The words we won't know

As I said here, I am an enthusiast of Marginalia , this possibility of taking a physical book and making notes and drawings, marking pages, highlighting, etc., something that digital readers, even if they have resources that seek to fulfill some of these functions, do not seem to fully replace. I've always been very attached to paper books, but the fact is that, for a year and a half now, I've become a Kindle reader, with all its advantages and disadvantages.

One of these days, while reading a book, I came across many words that I didn't know, and, as I read on Kindle, I was able to enjoy a feature unavailable in paper books, the automatic search for the meanings of words. Just click on the word in question and its definition is displayed. From time to time it is not possible to find some meanings, but, in general, it is a real handy, as it avoids interruptions in reading to put the words in Google search, for example. As if this wonder were not enough, I recently discovered that there is, on the Kindle, a tool called "Vocabulary Builder", which brings together all the word searches you have ever done. Ago Flashcards of each one, showing the sentence in which the word was, as well as the book from which it was taken and also the possibility of "Mark as learned" each one of them.

I was impressed with this tool. As a lover of dictionaries, I felt that she fulfills a dream of mine, of precisely making a kind of private dictionary with the words I am learning. I remember that this was the proposal of a teacher in the old years when I took English classes; have a notebook to write down all the new words, their definitions and examples of use. Along with the possibility of reading in the dark, there is, in my opinion, one of the great advantages of reading on the Kindle.

Speaking different languages is a privilege that often presents us with words for which we often find no equivalents in our language. It is when we mix languages, or automatically think of a foreign word to try to say about some very peculiar feeling or sensation for which a certain language has a perfect definition. Foreign words that become familiar and that if we try to translate, we may need many words, which already makes the task fail.

In Another Post , I talked about how reading and writing are activities linked to our attempt to account for the complexity of life and about how language can allow us to do this, but also to impose certain limits. We twist and twist words in an effort to say what they often don't seem to achieve. Coming across so many new words, not in another language, but in my own native language, made me think about these limits, made me think about the words that I don't know and that perhaps could account for so many things that I feel, do or think and that I don't know how to name.

I think, then, about the books I won't read, the words I won't know. I think of the Tower of Babel, I think that if we all spoke the same language, perhaps there would be no limits to our achievements. However, if on the one hand, it may sound imprisoning or frightening to come across the limits of language, the fact that we will not be able to know everything and that much will always escape us; On the other hand, I think that perhaps it is precisely the limits and losses that propel us to the most fabulous achievements.