Words are so important -- this was key to many changes in the early women's movement -- think of Dale Spender's 'Man Made Language' and even teh word feminism. As a herbalist I've always referred to plant as she, he, they and the notion of spreading this work with more earthy language is excellent.
Aah Dale Spender, you have brought back a memory for me Jan of going to a talk she gave in London , when I first arrived in London at age of 21 , and how she blew my mind in such a good way. Ai love how you work with herbs in such a relational way, honouring their character and liveliness through your observations. 🙏💚
I so appreciate your thoughts and how you describe your relationship to language. It’s something that I experience too and am practicing with increasing awareness and am observing how it shifts both me and the people around me. 🌟
It’s very much in the air at the moment isn’t it? We cannot shift culture without questioning the words that structure our thinking and exchanges. Thank you Swan
Language is so critical, somehow the climate movement must shift to language that embraces others to join. I can remember a small child gazing at the sky looking for the hole in the ozone. My mum was passionate about language, saw it as a way to change the world around her.
My advice to my children was love is a verb if your just saying and not doing then it holds no meaning. Love reading your words they always fill me up
Love the idea of being a language rebel and appreciate your suggestions esp about verbs rather than nouns. In a recent book proposal I wrote:
A Note on Language.
As we think, so we live. The presuppositions and beliefs we bring to our encounter with the world act as a kind of invocation: if we conceive a world of objects with no intrinsic value or meaning, as mere resources for our use, then that is what will be revealed to us; if we call to a world of sentient beings, they may grace us with their response.
Words are important. As botanist and Potawatomi plant woman Robin Wall Kimmerer has pointed out, how we refer to sentient beings matters: to use the pronoun ‘it’ is not only odd and disrespectful, it objectifies. Thomas Berry makes a similar point: ‘We no longer hear the voice of the rivers, the mountains, or the sea. The trees and meadows are no longer intimate modes of spirit presence. The world has become ‘it’ rather than ‘thou’.
Yet standard English offers no alternative. Kimmerer suggests we draw on the Potawatomi word Aakibmaadiziiwin, which means ‘a being of the earth.’ She asks, ‘might we hear a new pronoun at the beginning of the word, from the ‘aaki’ part that means land? Ki to signify a being of the living earth. Not he or she, but ki’.
Following Kimmerer’s prompt, in this writing, rather than ‘it’, I will use ‘ki’ singular and ‘kin’ plural. I will also capitalise the names of more-than-human beings whenever I intend to convey sentience and personhood. I will not capitalize the word ‘human’ in order to purposefully decentre and frustrate human exceptionalism. This can feel awkward and may take the reader a little while to get used to; but the awkwardness in itself alerts us to our habitual objectification of the world around us.
Very interesting, very inspiring. I just watched a great documentary about one of my favourite NZ singers: Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, which follows his journey of reconnecting with his Māori heritage and creating his first album in te reo Māori. Hearing the lyrics to the songs he wrote reminded me how each language has its own poetry and power. Here's to rebel power and to using our language and our actions towards the health of the soil, lakes, trees, plants, oceans, insects, fish and animals, including humans, of this precious planet. x
🙏 Brigid, I must watch this doco , it sounds sooo good. Te reo Māori such an earth centred language, always grounds me to hear it spoken or sung , I love how phrases are being adopted throughout Aotearoa despite current Government’s appalling policies to diminish its usage. Oh for the days when Jacinda led the country and spoke te reo Māori at the beginning of her speeches
The loss of doing/action but mostly creating by young people is one of the biggest reasons why children are so lost and confused. (lots of adults too) Let them MAKE the cake and eat it will be their rebel cry.
Thank you for this Sally. I’m just on my way back to Sydney after driving to Bourke and the changing landscapes as I travelled further north and west….over the mountains and rolling hills to the flat red earth and mallee and the magnificent Baarka and other rivers. It’s really helpful to consider how we language this miraculous earth we live and share in.
Thank you Mari! I have never been to Bourke, if I had a bucket list, travelling out there would definitely be on it. What a great journey, you describe this beautifully. 💚
Beautifully expressed Sally. I frequently have a strong sense of a nature being’s presence as he or she - or they, when not so clearly binary. I feel more connected to them in this way
In your quiet observing way you have always been a rebel. As regards verbs and nouns my favourite action words are seeing, hearing,feeling ,touching and tasting.All can be done in any environment at any time.
You know me all Leonie, yes a quiet and not so quiet rebel at times. I love your reminder of what we should be consciously doing as we go about our day, extraordinary how abstracted modernity culture has become from these basic ways of being in our world 💚
Unlearning. I don't think it was a full year in undergraduate studies before I realized that 18 formative years I had spent growing up in rural Alberta had not provis ed me with an accurate understanding of the world from which to be an active contributor to collective betterment. The nature of this journey has never ceased, and the more exploration I do the more I see that the first key is language. Careful narrative management has nudged us to believe manufactured realities that bear little resemblance to the nature of what has unfolded in the past or continues to unfold today. Language, choices of words, builds the worlds that we inhabit. Who we give credibility to build our world for us sets the stage for all our relations, human and otherwise. Bending the curve on overshoot, on ecocide, on genocide can be reduced to the words we choose to speak with and to listen to.
Thank you Preston for this story of your explorations and recognition of how very formative language is to ourselves and perceived realities. Both liberating and daunting to see how very fundamental this is, and the ways people have polarised of late egged on by adopted words and phrases. Much rebelling and reclaiming to be done!
Words are so important -- this was key to many changes in the early women's movement -- think of Dale Spender's 'Man Made Language' and even teh word feminism. As a herbalist I've always referred to plant as she, he, they and the notion of spreading this work with more earthy language is excellent.
