Language as the Lens or Looking-Glass to Reality

The way you look at the world is based on all the things you accepted and integrated into your being, shaping a unique perspective of the universe that is inherently your own. What you think is true and how you act, is a mixture of your nature and your nurture. The exact argument is for philosophers and not the point of this post.

In terms of language, the majority of all Humans learn language through their upbringing. Rare exceptions include xenoglossia and other such things, as well as people who never pick up any ‘word’ language at all. We are taught our language through mimicry and repetition and association with our peers, guardians, and those around us. Language is one of the ways we shape our worldview, it creates a framework of understanding to frame the world.

Lots of philosophers and people have written many works on symbology and symbolism, which in essence are the proto-letters of our times. They are the runic sigils that carry arcane and archaic levels of wisdom, some that we can feel resonate in our bones.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

As such, if we learn more words, we have a much more wider grasp of things. Spreading our roots wider to better hold up the reality or ego that we have.

If we focus on the depth and etymology of words, as well as how they connect and correlate with other words and languages (like connecting the Latin and Greek and Germanic and French of English). Then we dig our roots deeper to help support.

After you have a sufficient understanding of the world, you can develop a second language. Some people want full mastery of one language prior to starting another. If you do decide to learn a new language, there’s different rules and structures, different syntax and linguistics. Having another language is like having a different framework to frame the world.

“to have another language is to possess a second soul” -Charlemagne the great

Charlemagne, who spoke many languages and saw value in writing yet was illiterate for most of his life. Though he supported the education and language.

Charlemagne isn’t wrong to say that, for having a different language gives you a different personality and arguably a second ‘ego’. The soul being the psyche, relating to the ego, when we use a different lens to the see the world (language), of course the world changes. Having another language relates to how people’s personalities change when speaking different tongue. See; code switching -or- Linguistic Relativity -or- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Words do mean things and can alter even your essence and perception of the world. It can alter your soul or psyche. It alters thoughts and behavior as well as how we frame reality itself to be perceived.

Some languages have different masculine or feminine words, creating a divide in the nature or essence to objects and things. In other languages, the common terms and phrases points to a specific perspective.

From: I Broke the Vase “Rompí el jarrón”
To: The Vase Broke itself “El jarrón se rompió”

How we frame our words, frames the perspective. Thus, if languages have different words, they frame different perspectives.

Number systems can also be considered a separate language, and some count and speak in binary or base 10 or base 16 (Hexadecimal). The Binary logic (1 or 0) has concretely engrained the classical logics of either/or/and/not/nand/xor/nor/xnor in many of our scientific disciplines for their search for truth, and yet we reach non-binary understandings to uncertainty and quantum computing. A Binary truth person would have to create a matrix of understanding, a true or false tree, to conceptualize quantum states. Someone that is more open to ‘fuzzy logic’ would be able to accept the ideas yet may lose accuracy or precision. This is a matter of perspective, not to say which is better or worse.

In essence, if you grow your language and your understanding of it, and you evoke a broader and richer fertile ground for your tree of knowledge to take root. This allows you to have a more nuanced and richer personality in prescriptivist terms. (People have personalities and emotions and opinions regardless of language or the ability to convey them. So it’s prescriptivist to say more words make you more refined. Subjective really.)

The more you know, in both knowledge, truth, and language, the more you can ‘see’.

“you can see as only as much as you know”

A side discussion of memes

A meme is an iconographic image that has words super imposed to give it a narrative. If you laugh at the meme, that means you understand the joke and understand the perspective.

If you don’t laugh then you don’t get the joke, which means either you don’t get the premise or you don’t agree with the idea.

In essence, a lot of people get their perspectives and takes from a packet of icons and consider the memes from shitposting as a form of modern media, as a form of news.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and adding a caption to guide the direction turns a simple picture into something elaborate and concise. Painting a specific perspective in the world.

Making a meme, is like speaking a memetic language. It is partly up to the person making it and their intended audience on receiving it to ensure meaning is there. Much like you would if you were writing an article or book or saying a joke or anything worth merit or meaning.

Here’s a rather relevant contemporary meme, it’s not a news real article, it’s a shitpost;

It presupposes that you know that the US is banning TikTok early 2025 for being ‘Chinese Controlled’ resulting in US citizens revolting and becoming TikTok Refugees to go to a more Chinese Controlled app resulting in chaos and discord for the US and a political faux pas.

Another meme, multi-layered;

This meme has a dance of philosophy between existentialism and nihilism, the Dao, the duality of it working out and it not working out. Memes, are like art, each person gets their own subjective perspective of it based on how they see it (and you might see this meme differently). I reference philosophy because I see it’s Westernized takes and slang and language using English. As they say; It is what it is.

Memes in essence are symbols that evoke meaning, and words add a direction to point that meaning to provide richer context if done properly.

Memes construct a framework and allows you to unpackage it. To unpackage the meaning.

Words are like memes if you can see what I am saying. Words are like a package, and it plays off the other words, the sentences, the paragraphs, etc.

This deviation into meme discussion is a small segment in the larger segment of this article. In essence, this segment is framed by the previous discussion as well as the one after it.

That’s language, that’s words. It’s complex and it plays off of each other, the context, our understanding of it, and the follow-through.

Epilogue

Your choice to learn words and use them. Language is a tool, but within that tool is even more tools, words, letters, symbols, numbers, and more.

“I would read the dictionary. I would just read the dictionary. That’s how I learned words. I would go through the dictionary, pick a word, and learn what it means. I would try to incorporate it into my rhymes.” – Busta Rhymes

It’s not just words that shape our perception of reality, it’s also knowledge and our experience that shapes your perspective as well. Yet your experience and the path you take is invariably different from other’s experiences and opinions. No two people cross the same river the same way, for the waters aren’t the same. If reality is a movie, you would leave with a different nuanced opinion and feeling than those that watched it with you, before you, or after you.

Your ability to speak to people is based on your ability to bridge meaning. People in different areas have different dialects and coded language, different tribes, class, areas, groups, etc.

Speaking to someone in their language, although you use English, is not the same. A PhD in Physic’s person and a Philosopher will have different discussions and different definitions on terms like consciousness, the universe, and reality. Your Idiolect is your own, their Idiolect is their own. Communication is bridging that gap.

And arguably the most important communication is our dialogue with the Universe and to ourselves. Wrestling or co-creating with Reality. It would serve us best if we have the language to allow for a better conversation. To better perceive, conceive, and receive the messages and insights. Transcending our prior limits of language, the language looking glass.

Afterall,

Words Mean Things