Langua, Lingua, Language
Chomsky thinks we got innate mechanisms
That facilitate language, it’s a vague definition
I know—but we weren’t programmed to work at this task
Social environment’s why we learn it so fast...
Universal phoneme perception at birth
Gives me the power to discern relevant syllables
From those that I need not learn in this system
So babbling to mastery, I see all its quirks
Every language on earth has its own sounds
That ain’t hard to learn, everyone knows how...
Indo-European, Athabaskan, Afro-Asiatic
Austronesian and everything in between it...
Language is associated with identity
It’s already in my unborn kid’s pedigree
Phonetics alone would just be too incidental
In addition to words you need suprasegmentals
Now Stop. Affricate. Fricative. Sonorant
Rhotic. Obstruent. Liquid. Whatever you want…
We polish up our knowledge of native phonology
Until we put kids through college, but honestly
When you hear those morphemes, it seems like morphine
You can’t ignore speech, I want some more… please…
Meaning isn’t always that easy to conceive
In the active acrolect, the greediness it leaves
Is residue of hegemonic ideology produced
to bind me with a truce, then blind me with the truth,
After one occasion do we rise to another
Was language made so we could lie to each other?
I’m not right handed, I’m left hemisphered
You don’t have to feel like your best friend is fear
Just don’t end up the pronoun in freeze tag
Or that’ll be it, some indirect speech act...
Take it (in)directly when the object leaves
In a broad sense I reach the onset of peace
And I’m easily convinced you’re as complex as me
So I’mma tell you my exact process of speech:
Thought is carried forth in a momentary lapse
Air is pushed up through the pulmonary tract
Then the tongue shapes it, makes it a creation
The lips articulating everything insatiably…
Then the sounds go straight to your head
Where you try to make sense of the statement that’s sent
Arabic to Swedish, Cantonese to Greek
Comanche to Korean, they’re asking me to preach...
Ladies and gents, I hope I satisfied your preferences
Email me with any questions or requests for references
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