Origins
If languages had pedigrees, English, sadly, would be a mongrel. Its origins range from the clipped Anglo-Saxon of Viking raiders (boat, wood) to the Latinate remains of Roman soldiers (susurrus, alacrity) - to half-caught curiosities from all corners of the empire (patio, amok). It is a phonetic language - meanings are shaped by sounds, moulded by vowels and the press of teeth against tongue against lip.
In pictorial languages, such as Chinese, meaning is empirical, justifiable. Man (人) looks like a man walking, legs swinging with each stride. East (東) is a combination of 日 and 木, layered upon each other, showing the sun(日) rising behind a tree(木) - in the east. Reading Chinese is like unearthing layers of images, of associations, looking through ancient eyes and seeing what the ancients saw. Each character carries its own internal logic, and Chinese words are like miniature maps - with that same artistic integrity.
In comparison, English is woefully lax. 26 Roman letters, arranged higgledy-piggledy? How the Chinese must shake their heads. No universal logic binds English together - how did 'door' come to signify a door, or 'smile', a smile? The relationship between word and meaning seems wilfully careless; arbitrary.
Yet - English words are meant to be spoken. They are phonetic, after all; Roman letters merely capture the shapes of their sounds on paper. And no language ever grew from people mouthing words to themselves - language is meant to be spoken to other people, an oral instrument of communication, of exchange. Unlike Chinese asceticism, English is a language moulded in the mouths of people.
As a language, it is inherently communal. English words secrete lost histories - they are snippets from ancient conversations, taken place once upon a time on a windy isle where, in turn, the Romans, Vikings and French landed, settled and became Englishmen. For example, 'Love' stems from the Anglo-Saxon lufu, a descendant of the Viking invasions; but to behave like a person in love is to be 'amorous', from the Old French amoureus, brought over by that French king, William, in 1066. Peering further down the line of lost etymologies: amoureus originated from the Medieval Latin amorosus, from the original Latin amor and amare, to love.
In the English language, meanings are shored up by time, by words which are remembered, spoken, and passed on through the centuries. It is a language of echoes, and of memories - which continue to live as long as they are spoken, like spells, like magic.
In pictorial languages, such as Chinese, meaning is empirical, justifiable. Man (人) looks like a man walking, legs swinging with each stride. East (東) is a combination of 日 and 木, layered upon each other, showing the sun(日) rising behind a tree(木) - in the east. Reading Chinese is like unearthing layers of images, of associations, looking through ancient eyes and seeing what the ancients saw. Each character carries its own internal logic, and Chinese words are like miniature maps - with that same artistic integrity.
In comparison, English is woefully lax. 26 Roman letters, arranged higgledy-piggledy? How the Chinese must shake their heads. No universal logic binds English together - how did 'door' come to signify a door, or 'smile', a smile? The relationship between word and meaning seems wilfully careless; arbitrary.
Yet - English words are meant to be spoken. They are phonetic, after all; Roman letters merely capture the shapes of their sounds on paper. And no language ever grew from people mouthing words to themselves - language is meant to be spoken to other people, an oral instrument of communication, of exchange. Unlike Chinese asceticism, English is a language moulded in the mouths of people.
As a language, it is inherently communal. English words secrete lost histories - they are snippets from ancient conversations, taken place once upon a time on a windy isle where, in turn, the Romans, Vikings and French landed, settled and became Englishmen. For example, 'Love' stems from the Anglo-Saxon lufu, a descendant of the Viking invasions; but to behave like a person in love is to be 'amorous', from the Old French amoureus, brought over by that French king, William, in 1066. Peering further down the line of lost etymologies: amoureus originated from the Medieval Latin amorosus, from the original Latin amor and amare, to love.
In the English language, meanings are shored up by time, by words which are remembered, spoken, and passed on through the centuries. It is a language of echoes, and of memories - which continue to live as long as they are spoken, like spells, like magic.