As someone who has been both deeply helped and fascinated by the act of writing, I often find myself returning to a recurring question: what if we didn’t have language, or any literary system at all? I think about the quiet power of concepts to make things seem natural, certain, and unquestionable—for instance, ideas like race or nation. It makes me wonder how much of what feels self-evident is, in fact, shaped by the words we use.
Having been bilingual for some time, and now studying other languages, I have come to feel that learning a foreign language is liberating. Outwardly, you begin to see how other languages frame the world differently, offering alternative ways of perceiving things. For example, in Japanese, expressions often leave the subject (I, you, etc.) unstated, whereas in English it is usually made explicit, which subtly shapes how actions and responsibility are understood. Inwardly, it reveals how your native tongue confines your thoughts and expressions, and how its ways of describing the world are, ultimately, arbitrary. There is something freeing in realising that what once felt absolute is not. It makes you more critical and reflexive.
In a similar vein, Wilhelm von Humboldt viewed language not simply as a tool for expressing thought, but as a “formative organ” that actively shapes it. Different languages are not just different labels, but different ways of representing the world.
I also get reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche’s argument that what we call “truth” is not an objective given, but a product of language. Concepts emerge by “equating the unequal,” as language simplifies what is in reality fluid and diverse. Over time, these abstractions begin to feel natural and self-evident. Thus, according to him, language does not capture reality as it is but reflects the ways we perceive and make sense of it.
These ideas continue to resonate with me. While I still hope there is something beyond language, perhaps something more universal through which we perceive the world, it seems impossible to live without relying on it. But at least, once you come to notice how your understanding is shaped by words, you open up the possibility of imagining the world otherwise.
Yuki Nakamura, a third year bachelor student Arts and Culture