The method of an image is an experience, not a
grammar applied to a repertory, or the instantiation of rules of
grammar. The power of language consists of its abstract nature.
Images are strong through their concreteness. The abstraction of
language results from sharing vocabulary and grammar; the
abstraction of images, from sharing visual experience, or
creating a context for new experiences.
For as long as visual experience was confined to one's limited
universe of existence, as in the case of the migrating tribes,
the visual could not serve as a medium for anything beyond this
changing universe of existence. Language resulted from the need
to surpass the limitations of space and time, to generate
choices. The only viable alternative adopted was the abstract
image of the phonetic convention, which was easier to carry from
one world to another, as, for instance, the Phoenicians did. Each
alphabet is a condensed visual testimony to experiences in the
meanwhile uncoupled from language and its concrete practical
motivations.
Writing visualizes language; reading brings the written language
back to its oral life, but in a tamed version. Whether the
Sumerian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Latin, or Slavic
alphabet, the letters are not neutral signs for abstract
phonetic language. They summarize visual experiences and encode
rules of recognition; they are related to anthropologic
experience and to cognitive processes of abstracting.
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