A new article in Tablet makes a strong point. Hebrew is what keeps the Jewish tribe together. The author underestimates the specific linguistic power of Hebrew. (As opposed to just any generic shared language.)
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To better understand this relatively unexplored contrast, we might refer to the distinction made by the Swiss thinker Ferdinand de Saussure, considered the father of modern linguistics, between langue and parole. The first is the Platonic and abstract language that we share—the safah [שָׂפָה] or code—and the second is our actual use of it: our lashon [לָשׁוֹן] or patterns of speech.
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The key to maintaining group identity is not just a shared code.
1. The shared code must be written in a preservable and transportable way, not cave paintings or scratching in the dust.
2. The shared code must be the official expression of the scriptures or laws that bind the people.
3. Most important: The shared code must be CONDENSED. This enables the various subgroups within the tribe to have their own variant dialects and grammars while still writing the same visible form and reading the same scriptures.
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During the current unending hell**, I’ve come to appreciate (yet again) the value of a very old brand, Campbell’s CONDENSED Soup.
As soon as the muzzle mandate started FIFTEEN FUCKING MONTHS AGO, WITH NO FUCKING END IN SIGHT, I scrambled to minimize Time Under Muzzle. Previously I had been making three store trips per week, with easy loads. The trips were enjoyable, a chance to interact and converse with real humans.
Now that each trip is pure torture, I reduced to two torture sessions per week, with heavier loads. The loads then had to be reduced. Part of the reduction was ordering coffee and barley online.
Previously I had been using Progresso soup, which is uncondensed. At first I switched to Knorr rice mixes, but those were unsatisfying. Then I tried good old Campbells CONDENSED. This turned out to be optimal in two different ways. (1) Campbell actually has more solid food and more varied food. Progresso is mostly liquid, which adds unnecessary load weight. (2) I always ‘fortify’ soup with barley, vegies, and cheese. The liquid in the Progresso had to be drained off to reach a practical serving size. Wasteful. The all-solid Campbell comes out just right with a small amount of water.
The interactive radio show Calling All Detectives was also condensed, with the same qualities as Campbell’s. Each episode on the transcription disk (the can) is just 8 minutes long, but the writers packed in enough solid material to make it feel like a half hour of story. No unnecessary banter, no long pauses, no music. As always with radio, the listener supplies the water, filling in the visual aspect of locations and characters. This show was uniquely fortified by local announcers (chefs) who added an interactive quiz with a substantial reward. Because the quiz was based on a detail in the episode, the fortification boosted the attentional (nutritional) value of the show itself.
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CONDENSATION makes the language inscrutable to outsiders, which is the PRIMARY PURPOSE of a language. You can’t DECONDENSE properly until you know at least one dialect of the language itself.
Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit/Hindi, and the Oriental languages meet all three criteria.
Latin and Cyrillic pass preservation and scriptures but fail the CONDENSATION test.
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Guilds always develop their own languages. The most successful guilds have a CONDENSED script, expressing large families of concepts with a simple shape or audio sequence. The script must be a one-way function. When you know the full context you can condense to the same visual form. You can’t uniquely expand it unless you know the context as well.
Most trades have a stock of jargon words, but they don’t have condensation because the words are English, written in Roman letters like any other word. You can look them up in an ordinary dictionary and immediately know the sound and the meaning.
Modern guilds, often visible as forums or subreddits on the web, have their own stock of acronyms, which are not true condensation. An acronym can be expanded precisely and literally without being immersed in the concepts and feelings of the guild. Two-way precision.
Several fairly modern guilds have true condensation.
Secretaries formerly had shorthand.
Programmers formerly had opcodes.
Each of these is CONDENSED in either an Oriental ideographic way or a Hebrew/Arabic syllabic way.
When Sequoyah developed a new script for Cherokee, he recognized the power of condensation and made it a syllabary instead of an alphabet. Later written forms for smaller tribes use IPA, which is somewhat hard to read for outsiders but excruciatingly literal. Each symbol has a two-way mapping to exactly one sound.
Phonemics is a lesser level of condensation. French and English use Latin in an intensely phonemic and context-dependent way. You can’t automatically transcribe letter to sound or vice versa unless you have the full context of the SENTENCE.
Spanish and Italian and German are much closer to two-way.
Zamenhof’s use of Latin for Esperanto failed because he didn’t allow phonemic variation. Every letter had exactly one sound, no coarticulation or diphthongs allowed.
Morse is inscrutable but not one-way condensed. Some other telegraphs were more phrasal or sentence-based.
The post-opcode digital world is FEROCIOUSLY literal and two-way. Every visible symbol must be carried separately and reliably without context. Even the space-saving hashing methods are two-way functions. A condensed ZIP or MP4 must always expand to precisely the same words or pixels. No dialects or context or emotions allowed.
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** The hell did end a few months ago, but I wasn’t able to VERIFY its actual end until yesterday. See previous item.
Polistra's Mill 