Episode: 674
Title: HPR0674: The Language Frontier Episode 2
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0674/hpr0674.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:44:19

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Episode 2, The Art of Language.
Hi everyone, welcome to the language frontier.
There is a certain aesthetic beauty that comes through in poetry, story, and song,
regardless of the language that's being used.
The beauty of languages is elegantly illustrated by this clip that we're hearing now
from Akayatuna Voloso song.
He's a Brazilian singer, and just the way he's using his voice in this case is sublime art.
It's a gorgeous song, it's great, and it wouldn't sound the same if it was sung in, say,
English, or Arabic, or German, or Swahili.
Part of its beauty are the different sounds that the singer is making with his voice,
which of course he understands, and the people that speak his language understand,
and we non-speakers of Portuguese can even draw some meaning from it,
if not the exact meaning, something's getting through on some level.
But the point is, if it were sung in another language, it would not have the same effect art-wise.
Some languages have an inherent beauty in them,
like the chance sung in, say, Latin or Tibetan, that so many people find uplifting.
In fact, the origin and music can be traced back to the chance,
and what was the instrument used to create these noble tunes, the human voice,
which coincidentally is the same medium we use to speak language.
Why do so many bands choose to sing in English even though it is not their native language?
Then there are some works of art that must be in the language they're in to have the intended impact.
Thus, language can also be a key element in making art.
Some people will even cite the universal language of music as a medium that transcends typical language barriers,
and it's really true. Music conveys emotion like no other medium can,
but in terms of conveying actual information, music is limited to just general feelings.
It can really be said that languages are, when orators and poets speak,
they're doing a lot more than just communicating.
They're using words to paint a picture and conjure emotion.
Literature and fiction make use of language to create realities and atmosphere in their stories.
And orators with their eloquence and skill are using language to do more than make their opinions known.
They are using language to persuade, which is also an art form.
But aren't we being intellectualists here? I mean language, what is it?
Bottom line is we need it. It was invented because we had to talk to each other,
and after a fashion uggs and grunts just didn't work anymore.
Humans had to come up with specific names for things and verbs to describe action.
Is it really more complicated than that? Back then, it may not have been.
But today, language has developed beyond that.
As more and more people begin existing beyond mere survival mode,
humans naturally reach beyond mere communication towards simple ends to produce art
in an attempt to contextualize themselves into their 80 or so years of time existing on this planet.
Some attempt to immortalize themselves, others to explain their own existence.
In this case, language is much more of a luxury as well as a necessity.
Communication is just such a small piece of the pie.
And while artists are using language to paint pictures with words,
and even filmmakers use language as an intermediate step between their vision of the story and its realization on the screen,
language is used in the same way by governing bodies and heads of corporations
to shape, define, and create the reality that is our common experience.
In a way, reality created by the artist using the medium of language
is reality that exists on one extreme, escapism.
On the other end of that spectrum, we have the act of creating realities,
which employs the same medium, language.
Let me say that another way.
The reality that an artist creates be it a novel or a film,
employs the medium of language.
Governing bodies also create reality using language,
but this one is not contained on the screen or on a printed page.
It's our life.
Language shapes history, defines society, and even governs physical force.
Politicians use language and the media, also language, to define reality.
For example, during World War II, Russia was one of the United States' most important allies.
Then it became the single most threat to the United States and her citizens during the Cold War
and later fell subordinate to the US in the New World Order.
Agreements, treaties, and charters that shape the world are set forth with language
and signed into action that is then used to deploy arms which will enforce it.
But the language comes first.
Not a move is made before written language is secured.
Let's look at a recent example of this concept in action that happened not long ago in Lebanon.
So near the end of last year, UN peacekeepers were required to go to Lebanon to stop the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
But before French troops were committed to the peacekeeping effort,
and I'm going to just read from the Wall Street Journal,
French secured language that would allow the troops to react with force
in situations other than when soldiers were directly threatened.
So that's the end quote of that.
One of the examples given by a French official was,
if a UN patrol was blocked on the road by Hezbollah militia but not shot at,
the peacekeepers could do nothing under the normal UN rules of engagement.
So that's the end of that quote.
So in the end, France secured more favorable terms for her soldiers, the might of language.
In another example that is actually currently in the works,
the Japanese parliament is attempting to introduce new language to Japan's 1947 U.S. drafted pacifist constitution
that has been in effect since World War II.
The result would mean an intensifying of Japan's global military role.
So the Japanese Prime Minister is arguing that Japan needs to strengthen its military role
and take more responsibility in maintaining global peace and security.
Many Japanese citizens created the Constitution's pacifist clause
with keeping the country out of war for 60 years and allowing Japan to focus on economic growth.
The current document states, and I'm quoting here,
that the Japanese people renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.
To this end, the article provides that land, sea, and air forces,
as well as other war potential will never be maintained.
Let's end that quote.
Right now, the Constitution bans the use of military force
as a means of settling international disputes.
And special legislation or language is needed for Japanese soldiers to participate
in peacekeeping and other missions abroad.
For 60 years, Japan has dispatched troops once during a humanitarian mission to Iraq from 2004 to 2006.
It was the first time since the Second World War that Japanese soldiers have entered a combat zone.
And they're using language to map out this new world policy and put it into effect.
It's all they have and it's all we'll ever have.
So here is another, we've got so many great examples of this, but this one is from 100 years ago.
And it's again just showing the the might and power of language
and how it works very, very powerfully to define physical reality.
This event may have happened 100 years ago, but it's a very hot topic today.
And it has to do with the Middle East.
So around the time of World War One, the Ottoman Empire was deteriorating
and the expansive territory was going to be redefined.
And ultimately in 1922, the Middle Eastern countries that we know now,
Iraq, Syria, trans-Jordan, it was called then, Jordan, as it's called now.
And Kuwait were defined at a conference called Uqqar by a British High Commissioner.
But two years before that, however, a general Syrian Congress met in Damascus
and demanded the recognition of independence for Syria, including Palestine and Iraq.
And at the same time, the Arab Iraqi leaders declared Iraq's independence.
Here's where the might of language comes into play.
The European powers involved Britain and France, acted immediately,
repudiating the Damascus resolutions and convening the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
They then obtained mandates written authority or language from the council
to have authority over the administration of Syria and Lebanon for France and Iraq for Britain.
Two years later, in 1922, the actual borders of the countries as they exist today
were defined by the power of the pen and the writing hand.
Sir Percy Cox drew up the lines during the Uqqar conference that separated
which is a verb, which in this case really defines action,
the states of Kuwait, Iraq, and Arabia.
And we see how this action is affecting our reality even now in the present day.
Language is the single most powerful tool used by man to control man.
While the wives and kids alone, while the wives and kids alone
see them shopping at the mall where all their husbands so strong and tall
they wonder when their dad is coming home.
What are all the helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
She was just a child herself with a child beneath the bed
and she stuck without the only friend she had.
What are all those helicopters for?
What are all those helicopters for?
They're out of my house when they just fly at once
I wonder what they do when you want more.
I know
While those women were with us tonight
While those women were with us tonight
I do the talent children that is never coming again
Some have just done something right.
Where are all those helicopters now?
Where are all those helicopters now?
How much do they cost?
Are they worth more than their love?
How does anyone ever win a war anyhow?
Thank you for listening to Haftler Public Radio.
HPR is sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to C-A-R-O.N-C for all of her dreams.
Thank you for watching.
