Writing, Language& Thought

Jason GodeskyMensa Annual Gathering

Pittsburgh, PA4 July 2009

A Book haschapters, made up ofparagraphs, each with a number ofsentences that contain a number ofwords, each formed from a series of letters.

...all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of

the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some

way be calibrated.

Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1940

coyoten. A member of the species Canis latrans.

talêpêsv. A pattern of movement or behavior.

tree

Oak Tree, Bon Tempe lakeFranco Folini

Kpelle girl, Kpaiyea, Liberia, 1968John Atherton

Hasan Ahmad

Ed Fella, A Commercial Art AlphabetKaren Horton

I Like MusicRossina Bossio Bossa

Star Trek: The Next GenerationEpisode #102, “Darmok”

September 30, 1991Property of Paramount Studios.

For all music, viewed in this light, is on its way to becoming speech, and there is no Rubicon beyond which we can say that it is unequivocally one thing rather than the

other.

Tim Ingold, 2000

Of course, other beings manifest that consciousness in their literature of

tracks, chirrups, and loon calls.

Sheridan & Longboat, 2006

To shut ourselves off from these other voices ... is to rob our own senses of

their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in

contact and conviviality with what is not human.

David Abram, 1997

Questions?

Thank you!

Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. Vintage.

Gladwell, M. (2007). None of the above. The New Yorker. December 17, 2007.

Goody, J. & Watt, I. (1968). The consequences of literacy. In Goody, J. Literacy in traditional societies (pp. 27-68). Cambridge University Press.

Hall, E. (1992). Beyond culture. Peter Smith Publisher.

Hoffer, P. (2005). Sensory worlds in early America. The John Hopkins University Press.

Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge.

Mann, C. (2005). Founding sachems. New York Times, July 4, 2005.

Ong, W. (1988). Orality and literacy: Technologizing the word. Routledge.

Sheridan, J. & Longboat, D. (2006). The Haudenosaunee imagination and the ecology of the sacred. Space and Culture, 9:4 pp. 365-381.

Scheub, H. (1998). Story. University of Wisconsin Press.

Weatherford, J. (1994). Savages and civilization: Who will survive? Crown.

Bibliography

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