Language and Speech (feat. LLM)

Language follows grammar,
but speech relies on convention.

Language describes states,
speech adds context and circumstance.
Language conveys purpose and direction,
speech asks for feeling and understanding.  

Language doesn’t exist unless it is written down or transmitted,
but speech can be guessed at and sensed even when not fully expressed.

Language can be written or read at any time,
but speech exists only in the flash of a single moment.
 

 
 


One could think the words a speaker says are in the end no different from language. Isn’t speech language, and language speech? Playing with words, you might say.
But if you really think about it, language is in fact one of the tools. As we know, humans make tools, and tools in turn domesticate humans. Like tools, languages also emerged in different places, shaped by need — so words and sentences across languages don’t form perfectly matching pairs with one another. There are only similar interpretations. Each language carries within it the common sense and culture specific to its region. And humans choose, based on the situation and conditions (if they’re able to), which language to use.
Speech is an act of communication between humans. Language, on the other hand — starting with the languages of different nations — includes all sorts of AI language models and also the interfaces of the very devices we can’t put down or take our eyes off, even at bedtime: smartphones and the like. They are all one kind of language. All of them exist as signs, and sometimes, as signs, they lose their own meaning.
 
 
 


Maybe, like Korean sign language and spoken Korean —

Sometimes
language is sign, grammar, the ideal,
speech is communication, expression, existence.
…and so on.





Just thought I’d note it.