Seven Brief Lessons on Language

by Jonathan Dunne

Language is encoded. The words we use every day can tell us something about the meaning of human life, our purpose in this world, the divine being known as God, the creation of the world, the Fall, the economy, the environment... Once our eyes are opened at birth or soon after, we think that we see, but we do not realize that there is another level to reality, a spiritual dimension, for which we need our spiritual eyes to be opened. When this happens, when we believe in God and participate in the sacraments of the Church, we begin to perceive God all around us, in everyday objects such as trees, rocks, nature. These other realities, hitherto unseen, are called "logoi" in Greek-fragments of the Word. They are also present in language. Apart from the meaning we give them, words contain their own meaning. They can be read in reverse, the letters can be rearranged or changed according to the rules of phonetics, their order in the alphabet, their appearance. The rules that must be followed to find connections between words and uncover their deeper meaning are always the same. Seven Brief Lessons on Language aims to give the reader a simple, but in-depth view of the spiritual side to language. Its title and format are adapted from Carlo Rovelli's book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics , but the content is entirely different. Each chapter can be read in a single sitting. Put together, these seven lessons (and a short postscript) will open the reader's eyes to a reality they never knew existed.

Genres: Language

100 pages, Hardcover

Published January 7, 2023

About the author

I studied Classics at Oxford University and have lived in Spain and Bulgaria. I have translated more than seventy books from Bulgarian, Catalan, Galician, and Spanish into English. I have written four books on the spiritual content of language: “The DNA of the English Language” (2007), an introduction; “The Life of a Translator” (2013), on coincidence in translation; “Stones Of Ithaca” (2019), on the connection between language and the environment; and “Seven Brief Lessons on Language” (2023), an overview of how language contains meaning. I have also recorded a sixteen-part video series on language called “Theological English” (available to watch on Vimeo and YouTube).

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting book but found a bit too much spiritual for my liking

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Summary: Explores the spiritual significance embedded into the letters, sounds, and structure of our language.

When I was young, the host of a local children’s program took the initials of a child having a birthday that day and turned it into an amusing drawing. I felt there was something of that sort going on with this book, but I could not say that I was amused with the letter play in this book and the supposed spiritual truths the author found in the vowels and consonants and words of our language.

The book is patterned on one by Carlo Rovelli titled Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. The book consists of seven short readings and a postscript. The author believes our language is encoded with spiritual truth for those whose eyes are opened, and through these “lessons,” the author proposes to offer the insights that will open our eyes.

The first chapter is on the alphabet, the vowels and consonants, how they are formed, phonetic pairs of consonants (important to the ideas he develops) and their connection to breath, water, and flesh. A clue to what he would be doing comes early, when through a series of transpositions he connects breath, water, and flesh to “father,” the one who speaks all into existence. Subsequent chapters reflect on the Alpha and Omega, the “I” that is both “I am” and the sinful human ego that needs to go from I to O, the One who is Three, Love, Believe, and Translate.

Here’s a brief example from the chapter on the Trinity of the kind of language play one encounters throughout the book:

“As when we place three Os together, we get G O D, so when we place three Is together we get I l l. We become ill when we are apart from God, when we turn our back on him” (p.53).

All of this seems clever letter and word play in service of a book on spirituality. The method seems to me arbitrary, and one that could be used to say almost anything. Also, much of the book focuses on the English alphabet and words while treating with spiritual concepts that are transcultural.

I assume the sincerity of the writer, and would agree with many of the spiritual insights as a fellow Christian. But the method would have us looking for phonetic clues to reveal spiritual meaning rather than the plain meanings of the words of the scriptures and the creeds, which feels more of “Gnostic” or hidden knowledge than Christian.

The book also felt a bit of a “bait and switch,” at least it’s title, modeled as it is on Rovelli’s book which really is on physics. These really are not, except perhaps for the first, lessons on language but spiritual reflections drawing upon the author’s wordplay.

For those who truly value language and its power to unveil spiritual reality, I would commend the works of Marilyn McEntyre (https://www.marilynmcentyre.com/books). As for this, I would take a pass.

[Jonathan Dunne · Rating 5 out of 5]

At a time of conflict, what space is there for the presence of God in language? Language is like the human body, it has a DNA, genetic information about existence, the world. “Seven Brief Lessons on Language” can be read in seven short sittings and is meant to open our eyes to something that is right in front of us – the spiritual meaning of the words we use to express ourselves every day.

We think of words as leaving our mouths, we never think of the opposite process – words entering our mouths, carrying information. This book is meant to remedy that. Life is a process of translation. Things pass through us, or we pass through them. And death, when we are spoken into eternity, may just be the same. We are words in the making.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd, though interesting little book. Not what I expected: seven brief lessons on either linguistics or etymology, but it turned out to be the author's theories on how language and spirituality [read Christianity] are connected through the manipulation of language. Theory of playing with language to suit the author's purpose of "proving" a thesis was fascinating but sometimes far-fetched. I did come away with some points that I will think about for a long time. I did enjoy more the author's discussions of certain Bible excerpts and of Orthodox Christian doctrine and interpretation. The author is, after all, a Bulgarian Orthodox deacon. I thank LibraryThing for an ARC.

[Tsvetanka Elenkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revealing book of how we have to look at language - not as dead matter, but as living logos. There is the Word of God, God the Word, but also God in the words themselves. Theology based on language, New Testament of the language. Extremely original approach to this humanitarian science which takes it to a brand new path!