every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates
language
as I understand it, we are born with language, we just need some guidance in making the right sounds in the right order. as some of us can attest, we have to keep learning those sounds and that order even when we allegedly have grown up. but anyway, a baby quickly detects that, out of that ocean of noise coming at him, some sounds make sense, and some orders of sounds make more sense. he or she is desperately trying to make sense of a world that floods him or her with noise, with color, with touches, with smells, with tastes, and some will claim with other sensations. but back to language. we have invented dozens, maybe hundreds, of languages, and a baby quickly learns the one he is immersed in. while grownups still exclaim over his or her learning vocabulary, suddenly she or he is making sentences. if we read to the child, the child quickly figures out writing. Kari Hawkey recently showed us an example of a two-year-old's story written on paper - lines that wriggled and twisted even though they were basically straight lines across the page, one after another down the page, filling the page. how fascinating that she or he already has most of the ideas of reading and writing and story! and once we decode those symbols, the world is ours! we can read stories for ourselves, read stories grownups aren't ready for us to read, read about things like bicycles or governments or schools. and some of us grow up to be brilliant users of language, we inform and influence and entertain people who have never seen, heard, or touched us. viva language!
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