Indicative possibilities for eliciting a Language of the Birds

Re-Emergence of the Language of the Birds through Twitter? (Part #5)

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Clues may therefore be found in the following:

• Emoticons and smileys: recognition of emoticons, namely a textual expression (by e-mail) representing the face of a writer's mood or facial expression. These are typically used to signal a responder of the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. Smileys are understood as a form of emoticon -- a means of giving visual representation to interjections and emotional responses, often replaced by combinations of punctuation. Wikipedia offers a List of emoticons as commonly used -- distinguishing between Western, Eastern (Asian), and 2channel (Japanese-style) emoticons. These may be replaced by graphical forms, like smileys -- often introduced automatically through the autocorrect feature. Clearly such "vocabularies" suggest their representation within a pattern or configuration of possibilities. There is an irony to the modern emergence of such ideographs -- whose role might be compared to that of Egyptian hieroglyphs. In Egyptian Arabic, hieroglyphic writing is called "the alphabet of the birds", whilst in Ancient Egyptian, that form of writing was termed medu-netjer ("words of the gods" or "divine language") (cf. Yves Emmanuel Monin, Hiéroglyphes français et Langue des Oiseaux, 1982). Could its role have been primrily "evocative" rather than "descriptive" as assumed?
  
  
• Transaction analysis: possibly to be considered as a subset of interjections, greetings and parting phrases: initiating and terminating an interaction, are indicative of a wider set of minimal exchanges through which community is sustained, potentially a minimalistic language for community membership. Wikipedia, for example, offers a List of greetings and Parting phrases. These can be understood as part of a larger set of codes of etiquette indicative of bonding language and susceptible of categorization as a minimal set of rules of etiquette, of which the internet variant is netiquette -- potentially of greater relevance to this argument. More generally, useful clues could be derived from the codification characteristic of transaction analysis, especially regarding the ways in which a minimal set of elements can be combined, notably over time.
  
  
• Primitive languages: analyses of the earliest and most primitive languages used by humanity, exemplified by the background research on which is based the latest "caveman" film Ao, the last Neanderthal (2010). Speculation on the nature of the Neanderthal language is a matter of continuing debate. For example, the Neanderthals may have had an elaborate proto-linguistic system of communication that was more musical than modern human language, and that pre-dated the separation of language and music into two separate modes of cognition according to Steven Mithen (The Singing Neanderthals: the origins of music, language, mind, and body, 2006). He called this hypothetical lingual system 'hmmmmm' (holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical and mimetic). Mithen suggests the appearance of such a compositional language would have had a profound cognitive impact, leading to the capacity for metaphor that underlies art, science and religion.
  
  
• Click languages: potential relevance of aboriginal and other "click languages", recognizing that English (as with many other languages) may use clicks as a form of interjection. The relatively limited range of clicks has resulted in indicative typologies.
  
  
• Animal communication: research into the characteristic sets of sounds involved in animal communication (zoosemiotics) within their groups, amongst their species (intraspecies communication), or between species (interspecies communication) -- of which birdsong is a prime example. How many sounds are required for their survival? Especially interesting is research into interspecies communication (Matt Walker, Dolphin species attempt 'common language', BBC, 30 September 2010). This is provocatively suggestive of the challenge of communication following human "speciation" by discipline and belief system -- and the kinds of emotive response (interjection) with which the communications of another such "species" is received or by which "territoriality" is meaningfully expressed. This of course has implications for any future encounter with extraterrestrials -- such "species" being "not from my planet".
  
  
• Constrained communication: the constraints on communication interfaces, whether understood as "function keys" or associated with "accessibility" (by those handicapped in any way), serve to highlight the issue of how many functions are required and how many can be tolerated under certain circumstances. The challenges faced by Stephen Hawking offer a widely recognized example, as with those even more constrained in their communication capacity (terminally ill, babies, "alienated teenagers"). Especially interesting are the potential cognitive implications where communication devices are understood metaphorically (Computer Use as Philosophy in Operation: metaphors of the inner game, 2003). A different approach would be to identify the very limited communication set required for split second decisions in aerobatic flying teams (as with the Red Arrows) to maintain formation at high speed during manoeuvres -- by analogy to animal swarming. More generally this argument applies to the limited instruction set for any team operating under stress, most notably in life-or-death combat situations.
  
