In the Beginning

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This is the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John.

The history of man is filled with attempts to understand who we are. The ‘we’ refers to the human race, all of us. One way is to examine the structure, history and development of human language.

It is fashionable in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to examine the intelligence of other life forms on our planet. The usual objective is to demonstrate that we are not that separate from creatures such as the great apes, octopi, crows and parrots. All show intelligence. Crows make and use a simple tool. Parrots learn and use words. Octopi learn by observing. The Great Apes have many ‘human’ qualities.

These studies also show how different we are from all of our planetary fellow travelers. The greatest difference is our use and development of language.

The human brain has specialized areas devoted to language, such as a region called Broca’s area. That is not present in any other creature.

Anthropologists study skulls and bones attempting to find the earliest human. One attribute, other than brain size, is the development of the larynx. The ability to produce speech as we know it depends on vocal chords. Brain size and the ability to produce the sounds we call speech appear to have developed together.

If we employ our imagination and travel back in time to the span of years when we started down the road to the use of language we would probably see the precursors of speech in the varied sounds that are used across the biologic word to convey messages. We only need to listen to our dogs to hear pleas of whining, warnings of barking and soft grunts of pleasure when they are being petted. Our cats tell us a great deal by purring. We still use sounds that are not words when we laugh, scream, grunt and yell.

Brain damaged patients who have lost their ability to speak may often be helped to regain their speech by encouraging them to sing simple songs such as, ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream’, and ‘Mary had a little lamb, little lamb…’. The success of that method, suggesting song arises from a more primitive part of the brain, produced speculation that our ancestors sang to each. It is a pleasant possibility to imagine our ancestors singing and yodeling to each other.

Singing also abolishes an accent.  When singing their songs the Beetles have no accent. When we hear them speak, their British accent is very evident. It must be the same for American singers. The Brits do not hear the American accent when they sing, but it becomes very clear when they speak.

But, you may ask, What about The Word?

Traveling back perhaps a million years (probably when we first started using fire) we can imagine this scene. I think of the interchange between Tarzan and Jane in the early black and white films.

Tarzan says, looking at Jane says, ‘Me Tarzan’ and strikes his chest. He points to Jane and says, ‘You Jane’. And he smiles.

Our imagined Ur ancestor, probably somewhere in Africa, has developed a deep affection for his mate. She has striking dark and shiny hair. We also need to suppose that the clan has evolved certain simple sounds, all nouns, to identify certain conditions to communicate to other clan members. Some would be food, enemy, danger and water. One such sound might be a sound to describe the darkness of the night.

Dark hair, dark night and the sound to communicate that darkness to each other became associated in the mind of our distant relative. The loving husband makes the connection when he is struck by her beauty and uses the sound to indicate his loved one. She is now, ‘Dark ness, or dark night.’ The sound is now a word attached to a specific human.

The scene would be, “You Black.” There was no need for the, “Me, Tarzan” and he would have no doubt about who he was. He was, “Me”.

Black becomes her name. She responds to her name and comes when she is called by her name. The use of her name also evokes a visual image in the mind of those who know her name. She may have been out of sight and when her name is used she appears.

Magic has entered the world. A word now represents a person. She has a physical reality and a reality that exists only in the mind. A spiritual presence is born. The word that is her name conjures up her image.

We see this intense focus on names when we look at Christian Baptism. A name is given to the Baptized and that name is the identity of that individual through all time. The name and that person are joined forever.

‘Thou shall not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain’ is one of the commandments. But, we must ask why this emphasis on the name of God? It would seem that the same principle would that a Name is so closely associated with the individual that the name is that individual.

In ancient Egypt, and in other cultures, people may have several names. Usually one name is kept secret, for were known by others, negative magic might be worked against that person by the use of the name.

To complete the circle we return to St. John, ‘The Word was God’. What greater focus on a Name than this? God’s Name is said to be really hidden and not ever able to be used by us.

Words are magical. When you read these words you engage in a creative act. The words become substance. They bring images to your mind. The energy and creativity you bring to the words brings them to life. The words themselves, the curves, lines and arrangement, mean nothing until they are translated by the energy within you.

We continue to live in a magical world. A world of words...a world of visible and invisible things.

Our own beginning as humans is closely linked to our use of language. We are the people of the word.