Babel

by R.F. Kuang

The word loss was inadequate. Loss just meant a lack, meant something was missing, but it did not encompass the totality of this severance, this terrifying un-anchoring

the meaning of the original. But what is meaning? Does meaning refer to something that supersedes the words we use to describe our world?

We know, for instance, that the final Latin m was not pronounced in classical times, because inscriptions at Pompeii are misspelled in a way that leaves the m out. This is how we pin down sound changes.

English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.