Ishmael - Chapter 3 and 4

I've read more of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael this evening and have stumbled onto some very interesting things regarding linguistics I'd like to write about.

How linguists break down our speech

If you don't already know, I'm extremely interested in linguistics and
how they shape the way we think and how they affect our lives. For example, as an English speaker, I physically reference past events and future event differently than a Hebrew speaker, like my aunt who lives in Israel. English is written right to left, creating an association with English speakers to time. Time progresses left to right for an English speakers, left is past and right is present. Look an at English speaker next time you're having a conversation about the past and the future. Notice how they will almost always use their left hand, or gesture to their left to signal past tense and their right hand for future events. A Hebrew speakers does the exact opposite, as Hebrew is written right to left. If my aunt talks about what she had for dinner last night, she'll use her right hand to imply the past. Cool, isn't it? Read more about how linguistics effect how we perceive the world here.

Moving onto Ishmael. In these chapters, Ishmael continues his teachings of our society's creation myth to our narrator. He explains that our creation myth, at this moment in the novel, goes something like this; the world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it. The narrator makes two large epiphanies during this process, both of which involve linguistics. 

He first is taught about how it is part of our creation myth to accept that the world was made for man. He points out that, linguistically, this is ingrained into how we speak. We talk about "our" Earth, "our" environment, "our" forests. Who says it's ours? Don't other animals live there too? Who are we to take it from them? Indeed, who are we to take it from them when most of us don't even live anywhere near a forest?

The second realization comes after Ishmael teaches that man was made to conquer the Earth. The narrator at first don't want to accept this, but then sees that this, too, is integrated into our language. We "conquer" space, we "conquer" the oceans. As if these places need conquering, as if it's our divine right to be in these spaces and to take them over.

Who says any of this is for us?

That's all I've got to say for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.