understand. However for those of us who neither have the time nor the talent to maneuver through the traps of human lexicon, our boundaries tend to exclude far more than it accommodates. Such exclusion seems like a natural consequence of forming human relationships. Or perhaps of even simply being different from another person. If so, is it an exclusion that we must necessarily strive to eliminate?
So underneath these obvious connections that language helps forge between people, there exists a primordial tension where being understood is constantly negated by the very medium that occasions understanding. The moment one articulates anything by giving it shape and form, a part of its meaning becomes incommunicable and remains forever within the confines of our own experience. Although the clear existence of gradations in understanding places an individual closer or distant from oneself, the essential part of any human experience is still a fundamental assertion of our abject loneliness. Therefore the more one has to say, one realizes that words often fail in adequately expressing anything of great concern, even when it comes to our most intimate acquaintance.
Not only do we tend to exclude those who do not share the layered meanings we ascribe to words and things, even with those who do share them the struggle to fully express one's being is ever present and perhaps becomes even more pressing as that struggle constantly seeks to extinguish the very separation that defines a person. I believe the problem of language fundamentally rests in this fact, that how can one possibly say something that is of profound personal significance to anyone without losing oneself where every word that is uttered becomes a proclamation of both our identity and difference from each other. Isn't the separation that divides individuals also the separation that defines us? Must we not entirely lose ourselves to be understood?