New Moon's Shining Language
I realized another place I had seen this eclipse or 'new moon shining' symbol that has come up recently.
In a recent post called "New Moon Shine", WJT mentioned in passing that he had recently seen the movie "Arrival". This must have been working in the back of my mind for a bit, because yesterday it came to me that this eclipse symbol is all over that movie, in the form of the language that the aliens shared with humans, specifically Louise, the linguist and protagonist of the film. Given that I just recently equated the eclipse with the Anor and Ithil Stones linking with each other, and stories being passed across that linkage (which will involve language in some capacity), and that this communication will very much be between a human and a Being that can be defined as an alien, this got my mind going just a bit.
For those that haven't seen the movie, you should - its pretty good, although it is a bit slow and paced, so just watch when you are in the mood for that kind of thing. I will discuss just a few themes from the film in order to illustrate my points, and so will try to limit spoilers, but they will obviously exist here (so if you want to avoid any/ all spoilers, don't proceed!).
The premise of the film is that alien ships (12 of them) come to earth, scattered in various locations, but without any clear intent of what they are doing there. The ships just hover in the air, waiting. A linguist, Louise, is called on by the government to try to help understand the aliens' intention. As it turns out, there has been communication established, but the aliens are talking through symbols and no one knows their meaning. The aliens 'write' these symbols against something like a large glass barrier, with the result beings something like this:
This is obviously very much like the eclipse symbol, but reversed, with the a lighter circle interior and the 'shine' portion of the eclipse now in black or a darker hue.
Anyway, the movie proceeds with Louise and the team trying to figure out what the aliens are saying and what their intent is.
The first time I watched the movie was actually not too long after I had read Doug's Cultural History of the Book of Mormon. In one of those volumes, he goes into some depth on a linguist named Whorf, and something called linguistic determinism, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis states something like our perception of reality is influenced by the language we use, This comes out pretty heavily in the movie, with even the shape of the aliens' symbols (a circle) reflecting that they these Beings experience time in a non-linear fashion. Further, in what is very much a 'hollywood-ization" of this theory, when Louise learns or receives this language from the aliens in a certain manner, she will then experience time and events in the same or similar way that they do.
The second time I watched it was after all of the crazy events of 2019 and 2020, so some of the movie was more personal to me and my situation. I could better relate, in some small way, to the difficulties in trying to understand both intent and meaning of these words I was writing down. It was complex enough (and it mostly remains a mystery, honestly) even with the words being in a latin alphabet with things you could tell were words (and had a reference table of sorts thanks to Paul Strack and Eldamo.org. I wasn't having to try and decipher symbols like they were in Arrival.
The two aliens in the movie are given the very relevant names of Abbott and Costello, I am sure very purposefully by the writers to call out the difficulty of language. Abbott and Costello are the names of real life comedians from back in the 1940's. Their most famous act, I believe, was a comedy skit called "Who's on first?", which I am sure many people are familiar with. In case not, here is a short clip below:
The frustration (and humor) in the conversation comes from not understanding that a word can be both a name and a pronoun or a noun. The conversation goes nowhere because one person is thinking they are answering the question the other is asking, while the other is feels the question is either being put back to them or disregarded. They are making assumptions about how well the other person is understanding their words, and in this case, their assumptions are pretty bad, obviously. In this case, misunderstanding language can be simply funny (as it was in Abbott and Costello's skit), but it could result in less than ideal outcomes.
It was with respect to funny misunderstandings that I was actually thinking of WJT's recent dream dialogue with a woman calling herself Moonlight (in French, of course). That dialogue is captured in this post if you want to reference it there - I will only use the woman's initial question and then summarize WJT's response to illustrate the difficulty he faced (and perhaps his error).
As WJT relates, the woman asks him "Do you know what a week is?" This is all verbal, so WJT can't see the word, and is going off purely how it sounded (I imagine).
His answer is about a standard 7-day week in the form of a nice little poem. But he has to make the assumption that 'week' is 'week'. What if the word the woman used was not actually an English word, or what if the word was English, but different, like 'weak'?
In this case, and because we are dealing with Beings who, it seems, like to mix and match languages and words (and play word games, and all sorts of games sometimes, frankly), we can't be sure the word that is being asked is an English word. What if it was an Elvish word, for example?
Well, if it was Elvish, you might write it out like "Do you know what a 'wiqe/wik' is?". And this would be a very different question!
