Other languages sound musical to us; our own does not.
This is because every language has a song to it---a consistent range of melodies and rhythms that together make up the everyday music of how we speak to each other.
Our own everyday song is just that: so familiar that it sounds like nothing at all. Like water to a fish, or air to a human.
What this means is that we are all always singing. A song that we share with fellow speakers of our language (or dialect, etc.), even as we always perform it in our own distinct style.
In the same way, how we each walk, our specific gait, is a dance. We choose this dance for a variety of reasons---a mixing of the purely physical (our body-specific mechanics) with the emotional (how we feel about ourselves and how we want to be seen).
The proverb "If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing..." is not floofy optimism. It is a statement of fact. Ordinary speech is already a song; ordinary walking is already a dance.
Both lay the foundations of how we sing and dance in the more familiar sense. And both bring out what is inside, whether we want it or not.
So: in walking and talking, we find already the seeds of these arts, and a better understanding of ourselves.
This is because every language has a song to it---a consistent range of melodies and rhythms that together make up the everyday music of how we speak to each other.
Our own everyday song is just that: so familiar that it sounds like nothing at all. Like water to a fish, or air to a human.
What this means is that we are all always singing. A song that we share with fellow speakers of our language (or dialect, etc.), even as we always perform it in our own distinct style.
In the same way, how we each walk, our specific gait, is a dance. We choose this dance for a variety of reasons---a mixing of the purely physical (our body-specific mechanics) with the emotional (how we feel about ourselves and how we want to be seen).
The proverb "If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing..." is not floofy optimism. It is a statement of fact. Ordinary speech is already a song; ordinary walking is already a dance.
Both lay the foundations of how we sing and dance in the more familiar sense. And both bring out what is inside, whether we want it or not.
So: in walking and talking, we find already the seeds of these arts, and a better understanding of ourselves.
1 comment:
I like this because it helps me realize that I can sing other songs and dance other dances....at will!
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