I was watching, listening and beaming at a discreet distance; my idle and fascinated curiosity piqued as a small child navigated a well chewed, or possibly gummed, piece of chocolate to its mouth from a remote location on its face.  How the chocolate got to its starting point was a mystery but its progress was remarkable. The trail of gelatinous brown slobber was now describing an arc between chin, ear and eye.  The intensity and determination of this child's valiant mission was revealed by many similar trails of gooey blobbery from previous attempts upon its face.

But it was the gurgle delivered with gusto and glee into the admiring and devoted gaze of mum that made me realise that here was language, its true meaning only known to sender and receiver, yet as significant and profound to its correspondents in their world as any speech of Demosthenes, Cicero, Jefferson and Churchill in theirs.

The gurgle as an artifice of communication is not to be underestimated, judging the content and quality of a persons mind by the words eminating from the darkened continuum that is their cranial cavity is sometimes a pleasure, more often a curse, always a puzzle.  Indeed some of lifes word puzzlers are more gifted at puzzling the intent of a word's owner than the owner themselves. 

To Be continued........

Max Crean (c) 2010

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