Languages

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1916

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Language as Natural Phenomenon

Throughout the poem, language is linked to elements of the natural world, creating a sense of both the inevitability of a language’s development and its (eventual) extinction. In comparing a language to “a river” (Line 4), the speaker represents language as a natural phenomenon, as something that is an intrinsic part of the world. The speaker’s likening of language to a river is also fitting in terms of the qualities the speaker attributes to language. The nature of language is fluid, not something that can be easily grasped or contained, as “There are no handles upon a language” (Line 1), and just like a river, a language can change its direction, as in the lines, “Breaking a new course / Changing its way to the ocean” (Lines 6-7). The lines, “It is mountain effluvia / moving to valleys” (Lines 8-9), suggests that, just as vapor (“effluvia”) can move down from the mountains and into the plains, so too can language change settings and transform itself along the way depending on its immediate social and geographical context.

All of the speaker’s natural imagery in the poem works to create a double meaning, first by emphasizing the idea that language is an inherent part of the world and of the human experience, and second, by suggesting that languages—like natural phenomenon—must also inevitably give way to the cycles of birth and death. The speaker once again turns to natural imagery to discuss the decline and extinction of language, remarking upon how “Languages die like rivers” (Line 12), and thereby suggesting that languages will eventually “run dry” and be replaced by others over time. Finally, the speaker’s comparison of human words and songs to the wind in the poem’s closing lines—“And it is not here to-morrow / Any more than the wind / Blowing ten thousand years ago” (Lines 21-23)—ends the poem on a final note of inevitability, once more drawing the reader’s attention to how language—like all natural phenomenon—is both unavoidable and yet ultimately ephemeral.

Language as Human Connection

The speaker depicts the true power of language as its ability to connect diverse peoples and places—it is an essential tool for creating human bonds. When comparing language to a river, the speaker draws attention to the free-flowing nature of language and its resultant ability to transform itself over time: “Breaking a new course / Changing its way to the ocean” (Lines 6-7). A living language is, like a river, forever in motion, and just like a river it can move over vast terrain, serving as a common link between different places, as when the speaker describes language as moving “from nation to nation / Crossing borders and mixing” (Lines 10-11). In this way, the speaker emphasizes how language is a way of linking the wider world and holding human society together, because it gives humans a means of conveying information and sharing ideas across both national and international lines.

The speaker also acknowledges the importance of language in expressing human emotion. In the speaker’s description of “Words wrapped round your tongue today / And broken to the shape of thought” (Lines 13-14), the speaker narrows his earlier focus from speaking of language as a broad natural phenomenon to depicting the very personal uses a language can have for the individual. For an individual, words are the means of expressing private “thought,” so that others can also know what one is thinking or feeling. The speaker also mentions the use of song in human society as a means of expressing emotion, in the lines “Sing—and singing—remember / Your song dies and changes” (Lines 19-20), suggesting that although they may be ephemeral by nature, songs are still an essential way of providing emotional release and deepening human bonds. Music also becomes an important form of language, and just like words, can transcend the individual experience to become something communal and unifying.

The Transience and Mutability of Language

While the speaker celebrates the ability of language to connect diverse peoples and places, he also repeatedly stresses the unstable and ultimately doomed life cycle all languages have. The fluid and dynamic nature of language is also its undoing: because “There are no handles upon a language” (Line 1), there are no means by which humans can guarantee its permanence. The inability of humans to truly “take hold of it [language]” (Line 2) means that languages are never fully regimented or controlled, even while in active use, and their mutability ensures that they will eventually die out for some reason or another. In comparing language to a “river” (Line 4) and to “mountain effluvia” (Line 8), the speaker depicts language as something that is inherently transient, which is why “Languages die like rivers” (Line 12) and are replaced by other languages. The speaker’s closing comparison of human song vanishing like “the wind / Blowing ten thousand years ago” (Lines 22-23), is the poem’s final reminder that languages cannot last forever, regardless of how important they may have been at one time.

Finally, it is also worth noting that the speaker does allude to the use of writing as a potential means of preserving language. The speaker mentions how the words that may be “wrapped round your tongue today / And broken to the shape of thought” (Lines 13-14) as a living, spoken language will one day be reduced to “faded hieroglyphics / Ten thousand years from now” (Lines 17-18). While the speaker’s reference to the written form of language may at first seem to challenge the poem’s overall thesis—as a written form would suggest that languages can be made permanent—the speaker’s choice of script is instructive: “hieroglyphics” (Line 17) did indeed preserve the language of Ancient Egypt in some form, but the knowledge of how to read the script was actually lost for many centuries, rendering the language unintelligible for many generations. Therefore, the speaker’s reference to “hieroglyphics” (Line 17) is a reminder that even writing is no guarantee of a language’s survival.