Reading begets writing.
Three books in a week and I couldn't resist coming back to my blog, and
in the process, realizing it is close to a year since my last post.
Mightier than the Sword -- Quick read, the fifth of the
Clifton chronicles, with a plotline that has now become more than
familiar.
The Goldfinch -- An award winning novel that kept me
completely absorbed. It is a pretty long
read, with exceptional detailing and wonderful language to go with it.
Flood of fire -- The third of Amitav Ghosh's trilogy on the
Opium wars. Fiction woven around
historical events lends a kind of authenticity and a biographical feel to the
story. The earlier two parts and the
characters come together in a nicely done conclusion that, I felt, seemed to
have an abrupt ending pegging history slightly over the fiction.
I have always liked Amitav Ghosh's writing. Especially the vocabulary in the Ibis trilogy
feels fresh and antique at the same time. His generous use of the vernacular along with
English, as prevalent at the time of British colonialism, and the intermixing
of the both resulting in the evolution of new words is something that I could
easily relate to being an Indian. And
unknowingly, I started looking at the story through a linguistic lens. And when the story ends with the British
entering the shores of China for the first time, I could only see it as the
beginning of English language in China.
At some level, colonialism is the reason I have an English
blog today. And when I was reading
recently about why the best of innovations came about in the last century or
so, I began to wonder if it was related to language as well. As humans, do we have better means of
communications now, than, say, a few hundred years ago?
Travel was limited to neighboring countries
and only a few travelers learnt multiple languages and wrote about other
cultures and translated works. Then came
the Vasco-da-Gamas and Columbuses who connected the world and slowly a common
means of communication emerged. And with
a common medium, one could learn about the advancements of others and
collaboration ensued, and the rest, as they say, is not history, but the
present. From pentaquarks to Pluto, the
humankind is now sharing knowledge and contributing to the successes of one
another.
So did language enable a part of the technological
advancements of today, or did technology necessitate a common medium of
communication.
Or at a more philosophical level, as one species, do we have
common language in our evolutionary genes? Are we getting there slowly?
