Language

I’m the kind of person who can get high off of on poetry, intoxicated from a line of Shakespeare, and fall head over heels for a love letter from my husband that I hardly get.
 In short, I loooooooove language.

I love language. I’ve always loved words and the art of moulding them into masterpieces because I see beauty in the expressiveness – language can make you feel the pain of someone else, remember what you promised to forever forget, and learn what you never knew.
Still, something has changed for me recently over the years. I have experienced an epiphany concerning the reasoning behind my love for language, and I am oh-so-glad I did.

It all started with a poster. That night, SPEAKout Poetry’s poster caught my eye. “All Our Words Are But Crumbs That Fall Down From the Feast of The Mind” followed by an accreditation of these beautiful words to the Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran.

I have always loved quotes, but that night , years ago, I realized something. How can I devour crumbs without feeling an even greater hunger for the delicious feast above? I started to think I was missing something, and sure enough I felt my stomach hungry for more.

This question I asked myself, years ago, led me to a journey that I am continuing even as I write these words. I began to question how we read. I was curious to understand the process by which our brains interpret words. When I and anyone else reads a string of characters, our brains intake the same content – letters that we comprehend as words and associate a meaning with. Then why do we react differently? A novel that brings me to tears might put another reader to sleep – and this is where I stepped back and understood that to do justice to my passion for language, I must acknowledge the work of the brain.

In delving further into the topic, I came across fascinating findings. While there are parts of the brain that have long been identified as centres for the interpretation of words, more recent findings conclude that descriptive words, often found in fictional novels, trigger responses in multiple parts of the brain. Close to home, at the University of Toronto, Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology, has identified that the human brain does not differentiate much between reading of an experience and experiencing it in reality. Metaphors and statements like the singer had a velvet voice and John grasped the object stimulate activity in the sensory and motor cortices of the brain respectively. I could write pages upon pages of how spectacular I think this is and how interesting I found this research, but I now understand that not everyone’s brain will be as excited as mine, since we all perceive things differently. So I will share what came to mind at the end of it all – the verse repeated so many times in the Holy Quran:

Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you deny? Holy Quran (55:13)

So this brings me to my actual reflection: language, love, and God.

Language. Imagine how difficult it would be to express ourselves without metaphors, similes, and exaggerations! How boring would this world be if every word had only one definition and invoked the same image in us all? Language is a blessing of its own, the brain a network of many blessing – and the blessings of our Lord cannot be counted. Something I have done, and found very rewarding, is to read through the Quran in search of literary devices. Metaphors, imagery, and personification: you name it, the Quran has it. This process continues to kindle my appreciation for both the beauty of the Holy Quran and the blessing of language and literature.

Love. It’s something we like to save for days with white dresses, red lehngaas, and lots of good food.  Something we relate to human relationships.  In truth, love is more than that.  Just as love is the seed that sows an appreciation of compromise in marital relationships, it is the seed that sows strong and passionate roots of anything successful – so don’t be afraid to love.  Love language.  Love science.  Love culture.  Love sports.  Why?  I’d say because love is what pushes us forwards.  To like something is to accept it post-creation or to enjoy it as is, while to love something forces you to continuously create a better. I encourage all of us to love what we find beautiful with all our hearts, as I believe this is what drove me through my journey. Surely, I am not advocating an endless love for a material aspect of this world.

Most importantly, God. Sometimes, it’s difficult for me to understand what for the sake of Allah actually means – how do you turn worldly and material actions into something spiritual? Through my journey, I have learned that my love for language is short-lived and lacking if I do not recognize that it is in fact an embodiment of my love for God and my appreciation and acknowledgement of his blessings. Maybe this is what for the sake of Allah means. To remember God in everything and always do justice to our awe by backtracking to the One who created all awe.

Verily in the remembrance of God, do hearts find tranquility.
– Holy Quran (13:28)