Bring forth the Mayhem

You know how some things become such an integral part of what we do that we don’t think about it at all. And in those fleeting moments in which you might accidentally think about it once, everything unravels, and you start to question everything. Like blinking for instance, we do it, but if we actually sit to notice it we start to question it, am i blinking? is it too fast? slow? should i blink now?.. no now.. no now.

I had that kind of moment with language the other day, I was talking and suddenly instead of focusing on the words coming out of my mouth I started focusing on the sounds. And it all seemed... weird. Language to me is a funny thing, driving along it sort of struck me as to what any language actually is. At its root, any language is a bunch of noises put together in a way that makes them coherent. And the only reason it sounds coherent is because we are trained to make sense out of it. The difference between languages? simple; the sounds, and the way those sounds are put together. Its like ages and ages ago people in a region decided this is how we are going to do it and people in that region caught on.

But looking at language through sound and not words or grammar didn’t make me ponder about  human languages at all, but rather animals. What’s the difference between what we do and what they do? A dog barks, a cat meows (for lack of a better word), a cow moos these are all the characteristic sounds that they make. We all agree that animals communicate but what makes what they do any different from any other language. In which case why can’t we atleast understand it? Replicating it would be tough I agree, owing to physical limitations that we all have, but shouldn't it be possible to make sense out of it.

One could attribute it to the lack of a translator perhaps, no mode of communicating one form to the other. But then how did people in the ancient times communicate? English is fundamentally different to Chinese and Japanese, sound wise, yet there are people who speak both today. Can we not do that with animals too? I suppose again physical limitations exist which restrict us, maybe we cant exactly replicate a bark no matter how much we try because our vocal chords can’t do it. But then can’t technology do it?

I don't think the day is far where what we saw in the movie Up is actually possible, collars on dogs that translate a bark to human language. Logically this does not seem impossible and I’m sure there are bright minds somewhere in the world working on something like this, I commend them, it seems fun.

So what am I getting to with all this, is possibly a thought running through your head right now? Well nothing really. This blog is called Music n Mayhem and to be honest it was getting too Music and less (nearly no) Mayhem, I just wanted to bring the Mayhem back. So mindless rambling on something that struck me and seemed interesting, was the thing to do.