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In Reply to: universal language posted by Hillary Owens-Hamlin on February 02, 1999 at 13:34:26:

: I was wondering if there is a universal language. If there is, what is it?

I think that you are right that painting is a universal language. A picture is worth a thousand words (to be cliche). What I find even more universal is laughter. Pretend you are on a street of say, Paris, and you, along with many other people of varied cultures,see a pigeon steal a little boy's croissant from his hands while his pants spontainiously fall down because he removed the hand that was holding them up to fend off the nasty birds. I bet that you, along with others, might share a little bit of laughter and understand eachother completely with out knowing a bit of eachother's languages.

Being a music major, however, I feel that the most universal of all languages is music. I'm not saying that it would be efficient to try and ask how much something is with music. It's more like painting. I admit that nuances can be interpreted differently by different people but general things like tempo, dynamics, and especially mode (minor, major etc..)will invite similar or parallel interpretations. But all and all, I think Hillary is correct, we should resort to cave drawings. But we don't have to hang out in caves.

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: : I was wondering if there is a universal language. If there is, what is it? : I think that you are right that painting is a universal language. A picture is worth a thousand words (to be cliche). What I find even more universal is <a href="http://www.laughter.com/">laughter</a>. Pretend you are on a street of say, Paris, and you, along with many other people of varied cultures,see a pigeon steal a little boy's croissant from his hands while his pants spontainiously fall down because he removed the hand that was holding them up to fend off the nasty birds. I bet that you, along with others, might share a little bit of laughter and understand eachother completely with out knowing a bit of eachother's languages. : Being a music major, however, I feel that the most universal of all languages is music. I'm not saying that it would be efficient to try and ask how much something is with music. It's more like painting. I admit that nuances can be interpreted differently by different people but general things like tempo, dynamics, and especially mode (minor, major etc..)will invite similar or parallel interpretations. But all and all, I think Hillary is correct, we should resort to cave drawings. But we don't have to hang out in caves.

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