“Latin is dead.”
This saying has become common place in our society. However, it is said with ignorance by those who understand neither what language is nor how one can die. But, what really is a dead language? According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, a dead language is “a language which is no longer spoken by anyone as their main language.”
This definition is too restrictive and short sighted. Latin may not be spoken today, but it can still be read and is even taught is schools, so clearly it still persists in some form. Language is a form of communication with its goal being to communicate some sort of message or idea. Language does not have to be spoken to do this. Writing, in addition to speech, is another medium through which to use language and convey its message. Thus, writing has the potential to keep a language alive.
Language consists of more than spoken word. It has two forms, two mediums through which it can communicate. The first medium is the spoken word, speech. This form is purely auditory is nature. The other form is written word. Writing naturally evolved from speech as a means to record, remember, and preserve the spoken word. Thus, the two are indefinitely linked. “Through writing, one can recover the spoken word” (Deciphering the Rosetta Stone 15). Where there is writing, there was once speech, and where there is speech, writing will inevitably follow. In order for a language to die, both forms must be abolished.
In order to understand how something can die, one must first understand its origins. Spoken language arose before speech; however, what exactly the first spoken language was is unknown. This is because there are no records of it because writing had not yet developed. All that remains of the origin of spoken language is the Tower of Babel, which only remains because of writting. But, even that only provides insight into the development of other languages from the first language. However, the first visual languages are known. They developed independently from each other in Mesoamerica, Egypt, China, and Mesopotamia. From these four visual languages, all other writing developed. “The independence that characterizes the invention of each of the four writing systems extends to their internal structures, social context, and the evolutionary process themselves” (Visual Languages: The Earliest Writing Systems 23). Language is unique to the culture from which it develops. It is not only a means of communication, but a reflection of the culture that is arises from evolving and changing with the culture.
It is this process of evolution that language can be lost. Such was the case with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. As Egypt was taken over and influenced by foreign cultures, “pharaonic Egyptian culture was gradually subsumed in other cultures [and] the hieroglyphic script had almost disappeared from use” (Deciphering the Rosetta Stone 15). This was a crucial phase in the evolution of hieroglyphs; it was the point at which the language appeared to die. However, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs live on even today.
Writing immortalizes language, and so long as the message of the words can be understood the language lives on long after it is originally written or spoken. For centuries, Egyptian hieroglyphs were thought to be a dead language. It was within the ruins of ancient Egypt that archeologists uncovered the mummified language, preserved in hieroglyphs. All means of understand these symbols were lost and it seemed they would remain so. It was not until the discovery and eventual decipherment of the Rosetta Stone that hieroglyphs were reborn. By the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone, hieroglyphs could be read and understood. “While it is impossible to travel to the past, a measure of dialogue with the dead is possible” through the written words of the deceased (Decipherment of the Rosetta Stone 15). The Rosetta Stone made possible communication that transcends time. With it, the mystery surrounding an entire culture could be understood.
While writing preserves a language, writing alone cannot keep language from dyeing. It can only immortalize a language if that writing can be read. Otherwise, the written words are useless. Prior to its decipherment, there was no one who could speak nor read hieroglyphs. It was the Rosetta Stone that allowed for ability to translate hieroglyphs. It was the translation into another language that essentially saved an apparently dead language. This in order to keep a language alive it needs to be able to be translated. It is through translation that ideas spread and are able to persist. Translation has kept a poem, written in classical Chinese by Wang Wei, alive for more than 1200 years. In 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Eliot Weinberger states that “the poem dies when it has no place to go” (Weinberger 1). Thus, it is the act of translating that has kept the poem alive even outside of its original language. Translation allows for a message to persist even when its language of origin dies out.
Socrates asserts that speech it superior to writing because speech is dynamic and can change whereas once the speech has been written, like painting, “it continues to signify just that very same thing forever” (Phaedrus 81). However, it is just that static nature of writing that makes it so valuable. “Speech is temporarily fleeting and spatially anchored. Writing frees speech of these constrains, giving it permanence and allowing it to be transmitted over space far beyond the place of discourse” (Visual Language: The Earliest Wring System 15). Just as a photo or painting captures and embalms an image, writing does the same for spoken words. Writing’s permanence ensures the persistence of ideas and langue. Once a speech is made, it only persists so long as the speaker and those who have listened remember it. Thus, it dies when they die. In contrast, writing makes it possible to spread the message farther and for a greater length of time. Once written, the idea persists. This is seen in the very words of Socrates himself which persist today because they were written. Furthermore, because they were written, which allowed for their survival, Socrates’s speech have been even more widely discussed than would have ever been possible without writing.
By recognizing that writing is superior to speech, society moves forward. “The ability to represent language graphically, to make language visible, stands as one of humanity’s greatest intellectual and cultural achievements” (Visual Language: The Earliest Wring System 15). All recent technology has been geared toward the advancement of communication through writing from e-books and iPads, Facebook and internet blogs, texting and twittering. As humans we strive towards advancing writing because “memory is finite by nature” and thus we need writing to record information “well beyond the capabilities of human memory” (Derrida 133 and Visible Language: The Earliest Writing Systems 15). Because writing remembers what is beyond human ability, it serves not to remind one person, but an entire civilization. The permanence of writing ensures the survival of society today. Writing ensures that history will be remembered. It has done so since the beginning of time with the Bible. Originally written in Latin, the Bible has become the most translated and read document of any other in history. So long as the Bible remains, so too does Latin. Everything in the Bible originated in Latin and through translation, it spread. Thus, Latin is not truly dead. “Speech is to being human, what writing is to civilization” (Visual Language: The Earliest Wring System 15). Civilization dies when writing dies, and when human beings die, speech dies, and when this happens, language dies.
Bibliography:
Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy”
Woods, Christopher, Visible Language: The Earliest Writing Systems, io.uchicago.edu
Weinberger, Eliot, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. Asphodel Press, Kingston, Rhode Island, 1987.
Plato, Phaedrus
Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
