Babel

by R.F. Kuang

He soaked up languages like a sponge, and he had an uncanny ear for rhythm and sound. He did not merely repeat the phrases he absorbed; he uttered them in such precise imitation of the original speaker, investing his words with all their intended emotion, it was like he momentarily became them.

that history was malleable, that all that mattered were decisions of the present.

There was also, Professor Lovell argued, a great pedagogical benefit to learning a wholly new language in a very short amount of time; it forced the mind to stretch and build rapid connections, to contrast unfamiliar language structures with what one already knew.

Your presence overpowers The soberness of reason

The problem is that we’re always living like we’ve lost. We’re all living like you. We see their guns, their silver-work, and their ships, and we think it’s already over for us. We don’t stop to consider how even the playing field actually might be.

‘Violence shows them how much we’re willing to give up,’ said Griffin. ‘Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock. You have no idea what you’re capable of, truly. You can’t imagine how the world might shift unless you pull the trigger.’

Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation – a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.

‘That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.’

There is no historical precedent for this. The juncture is shot. History, for once, is fluid.

But who, in living history, ever understands their part in the tapestry?