If that were the case, it could be about a man, or she could be asking WJT if he knows what a penis is (wiqe = penis). That's right. The fact that she is ready to burst out laughing, perhaps both at the question and the response, might not put this possibility completely out of reach. The additional fact that phallic-shaped things seem to have come up at least a few times in past posts (both here and on WJT's blog) in terms of reference to ships, bananas, people, whatever, also doesn't put the question completely out of bounds (for example, see this post on Numenorean flying ships).
Or she might just be simply asking about a week, for whatever reason. Or both, in fact. The point is, though, is you can't really be sure. And sometimes that matters.
And then, even if you get the word 'right', there is still significant room for misinterpretation without a proper understanding of intent.
Again, back to the Arrival movie, the crap starts to hit the fan when the humans learn enough of the language to realize that the aliens are saying they have a 'weapon' they are offering to humanity. This can be interpreted as a threat, which many participants do, but again, what is meant by 'weapon'? Is this something that the aliens are going to use on Earthlings? Is it something that is just being offered to some countries? Or is it not a bad thing, but rather a good thing, and a weapon is rather something a tool or a gift?
These things matter, obviously, in terms of how we should respond to the speaker and circumstance, and it is those things that resonate with me the most as I think back (and even currently, I guess) on my own not-great translation attempts, whether those words were in Elvish, English, or some other language..
But, as a quick comment, at least with some of the 'speakers', even though I didn't understand what was being said, I felt I had some understanding inside of me somewhere around intent - in that, it was Good. It was something that felt like 'home' - not the words themselves, which definitely seem foreign, but the feeling and intent behind them. And sometimes I would surprise myself and even understand more than I gave myself credit for. Stories or thoughts that came later, I could look back and see in my words, even years later, as I've somewhat experienced in some of the storylines on this blog.
And, by the way, quick update, but I think greater than 50/50 chance that Moonlight might have actually been asking about the Elvish "Wiqe/Wik" in WJT's dream.. No joke, but when I looked up additional meanings for 'weapon' just now, as part of the Arrival example above, etymonline.com gives me:
Old English wæpen "instrument of fighting and defense, sword," also "penis," from Proto-Germanic *wēipna-
You can't make this up! And I am having a pretty good laugh right now. It makes my title of "Louise has weapon" (which comes toward the end of Arrival, when the Aliens tell Louise she has been given the weapon, and we learn what that actually means) seem to be a perfect example of what I am talking about, even in trying to understand meaning in purely English terms!
Anyway, I don't know what I am saying here anymore, so I guess I will close this section of the post by saying that it looks like one important lesson learned is that if someone asks you what a "week" is, take a second to clarify it that is an English or Elvish 'week' (or 'wike') they are asking about.
Language as Power
OK, so I mention that Arrival kind of takes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and puts it into fairy tale land by suggesting that when Louise learns the non-linear language of the aliens, she will also view reality, and specifically time, as they do. My guess is that no proponents of that hypothesis are suggesting that this falls into their model of how that works.
However, before we dismiss this notion of language as a power (weapon. . . the non-penis kind) that actually can alter reality, we do have an example of this in Mormon theology, specifically with the Being of Enoch.
Given that I have associated Enoch as one other identity of Eonwe-Faramir, who will be taking part in this whole Sun-Moon, Anor-Ithil Stone thing, I believe it is relevant.
And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. (Moses 7)
God had given Enoch a 'language', and the power of that language was what allowed Enoch to speak, and the Earth trembled, mountains were moved, etc. My guess is that the 3 disciples know something of this language, since they seem to exhibit the same gift and power over the earth (as exhibited in Salt Lake City and at Sawtooth in our day).
The interaction that Eowyn and Faramir-Enoch will have through the Anor and Ithil Stones will not be limited to just stories. I mean, it will be about stories, but in order to understand and convey those stories correctly, it will also be about language. Faramir-Enoch, I believe, will have language restored to him - the same language mentioned above. The restoration of that language will play an important part in events to come, including the reuniting of the worlds that comprise our Earth.
Again, I am not sure how that works in practice (can't even imagine it for the most part) but just wanted to call out that part of how this story works is for "Enoch" to receive a language that he once knew but has forgotten, and the associated powers that accompany it. All that will also be part of this Anor and Ithil Stone linkage, and this re-established connection across worlds.
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