RESEARCH
To speak petals: Koto Ba and the creative process of language
10 December 2024 – Vol 2, Issue 4.
In this essay I explain the creative significance of the Japanese word koto ba. I do this within the context of Martin Heidegger’s radical thinking on language. Koto ba, meaning ‘to speak petals’, serves as a poetic metaphor for language’s creative and revelatory power. I examine Heidegger’s assertion that ‘language is the flower of the mouth’ within the context of his wider ontology; and how his approach differs from the abiding view of language in the West provided by linguists and philosophers of language. I conclude by drawing out the full implications of language’s creative process when understood as ‘the flower of the mouth that speaks petals’.
‘Speaking petals’, by AI and Gil Dekel. 2024.
In English, there are a number of words that refer to what we generally call language. In the preceding sentence, I have already used two, namely, words and language. But there are others, such as speech and saying. It is no different in Japanese, where the words that tend to be used are: gengo (language), go (word), rangēji (language), and koto ba (speech). The word rangēji refers to a broader and looser sense of language as used, for example, in the terms, ‘language laboratory’ or ‘body language’. The two words most frequently used to refer to language are gengo and koto ba. However, these two words have very different meanings.
Gengo is usually translated into English as ‘language’, but this is meant in the very specific sense of language as a structured, rule-based system of information and communication. It refers to language in a more academic, technical, and scientific way. It is thus akin to what we in the West call ‘linguistics’, which studies elements of language, such as grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. Accordingly, it is a more detached, abstract, and analytic approach to language (Talkpal AI, 2024). In this respect, it refers to all languages and not just Japanese. The word gengo is made up of two elements, namely, gen, meaning ‘say’ or ‘word’ and go meaning ‘word’ or ‘speech’. It therefore literally means something like: ‘say-word’ or ‘word-speech.’ It derives from a Chinese compound, meaning, speech and language (Read, 2015).
Koto ba is usually translated into English as ‘speech’, but refers more specifically to the notion or act of speech. Rather than referring to language as a structural system, it concerns its cultural and situational use. It is as such more deeply embedded in the context of speech, so that it concerns subtleties and nuances that are found in ideas, feelings, sensations, emotions, intentions, and so on, along with the manner of their expression (Talkpal AI, 2024). In contrast to the detached, abstract, and analytic nature of gengo, we might say that koto ba refers to language in a way that is more involved, concrete, and natural. We will see that it is more earthy, existential, and vernacular than the refined, propositional, or standardised understanding of language.
I once asked a Japanese friend what the word koto ba literally means, and in reply she told me that it says, ‘to utter leaves’ or ‘to speak petals’. I think you would agree that on account of its rather poetic sense, this is an enchanting word yet equally enigmatic. But I want to show that by exploring the full significance of koto ba as meaning to ‘utter leaves’ or ‘to speak petals’, we can gain a more fertile understanding of the creative process of language. Language is not just names or labels attached to things, rather it brings forth and reveals things as things. And in this regard, we will see how language itself is poetry in its most essential sense as poiēsis (making).
Fortunately, the philosopher Martin Heidegger was interested in the word koto ba, and it is in the context of his radical thinking on language that we can gain an insight into what the word is essentially telling us. Heidegger produced many lectures and essays on language, and there is one in particular titled, ‘A Dialogue on Language’ in which he specifically discusses koto ba. However, Heidegger is notoriously difficult to understand, and so those not familiar with his wider work are invariably left more confused than enlightened by reading this essay alone.
The essay, ‘A Dialogue on Language’ consists of a dialogue (real or otherwise) between Heidegger and Professor Tomio Tezuka of the Imperial University of Tokyo. Heidegger (1971b) seeks to show that the essential nature of language cannot be captured by conceptual rationality. In fact, Heidegger asserts that the essential nature of language flatly refuses to express itself in words. For Heidegger, the theories of linguistics scholars and philosophers of language merely speak conceptually about language, whereas Heidegger is wanting us to undergo an experience with language as language, and to hear language itself speak from out of language. Language (as Logos) precedes and shapes our thinking and communication. To listen to language speak, humans should not impose meaning onto language but instead listen to what language reveals on its own terms. This requires a hermeneutic dialogue that allows humans to first speak from out of language’s own speaking. Incidentally, this is why etymology is so important to Heidegger. When Heidegger refers to language speaking, he means much more than vocal utterance. An abiding view of language in the West from linguistics scholars and philosophers of language has persisted. This is that language is a sign-system (made up of sound and script) that merely represents and communicates human thoughts about things. And traditionally, this language is merely in service to truth (veritas) seen as an adaequatio. This adaequatio refers to the correctness, conformity, or equality between a thing and the intellect, in that the understanding must be ‘adequate’ to the thing known.
