What is language? Have you ever met Language herself? I bet you have. This is how C.S. Lewis described the descent of Mercury in That Hideous Strength:
“This was Language herself, as she first sprang at Maleldil’s bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the star called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.”
What is Language herself? Language is not mere words. It’s a Person — the One who speaks the right words. The Word became flesh. The right words don’t just beat the air; they transform reality. That’s what Jane Studdock felt when Mercury appeared in the room: “Jane felt her heart leap and quiver [at the words].”
We tend to think of language as words connected together through grammar and syntax. But words are not Language herself. External words are but a shadow of THE LANGUAGE. When we encounter Language herself, for example, through an inspired poet, we understand that Language isn’t just data — it is a portal into Being. We come alive when we encounter it.
Language is expressed in words, but it is more than words. External words are shadows, images, models of the Language. They are images of reality, not reality itself. A model of a thing is not the thing itself. We can easily confuse a model for reality. We can easily confuse AI-generated words with Language even though ChatGPT humbly calls itself “a language model.”
True Language is recognized through an encounter, not through receiving and interpreting data. Data is a model of the Language; when we confuse data with reality, we mix a model with truth. We create an idol. As Owen Barfield said,
“The danger is that the model, which is essentially a means to an end, a symbol of reality, is taken to be the end itself, the reality itself. The image has become an idol.” Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry
Modern consciousness is non-participatory. It takes images and models for ultimate reality. It doesn’t see through symbols. AI in its modern form is the epitome of non-participatory consciousness. When we say that AI is capable of producing language, we have reduced language to data. Data has been deified.
Data is good, as long as it remains a model pointing to something else. Even when listening to a real person, we cannot hope to understand them by listening to external words only. We must hear what’s behind the words. We can’t reduce their message to the words. The message is what transpires through data.
We live in a world of deified data. The reality of language is non-computational. It is relational. Language is revealed through participation in the Language. It was this encounter with Language herself that overturned evil in That Hideous Strength. We all know what Language herself is. We have met her. She is the Word of Power that strikes us through external words. We hear her voice and tremble.
When Dimble spoke,
“The voice did not sound like Dimble’s own: it was as if the words spoke themselves through him from some strong place at a distance — or as if they were not words at all but present operations of God.”
