Open language: March 23, 1998 issue of New Thinking

March 23, 1998 New Thinking:
Open language

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March 23, 1998

Open language

By Gerry McGovern

Language was designed using an open standards approach.

Everyone contributed. It was rare that you could find someone who ‘invented’ a word. Rather, words evolved through daily use and experimentation.

It is interesting that much of the vibrancy in language comes, not from the privileged classes, but rather from what we might term as the working class. When, for example, we think of the language of Dublin, most of us think of the banter of Moore Street and the wit of Brendan Behan.

Middle class areas such as Dublin 4 would be ignored, because they contribute very little vibrancy to Dublin’s language. In fact, it is surprising how the very accent and word usage of Dublin 4 people have numbing similarities to accents in middle class areas speckled throughout the world.

The Irish, in general, are regarded as being good at language, whether written or oral. Well, for a long time, we Irish had very little opportunity other than to sit around, inventing stories and experimenting with words and phrases. Not unlike, of course, American Blacks, who have patented much of what is cool and alive about American language and culture.

So, for language to remain vibrant and relevant it must spread a wide net, with its source of energy coming from as broad a mass of society as possible.

There is no copyright on words, nor can there ever be. Dictionaries do not create language. Rather, they define and record it. Nobody owns language. The day some large organization does, is the day that language begins to die.

In some ways, what we see happening on the Internet today is the evolution of a new type of language which will help us all understand and inhabit cyberspace. This new language and infrastructure must never be in the control of any multinational or other organization for the very same reason the language we speak cannot be owned.

Let me say that there are two fundamental divisions in cyberspace: those things that require common ownership and participation if they are to be useful and evolve; those things that are privately created and sold for private gain. Without the former, the latter has no market. Without the latter, the former will ultimately wither.

Therefore, it is not a matter of free software versus commercial software. One, ultimately, needs the other. Time is what we all spend. And therefore nothing is free. The philosophy of open standards and ‘free software’ is not about making things free, but rather about spreading ownership so that a more robust and useful product can be created. There is nothing remotely anti-commercial about that.

The Internet is new in the sense that there is nothing new under the sun or in cyberspace. The Internet is a revolution but always remember that a full revolution brings you back to the same place. Every time I find something ‘new’ on the Internet, I try to figure out what it is an imitation of.

Don’t be so fooled by speed and the future. Because if you look closely enough at the present and the past, there is usually a way of understanding everything that seems so fast.

Gerry McGovern

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Time is what we all spend. And therefore nothing is free.