Seeking to avoid this metaphysical approach to language and truth, Heidegger asks Tezuka what is the Japanese word for language? After much hesitation, Tezuka eventually says it is, koto ba. When asked what this says, he replies: ‘… ba means leaves, including and especially the leaves of a blossom – petals. Think of cherry blossoms or plum blossoms’ (Heidegger, 1971a). He is then asked, what does koto say? But this is more difficult to answer. We can infer from Tezuka’s comments, that koto contains a sense of grace occurring as a lightening message that brings forth radiance and delight. In terms of referring to graciousness, it might be akin to the Greek charis and the Latin gratia. So koto ba says something along the lines of: ‘flower petals that flourish out of the lightening message of the graciousness that brings forth’ (Heidegger, 1971a). It is no surprise if you are none the wiser here. We therefore have to look further afield to other areas of Heidegger’s thinking on language to get a better sense of what koto ba means.
The English word ‘language’ refers in meaning to the mouth, lips, teeth, tongue and larynx through which we speak. It literally means ‘tongue’, but when referring to this we mean more than the fleshy organ in the mouth, and also have speech or diction in mind. Heidegger does not wish to belittle the vocal (or written) side of language in favour of the meaning and sense-content of what is said, which might be referred to as the spirit of language. As indicated above, he is questioning how both sides of this traditional architectonic structure of language have been understood. Discussing the physical element of language, he wonders if it is enough to think of the sound just as something created by the body, or does it have a deeper meaning? (Heidegger, 1971b). Here, Heidegger is indicating that the spoken word is more than a vocal sign that simply represents human subjectivity. And to explore the significance of this he refers to different manners of speaking in different sections of a country. By exploring regional vernacular, Heidegger shows that language is not just a universal, abstract system but something shaped by the land, community, and specific ways of life. This typically points to what we call ‘dialect’, as the way a specific region or social group talks with words, as well as to ‘accent’ as the way a country, area, or social class sounds with words. In Germany, Heidegger says these varying ways of speaking in different parts of the country are called Mundarten, or modes of the mouth. He writes:
Those differences do not solely nor primarily grow out of different movement patterns of the organs of speech. The landscape, and that means the earth, speaks in them, differently each time. But the mouth is not merely a kind of organ of the body understood as an organism – body and mouth are part of the earth’s flow and growth in which we mortals flourish, and from which we receive the soundness of our roots. If we lose the earth, of course, we also lose the roots (1971b).
We can see that, for Heidegger, our speaking is rooted in the earth from which it flourishes. The significance of this is that words are earthy, historical, and cultural, with roots going down to and growing from out of the soil of a people. They do not merely represent abstract concepts or propositions. It is for this reason that Heidegger, drawing from poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, calls language, ‘the flower of the mouth’ (Heidegger, 1971b). And we can see how this phrase closely resembles koto ba which means, ‘to utter leaves’ or ‘to speak petals.’
But to understand the significance of language as the flower of the mouth, we have to understand more fully what it is that language does when it speaks. And in order to do this, Heidegger finds the word ‘saying’ more apposite than ‘language.’ This is because ‘to say’ comes from the Old Norse, Saga, which means: to show, to make appear, to let be seen and heard, to set free (Heidegger, 1971d, 1993). Heidegger (1971d) writes:
Saying is showing. In everything that speaks to us, in everything that touches us by being spoken and spoken about, in everything that gives itself to us in speaking, or waits for us unspoken, but also in the speaking that we do ourselves, there prevails Showing which causes to appear what is present, and to fade from appearance what is absent. Saying is in no way the linguistic expression added to the phenomena after they have appeared – rather, all radiant appearance and all fading away is grounded in the showing of Saying.
Accordingly, Heidegger describes language as more than mere sound. Language is rooted in the earth, rising naturally, connecting with the world’s structure, harmony and meanings:
When the word is called the mouth’s flower and its blossom, we hear the sound of language rising like the earth. From whence? From Saying in which it comes to pass that World is made to appear … The sounding of the voice is then no longer only of the order of physical organs. It is released now from the perspective of the physiological-physical explanation in terms of purely phonetic data. The sound of language, its earthiness is held with the harmony that attunes the regions of the world’s structure, playing them in chorus (Heidegger, 1971b).
By ‘regions of the world’s structure’, Heidegger means the earth, sky, divinities, and mortals. For Heidegger, the significance of saying as showing is captured by the last line of a poem called ‘The Word’ by Stefan George, which says: ‘Where word breaks off no thing may be’ (Heidegger, 1971b). This line speaks of the fundamental relation between word and thing. But we are mistaken if we think that this relation is between a thing on one side and a word on the other. Rather, language is the very relation itself in that the word actively brings forth things as things. It is for this reason that in many of his works, Heidegger (1971e, 1993, 1971a, 1971b) calls language, the house of Being. This is because it is in language that humankind dwells or resides. Heidegger (1971e) writes:
It is because language is the house of Being, that we reach what is by constantly going through this house. When we go to the well, when we go through the woods, we are always already going through the word “well,” through the word “woods,” even if we do not speak the words and do not think of anything relating to language.
