The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) David Abram

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The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) David Abram

Maybe most of you already know about this book. But I highly recommend it to understand how language has evolved from pictograms (Egyptians) to alphabet (Greeks).
In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which–even at its most abstract–echoes the calls and cries of the earth. Pictograms civilizations are closer to Earth than are those ruled by alphabet.

What I found revealing is how language is learned primarily through our body and physical senses not so much from our intellect.
Spoken language can be an aid or a barrier to understand the world around us.

And each language has its own barriers.
William Shakespeare is credited with the invention or introduction of over 1,700 words that are still used in English today. He used more than 20,000 words in his plays and poems,
The largest Chinese dictionary (汉语辞典) lists out 23,000 unique Chinese characters. Another source, the great compendium of Chinese (汉语大字典) says there are 54,678 existing characters (however, this is how many characters there were throughout history, even though most are now considered ‘dead’ characters now). The largest Chinese dictionary says these characters can be combined into 370,000 unique Chinese words. And the 'pictogram' language is closer to the Egyptians than the Greeks.
In Finnish, there is no future tense. How do you predict the future as an astrologer??? Yet, is shows that their language is closer to the Egyptians than the Greeks and may explain why they have stricter climate change policies.
Blessings!