  
• Comic strips: consideration of the variety of emotionally-charged interjections used by comic books.
  
  
• Cognitive biases: The various efforts to distinguish limited sets of cultural or pre-logical biases are suggestive that such distinctions imply a variety of modalities to which access may be appropriate under distinct circumstances, for survival and thrival (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993).
  
  
• Artificial languages: considerations relevant to the many experiments in artificial language construction, namely a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised instead of having evolved naturally. Of particular interest are collaborative constructed languages, with which forms used in slang and on the Internet might be included (but are seemingly not). Clearly this category blurs into that of computer programming languages. Also of relevance are engineered languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work.
  
  
• Philosophical languages: a particular form of artificial language of potential relevance is philosophical language, namely those constructed from first principles, like a logical language, possibly with a strong claim to absolute perfection or transcendent truth rather than satisfaction of pragmatic goals. Especially suggestive are the vocabularies of oligosynthetic languages composed of compound words coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of morphemes.
  • The minimal (oligoisolating language) Toki Pona, designed by Sonja Elen Kisa, focuses on simple concepts and elements that are relatively universal among cultures in order to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity. The language, inspired by Taoist philosophy, has 14 phonemes and a vocabulary of some 120 root words. The root vocabulary is designed around the principles of living a simple life without the complications of modern civilization.
  • Of related interest is Zaum, the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and artistic language creation of Russian Futurist poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Some of Khlebnikov's work has been explicitly related to the Language of the Birds. (Jennifer Wilson, Transrational Language: a revolution in semiotics -- Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh's experiments with cubo-futurism, The Birch, Fall 2005). Zaum has been linked to the Oulipo initiative -- whose creative "absurdity" is of current relevance to governance (Lipoproblems: developing a strategy omitting a key problem, 2009).
    
    
• Mythical languages: hypothetical mystical languages understood as divine proto-languages predating and superseding human phonetic speech. Traditionally recognized variants include Adamic language. Such a possibility has been recognized as angelic language. These languages may be contrasted with the "sacred language", or liturgical language, in which religious scriptures are expressed, possibly with a strong non-lexical component (as with the Twilight Language). Of particular interest is the Language of the Birds traditionally postulated in various cultures as a mystical, perfect divine language -- a green language, adamic language, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated, as in Norse mythology. Celtic Druids believed that certain people were able to communicate in that language. In the account offered by Vincent Bridges (Reading the Green Language of Light, 2003), he notes:

  Although we can point to the Green Language in works as diverse as Midsummer Night's Dream and The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencruz, Nostradamus' quatrains, 18th century alchemical texts and surrealist manifestos, few authors have bothered to explain it. One who did was Fulcanelli, the enigmatic 20th century alchemist and philosopher, in his masterpiece The Mystery of the Cathedrals, published in Paris in 1926. Here we have an authentic, although mysterious, voice of authority; one that was both master of the Green Language itself, and a master of the subjects usually hidden within it.

  As noted by Paul Waldau, et  al. (A Communion of Subjects: animals in religion, science, and ethics, 2006):
  

  ...Qur'anic verse (27:16) suggests it is possible for a select few to be graced with the comprehension of the language of the birds (mantiq ut-tayr). According to this verse, God taught the Prophet Solomon "the language of the birds.".... For Sufis, comprehending the language of the birds was not limited simply to deciphering their calls... Bird songs and melodies could also be understood as the expressions of spiritual experiences of beings at various stages of spiritual development. (p. 171)

