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Lessons in the Old Language
The "old language" that unites the human and more-than-human worlds is a
recurrent archetype in the stories of indigenous peoples, those who have lived
in intimate proximity with a particular bioregion for time immemorial. The word
in its primordial force runs through us like a current: what we say still comes
alive, or dies in the telling. Indeed, the power of language to create reality
is a constant of the human experience. But this and other lessons of the old
language have been largely obscured in the transition to modernity and
industrial-technological civilization. When we contrast indigenous and western
languages and worldviews, we can begin to reclaim aspects of the old language
that undergird both.
