Etel Adnan

The place from which one migrates in a way becomes a ghost: the ghost of the person you once were in the place you left. There are necessary adjustments when migrating; your physicality and your language are compromised, leaving your previous language to live as a ghost.

@futurists how can one be so eager to forget the past when the past is our means to proceed to the future? Forgetting the past is forgetting the ghosts is forgetting the language is forgetting the culture—how do you expect us to rebuild off of that?

Language gets left behind as time progresses and as culture changes, much like memories left behind. Some people believe memories create ghosts, so with a lack of memory, ghosts—and languages—fade away.

Migration is common theme between both language and ghosts. Much like a ghost can, languages can exist in the mind and therefore cultivate a following if articulated.

A spirit can go simultaneously in many directions, and so can the aspects of language which allow both to also be present in multiple time periods. Both exist in the past and have the potential to be reinvented in the future.

The common denominator between ghosts and language is that neither exist in the physical plane.