This means that language is attuned to and corresponds with Being per se, and that humankind’s primal relation to Being is through language. It is in language’s saying as showing that Being is revealed as this or that being. Heidegger calls this relation between Being and being the ontological difference:
Language alone brings what is, as something that is, into the Open for the first time. Where there is no language, as in the being of stone, plant, and animal, there is also no openness of what is, and consequently no openness of that which is not and of the empty. Language, by naming beings for the first time, first brings beings to word and to appearance. Only this nominates beings to their being from out of their being (Heidegger, 1971c).
Here then, we get a sense of the fundamentally creative nature of language. We get a glimpse of how language is the house of Being in which humankind dwells. With the showing of saying as its foundation, language provides the lasting framework and enduring structure through which things come to be as things (Richardson, 2012). Language, as the house of Being, shelters, safeguards, protects, keeps, and preserves Being on account of its revelatory speaking. It does so as the flower of the mouth rooted in the earth (Being) and that speaks petals (this or that being as a thing). It is for this reason that Heidegger sees language as poetry in its most essential sense as poiēsis (making). Language as poiēsis brings forth beings from out of Being. Language’s saying is a showing or letting-see that brings things from out of concealment into unconcealment. Thus, things are revealed and come to be as this or that being qua phenomena. And to repeat, such saying as showing is earthy, historical, and cultural, with roots going down to and growing from out of the soil of a people. Hence, Heidegger (1971c) asserts:
Projective saying is poetry: the saying of world and earth. … Actual language at any given moment is the happening of this saying, in which a people’s world historically arises for it and the earth is preserved as that which remains closed. … In such saying, the concepts of an historical people’s nature, i.e., of its belonging to world history, are formed for that folk, before it.
To conclude, language as the flower of the mouth that speaks petals provides a more fertile understanding of language. It illustrates how by having its roots in the historical landscape or cultural soil of a people, it creatively brings forth a particular world and allows it to flourish. If you lose the earth, you lose the roots, and if you lose the roots, you lose the flower. This discloses the more poetic significance of language, or what we might call the more naturally alive terms of synthesis (earth, root, flower) as the world’s structure. This contrasts with the scientifically orientated elements of analysis provided by linguistics that, working within a sterile quarantine, strips away the living, dynamic qualities of language in favour of a dead abstraction.
At a Glance:
Being = Language (Earth + Saying).
Being is the essence of reality. It is revealed through language that is rooted in the earth—in the cultural and historical foundations of society. This language reveals Being through the act of saying, which is not a simple act of labelling objects, but an act of showing and bringing forth.
© Journal of Creativity and Inspiration.
Duane Williams is an associate professor in theology, philosophy, and religious studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK. In addition to numerous articles, he has published two monographs on language, namely, The Linguistic Christ (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011) and Language and Being (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is chief editor of the peer-reviewed international journal, Medieval Mystical Theology, and co-facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion. He is a trustee of the Meister Eckhart Society and an honorary member of the Temenos Academy. His broad research and teaching interests include: mysticism, poetics, hermeneutics, aesthetics, existentialism, and phenomenology.
References
Heidegger, M. (1971 a) ‘A Dialogue on Language’. In: On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper and Row, 1-54).
Heidegger, M. (1971 b) ‘The Nature of Language’. In: On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper and Row, 57-108).
Heidegger, M. (1971 c) ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’. In: Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 17-87).
Heidegger, M. (1971 d) ‘The Way to Language’. In: On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper and Row, 111-136).
Heidegger, M. (1971 e) ‘What Are Poets For?’. In: Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 91-142).
Heidegger, M. (1993) ‘Letter on Humanism’. In: Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge, 214-265).
Heidegger, M. (1993) ‘The Way to Language’. In: Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell, (London: Routledge, 394-426).
Read, Z. (2015) gengo, define meaning. JLect: Japonic Languages and Dialects Database. Accessed 7 Sep 2024, from: https://www.jlect.com/entry/1119/gengo/
Richardson, J. (2012) Heidegger (London: Routledge).
Talkpal AI (2024) Language or Speech? Decoding Japanese Terms. Accessed 7 Sep 2024, from: https://talkpal.ai/vocabulary/%E8%A8%80%E8%91%89-vs-%E8%A8%80%E8%AA%9E-language-or-speech-decoding-japanese-terms/
Further reading
Heidegger, M. (1956) What is Philosophy? trans. J. Wilde and W. Kluback (New York: NCUP Inc).
Heidegger, M. (1971) ‘Language’. In: Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 189-210).
Heidegger, M. (1971) ‘The Thinker as Poet’. In: Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 4-14).
Heidegger, M. (2000) Elucidations of Hölderlin’s Poetry, trans. Keith Hoeller (Amherst, New York: Humanity Books).
Heidegger, M. (2000) Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. G. Fried and R. Polt (New Haven: Yale University Press).
