The belief that speech is purely human property was entirely alien
to those oral communities that first evolved our various ways of speaking,
and by holding such a belief today we may well be
inhibiting the spontaneous activity of language.
By denying that birds and other animals have their own styles of speech,
by insisting that the river has no real voice and the ground itself is mute,
we stifle our direct experience. We cut ourselves off from
the deep meaning in many of our words,
severing our language from that which supports and sustains it.
We then wonder why we are so often unable to communicate,
even among ourselves.
- David Abram
email: thechautauqua@gmail.com