Aah Dale Spender, you have brought back a memory for me Jan of going to a talk she gave in London , when I first arrived in London at age of 21 , and how she blew my mind in such a good way. Ai love how you work with herbs in such a relational way, honouring their character and liveliness through your observations. 🙏💚
I so appreciate your thoughts and how you describe your relationship to language. It’s something that I experience too and am practicing with increasing awareness and am observing how it shifts both me and the people around me. 🌟
It’s very much in the air at the moment isn’t it? We cannot shift culture without questioning the words that structure our thinking and exchanges. Thank you Swan
Totally. It creates such different realities, depending on the words we use. I really appreciate how clearly you’ve laid it out!
Thank you!
Language is so critical, somehow the climate movement must shift to language that embraces others to join. I can remember a small child gazing at the sky looking for the hole in the ozone. My mum was passionate about language, saw it as a way to change the world around her.
My advice to my children was love is a verb if your just saying and not doing then it holds no meaning. Love reading your words they always fill me up
Thank you Jan for sharing these stories, a lot of good mothering going on here! Your climate action is so much a ‘doing’ of love…
Love the idea of being a language rebel and appreciate your suggestions esp about verbs rather than nouns. In a recent book proposal I wrote:
A Note on Language.
As we think, so we live. The presuppositions and beliefs we bring to our encounter with the world act as a kind of invocation: if we conceive a world of objects with no intrinsic value or meaning, as mere resources for our use, then that is what will be revealed to us; if we call to a world of sentient beings, they may grace us with their response.
Words are important. As botanist and Potawatomi plant woman Robin Wall Kimmerer has pointed out, how we refer to sentient beings matters: to use the pronoun ‘it’ is not only odd and disrespectful, it objectifies. Thomas Berry makes a similar point: ‘We no longer hear the voice of the rivers, the mountains, or the sea. The trees and meadows are no longer intimate modes of spirit presence. The world has become ‘it’ rather than ‘thou’.
Yet standard English offers no alternative. Kimmerer suggests we draw on the Potawatomi word Aakibmaadiziiwin, which means ‘a being of the earth.’ She asks, ‘might we hear a new pronoun at the beginning of the word, from the ‘aaki’ part that means land? Ki to signify a being of the living earth. Not he or she, but ki’.
Following Kimmerer’s prompt, in this writing, rather than ‘it’, I will use ‘ki’ singular and ‘kin’ plural. I will also capitalise the names of more-than-human beings whenever I intend to convey sentience and personhood. I will not capitalize the word ‘human’ in order to purposefully decentre and frustrate human exceptionalism. This can feel awkward and may take the reader a little while to get used to; but the awkwardness in itself alerts us to our habitual objectification of the world around us.
Very interesting, very inspiring. I just watched a great documentary about one of my favourite NZ singers: Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, which follows his journey of reconnecting with his Māori heritage and creating his first album in te reo Māori. Hearing the lyrics to the songs he wrote reminded me how each language has its own poetry and power. Here's to rebel power and to using our language and our actions towards the health of the soil, lakes, trees, plants, oceans, insects, fish and animals, including humans, of this precious planet. x
🙏 Brigid, I must watch this doco , it sounds sooo good. Te reo Māori such an earth centred language, always grounds me to hear it spoken or sung , I love how phrases are being adopted throughout Aotearoa despite current Government’s appalling policies to diminish its usage. Oh for the days when Jacinda led the country and spoke te reo Māori at the beginning of her speeches
The loss of doing/action but mostly creating by young people is one of the biggest reasons why children are so lost and confused. (lots of adults too) Let them MAKE the cake and eat it will be their rebel cry.
Yes we need words and actions of crafting, caring and creating! X
Really enjoyed this, Sally.
Thanks Glynn 🙏💚
Thank you for this Sally. I’m just on my way back to Sydney after driving to Bourke and the changing landscapes as I travelled further north and west….over the mountains and rolling hills to the flat red earth and mallee and the magnificent Baarka and other rivers. It’s really helpful to consider how we language this miraculous earth we live and share in.
Thank you Mari! I have never been to Bourke, if I had a bucket list, travelling out there would definitely be on it. What a great journey, you describe this beautifully. 💚
Beautifully expressed Sally. I frequently have a strong sense of a nature being’s presence as he or she - or they, when not so clearly binary. I feel more connected to them in this way
Thanks Linda, I am sure that many of us are doing this now in quiet as well as visible ways💚
In your quiet observing way you have always been a rebel. As regards verbs and nouns my favourite action words are seeing, hearing,feeling ,touching and tasting.All can be done in any environment at any time.
You know me all Leonie, yes a quiet and not so quiet rebel at times. I love your reminder of what we should be consciously doing as we go about our day, extraordinary how abstracted modernity culture has become from these basic ways of being in our world 💚
Unlearning. I don't think it was a full year in undergraduate studies before I realized that 18 formative years I had spent growing up in rural Alberta had not provis ed me with an accurate understanding of the world from which to be an active contributor to collective betterment. The nature of this journey has never ceased, and the more exploration I do the more I see that the first key is language. Careful narrative management has nudged us to believe manufactured realities that bear little resemblance to the nature of what has unfolded in the past or continues to unfold today. Language, choices of words, builds the worlds that we inhabit. Who we give credibility to build our world for us sets the stage for all our relations, human and otherwise. Bending the curve on overshoot, on ecocide, on genocide can be reduced to the words we choose to speak with and to listen to.
Thank you Preston for this story of your explorations and recognition of how very formative language is to ourselves and perceived realities. Both liberating and daunting to see how very fundamental this is, and the ways people have polarised of late egged on by adopted words and phrases. Much rebelling and reclaiming to be done!