• Claims: claims by various authors to have adopted techniques characteristic of a "Green Language" or a "Language of the Birds", as with a description of their elaboration and use by Nostradamus (David Ovason, The Nostradamus Code, 1997) -- extensively listed and discussed in the Cassiopoea Blog Forum, in conjunction with discussion of the examples of David Abram (1997). Also of relevance are claims for the angelic Enochian language elaborated by John Dee, consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. References are also made to the Phonetic Cabala, said by Fulcanelli to be distinct from the Hebrew Kabbalah, and of different derivation. It is basically homophonic and symphonic rather than numerical, being based on phonetic assonance and resonance to echo the Gay Science of the Hellenic gods spoken, in sacred Ancient Greek nomenclature. Of related relevance again is the Ouxpo initiaitive (Ouvroir d'X Potentielle -- an umbrella group for Oulipo, Oubapo, Outrapo, etc.) which playfully explores a wide variety of approaches that could be seen as in the tradition of Ovason's identification of the understanding of Nostradamus of the Language of the Birds.
  
  
• Metaphor and pun: Claims are also made that the Language of the Birds, as the secret language of esoteric philosophers and alchemists, was based on metaphor. For example, according to Baudouin Labrique (La langue des oiseaux ou la langue secrète des philosophes), it was said to be based on puns and word play, with the sounds suggesting other words both hiding their significance and offering a trace. The brain then derives significance from the conflation of these indications [see extensive Wikipedia entry in French: La langues des oiseaux]. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, in particular, has shown that through such coded word play a degree of communication is enabled with the unconscious. By avoiding communication of a direct message, the unconscious first reveals the secret of the unsaid without reactivating the associated suffering and direct memory of conflict, with any damaging effects it might have.

Given its assumed association with the (secret) language of troubadours and trobairitz of the High Middle Ages, there is a particular and continuing preoccupation by French scholars with the nature of the Language of the Birds (cf La Langue des Oiseaux - web resources; Robert-Régor Mougeot, L'Alphabet des Oiseaux), with a more limited literature in German (Die Sprache der Vögel), Italian (Linguaggio degli uccelli), and Spanish (Lenguaje de los Pájaros). This association with the transformative role of music and song at that time accords with their important role in the transformation of contemporary culture.

In the current period, and with some cynicism, it is appropriate to note the widespread emergence of a form of "language of the birds" associated with security drones -- readily characterized as "birds". Ability to communicate with them, and presumably to foresee communication between them (as between satellites), can be said to constitute such a "language". This modality in fact reflects reference throughout history to informants as (little) "birds", and to mythical use of birds for that purpose by magicians -- as currently celebrated in fantasy movies. However the destructive capacity of drones, enabled by such language, is now only too real. There is of course an appropriate irony to the musical connotation of drone in contrast with the harmony of the birds discussed here.

There is a further irony to be found in the common use by men of "birds" with reference to women. Feminists have successfully highlighted how inadequate is the understanding of the voice of women -- when it can be expressed -- effectively then as a "language of the birds". References are made to its secret nature, notably in harems and some tribal societies (A. M. Juster, The Secret Language of Women, 2003). Many have argued that, until that voice is effectively heard, the language of governance will be inadequate to the challenge of the times (Women and the Underside of Meetings: symptoms of denial in considering strategic options, 2009). Given the explicit concerns of tantric practice, the cognitive transformation associated with its polysemic Twilight Language is clearly relevant to any such bridging. Twitter may indeed prove to be a vehicle for that voice.

Both these "ironies" offer a contrast to the language of verbal expression through a third, namely an implied significance of touch. They both raise questions about the transformation associated with how "the other" is "touched" -- whether in the "hearts and minds" naivety of drone intervention or through the contact between man and woman. Both highlight the extent to which global society has cultivated castes of "untouchables" -- whether the governors (through their impunity), women or neglected populations. The polysensual quality of the Language of the Birds, notably through its rhyming harmonies, suggests an inherent capacity to "touch" and be "touched" -- to a degree evidently absent in the practice of global governance.

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