People of the Soup
Hi!
Two newsletters ago, I briefly mentioned that some people have attempted to craft analytically exact languages and hyperlinked to an article on John Wilkins, an academic from the 1600’s who really tried his hardest. The problem Wilkins had with natural language is that, in general, words tell you nothing about the things to which they refer (barring, I assume, the few scrabble-accepted onomatopoeias). To “remedy” this “problem”, Wilkins invented a “universal” language which he outlined in an essay titled, Towards a Real Character and Philosophical Language. His goal for the language was to make words that perfectly express concepts, unlike our current “irrational” words that are merely derived from thousands of years of evolution. This “problem” was later satirized in Gulliver’s Travels when Gulliver visits the Grand Academy of Lagado, where the guiding principle is that words should be abolished on the basis of their frivolity and uselessness. Instead, people in the Grand Academy carry around all the things they might need to reference in their pockets so they can pull them out and point to them when necessary.
I first learned about Wilkins from the book “In The Land of Invented Languages” by Erika Okrent. Here’s how she describes her initial experience trying to piece together a sentence in Wilkins’ language: “I emerged blinking and staggering, unsure of whether any word in any language meant anything at all” (25). El oh freaking el! The thing that had Okrent basically questioning her entire existence is that Wilkins’ language hinges on categorizing everything in the universe in order to speak in a perfectly analytical way. Simply put, the words in this analytical language are not symbols. Rather, each letter/sound has a meaning that’s attached to a specific subcategory and then when you put the letters together, you get words that perfectly mean what you are trying to say. Wilkins crafted this system by dividing the universe into 40 categories, which were then further subdivided into differences, which were then subdivided into species. This sounds like a sensible enough way to build a language until you realize, as Okrent did, that it’s fucking impossible to speak normally while constrained by one single weirdo's subjective ordering of the universe. Here’s the starting point of Wilkins’ category charts, reproduced by Okrent in the book:
Jorge Luis Borges was the next famous guy to parody Wilkins’ attempts to order the universe, although Okrent insists that he was only doing it to “call attention to the hopelessness of all such attempts” (59). To that, I give a hearty “pppssshhaaa”. Borges was clearly trying to be an antagonistic lil bitch and you can’t tell me otherwise <3.
In order to parody the sheer impossibility of creating universal categories, Borges makes up a taxonomy called The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge and confusingly and falsely attributes it to a real Chinese translator, Franz Kuhn. Borges lists a sample of Kuhn’s own (fictional) universe categories when he writes, "in its remote pages it is written that the animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) the from a long way off look like flies. He also lists arbitrary classifications of positions in the catholic church and then, to really drive the point home, we get this gem: "[It] is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what thing the universe is". For years now I’ve been obsessed with the idea of getting a very niche and/or borderline intellectual tramp stamp and “we do not know what thing the universe is” has officially replaced a detailed illustration of a cuttlefish as tramp stamp option numero uno.
While learning about Wilkins and fangirling over Borges, I kept coming back to the words “primordial soup”. I think what happened was I went down a wikipedia rabbit hole that took me from the Celestial Emporium to theories about the order of the universe and now its all linked together in my mind. Anyway, “primordial soup” is an adorably named theory that states all life originated from a solution of chemicals, acids and other reactive little swimmers mixing and bumping into each other a whole bunch (my sincerest apologies to the entire scientific community). I’ve also seen it glamorously referred to as “prebiotic broth,” which is just the chicest thing I’ve ever heard. When I think of prebiotic broth, I’m suddenly in a spa drinking something green with flecks in it while a lady with perfect skin tells me that I can keep my towel on or take it off, if I want.
The connection I see here is that it seems like Wilkins was yearning for an impossible soup language. Really more like an undressed, chopped salad type of language that he could easily pick apart and organize into neat little piles. Our current language situation— or, the language situation that naturally evolved with us for millions years— is more like a partially blended bean and barley soup where you can kind of sort of see the different ingredients but a total separation of parts would be impossible. Every language spoken today exists not because the words were the most “rational” choice, but because one day someone made a sound that seemed right to describe a thing and enough people understood them so they used it too and now here we are! Living in a world where there is a german word for people who prefer to pee outside (wildpinkler, obviously). Everything in language has a little bit of everything else all over it, creating an interconnected, highly potentialized environment that’s perfect for nurturing the entirety of human communication.
To nobody’s shock, I’m less interested in the “origins of the universe” part of this and more interested in the metaphor of it all. I like the idea that we’re all just soup people, born from and existing in a magic bubbling cauldron. People of the soup. The nice thing about this, at least in my opinion, is that it implies we don’t have to be like Wilkins and spend our lives trying to make everything make “perfect” “sense”. Things will flow and swim and melt and combine on their own, eradicating the need to order the universe and softening our natural desire to slot everything into strict categories. It’s all and has always been a big soupy bowl of inextricable goo.
Last week I forgot to do the thing where I flirt with you at the end of the newsletter to build intimacy, so here are two kitchen-based options for this week:
Places a warm bowl of your favourite soup down in front of you, gives a soft kiss atop your head and tells you that you smell nice.
or
Let's you lick the spoon.