The Power of Language

[Sharysa]

So - what does your religion say about language? Is it important? Are words "just words" or more/different than that?

Considering the Irish pagans thought that poets had the ability to take away a king's power, my religion most likely puts a LITTLE bit of stock in language. XD

And I just reminded myself today that words are made up of thoughts, and the spaces between them. Just like you can't make a picture without some empty space, you can't spit out a string of words with no pauses or breaks.

"Ifyouhavenospacebetweenyourwordsthenitsoundslikey ourthoughtsruntoofast." Reading this out loud with no time to breathe, will make you sound either caffeinated or hyperactive. If people can understand you at all, they'll need more time than they should to separate all the words into distinct thoughts.

"If you have no space between your words then it sounds like your thoughts run too fast." Technically this sounds "normal," but it would still take a minute for someone to get the meaning because there are two thoughts blurring together--neither of them are distinct from each other.

"If you have no space between your words, then it sounds like your thoughts run too fast." Most people will naturally pause this way because "words" is where the first thought would logically end.

"If you have no space--between your words--then it sounds like your thoughts run too fast." There are now three parts in this sentence just by putting a couple of dashes in, and there are two ways to view them: Either three separate thoughts have run together for some reason, or the speaker just needed to pause to find the other two parts of the thought.

If language is to be useful, it must be clear.

In addition to the myriad circumstances of the world, the spaces between one's words can make the exact same sentence sound frantic, uncertain, languid, or playful--which can make the situation clear as day or completely nonsensical.

[Nycteris]

In some religions, the word is the building block for everything. There's a lot of discussion of being "true to one's word" or "language has power" in a lot of different religions.

So - what does your religion say about language? Is it important? Are words "just words" or more/different than that?

**

In FlameKeeping, language has a lot of power. It's what gives us the ability to have abstract thought and communicate it to each other. Just look at the frustration a baby has, and we have with that baby, when s/he cannot express what's wrong. Then language is learned and communication happens.

If language is to be useful, it must be clear. Words have a lot of power. Ask anyone that's crying because of what someone else said, and you can see that power. It might not be a physical power, but words can worm their way into our minds and change the way we see. We judge people by their words as well as their actions, and how well they line up. Language has power.

of course words have power, even physical, satanism has rules regarding the ethical use of words towards others, but besides that i believe they are also used to bundle thoughts, thoughts have power, and by bundling them in words they can have even more power
just my POV
Ave Satana
~Nycteris

[Altair]

Are words "just words" or more/different than that?

Words are "just words," but that's a whole lotta "just" going on there. We take them for granted because they are so fundamental for our species--the abstract building blocks with which we construct our understanding of the world around us and subsequently communicate it.

I find words have their greatest spiritual impact for me in 2 contexts:

--IN NAMES. Anything important to me, I have to name. And it can't be just any name; I have to chew on it, make sure it sounds and feels right, conjures the right connotations. It connects me to the essence of the thing.

In a similar vein, learning the scientific name of an organism often deepens my understanding and appreciation for that organism. And taxonomic nomenclature gives us humans the illusion of command over the riot of Earth's life. Sort of like knowing an individual's "true" name.

--IN MYTH. Using our abstraction toolkit--language--to create an abstraction of specific experience--story--in an attempt to explore the most important truths about ourselves and our universe. There is no more profoundly human nor higher pursuit, IMHO, with the possible exception of making music.

[Wickerman]

**



Just look at the frustration a baby has, and we have with that baby, when s/he cannot express what's wrong. Then language is learned and communication happens.

Some folks, my wife included, have started to teach sign to both very young children, and developmentally delayed ones. The frustration level goes way down as does the behavioral issues.

[somnium]

Words are just words - it's the intentions, meanings, connotations, inflections that are important. .

I agree, hence the title the POWER of words. Words can hold any meaning attached to them, they can be useless, or the can meaningful. They can align directly to the Will of existence itself to craft, hence speechcraft. Whaatever vaule one assigns to them is in fact true, even if it is not true for another. I like the quote "to thine own self be true", although confrontational at times, is self impowering. Another view is listening to words from different value points, of positions of observation. When one changes their perspective of words do the words you are hearing change? Thus the release of old values to assign new ones. Words only carry the meaning we are trying to convey through our seperation, yet on closer observation we are not so seperate. it is the understanding one conveys into words, the energy itself. Perhps in some places words are not needed, for in some places maybe we are one, and wee already know what you are going to say. then one needs only to listent to the flow of conscious awareness into the environment.