In the sweltering savanna a linguisticated lioness leapt for a zebra sleeping behind a small acacia. Missed. Spooked, the zebra fled. The lioness landed loudly in the shrub, and a long thorn pierced her paw.

She roared and then remembered she could speak. For she was no mere lioness, but a linguisticated lioness. “Ouch, my paw!” she screamed, knowing no one would hear.

But someone did hear. Beside the lioness was a man who’d been sitting with the Zebra. She was briefly wary, but relaxed when she saw his green hide. She’d been helped by a man with a green hide when she’d been trapped as a cub. She relaxed. Likely nothing to fear, especially since he was alone.

“I’d better remove this awful thorn in my paw, because it’s hurting me,” she said aloud, starting to bite at the thorn in vain.

“Excuse me?” asked the startled man with the green hide. “Who said that?”

She’d startled him. She’d forgotten she was special. One of only a few linguisticated lions, and the only linguisticated lioness. She turned her eyes toward the man without turning from her important task of removing the thorn.

“Did you say that, old girl?” asked the man carefully. “It cannot be. A linguisticated lioness? In all my years…”

The lioness, not bothered, kept working on her paw. The thorn was really, dearly stuck.

“You said that you have a thorn in your paw? A thorn that is hurting you? Forgive me, lioness, but I am surprised to hear you refer to yourself. I did not know that a lioness could have a self-concept.”

The lioness blinked. All of the sudden, there was a nauseating shift in the way things were. It was unknown exactly what the shift was, but things were different.

After the confusion faded, the task was remembered. The thorn. Speaking happened again, perhaps as a reminder of what should be done: “Better to remove this awful thorn in the paw, because the paw is hurting,” was it said.

The man spoke. “Forgive me, lioness, but I am still surprised even after your restatement. It seems to me a lioness, linguisticated or otherwise, would be very like a man indeed if it also saw the world through the lens of good and bad, that is, normativity. Normativity is prescriptive and different from mere preferences, which I have no doubt a lioness would have. Normativity is good or bad, ought or ought not, and not how a lioness ought to talk.”

There was confusion, which quickly faded, then speaking happened once more. “There is desire to remove the unwanted thorn in the paw, because the paw is in pain.”

There was looking at the man to see if he’d soon speak, and he did, still unsatisfied. “Forgive me, lioness, but still I am surprised. You seem to share about the same conceptual scheme as I do, dividing the world the same way. In my native tongue Swahili, the colors blue and green were usually seen as one. But when learning English I had to learn to see them as separate. The world is a whole, and may be divided any number of ways. I am surprised to see a lion who divides it in such a humanlike way.”

There was more dizziness, which went away soon. Speaking happened again. “There is a need for pulling the plant-part from the arm, because the arm is angry.”

The man with the blue-green hide spoke. “Forgive me lioness, but I am still surprised. You seem to think in terms of past and future, cause and effect. But unlike man, you are not a planning creature. I find it thus surprising that you’d think and speak in such a way to such degree.”

There is dizziness. There is no dizziness. There is speaking. “There is plant-part-biting need and related arm-anger.” There is biting the plant-part. There is anger.

“That’s better,” the man is speaking. “Although there is still one thing that troubles me, lioness. Forgive me, but how is it that you are speaking at all? Doesn’t language itself require such a different kind of thinking than a lioness would be capable of? Is a linguisticated lioness not an impossibility?”

There is dizziness once more. There is the words going away.

ROAR!

ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!

Posts tagged "linguistics"