064 - Linguistic Void

Unnatural Phenomenon: Linguistic Void

Language is a rough beast. Fashioned by repetitive usage, sudden adoption and subject to the will of no individual, it whips us like mules with symbols and associations that appeal to our greatest drives and fears. The strong and weak linguistic determinism described by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (itself a misnomer that conjures false ideas about its origin) invisibly trimming us into our resultant identities. Without the words to express something we can’t imagine it exists, the Himba tribe of Nambia struggle to tell green from blue for this very reason (as English speakers comparatively grapple with distinguishing between shades of green).

The gaps in our language form vacuums of negative space which writhe with every utterance. This movement and pressure creates an ecosystem where evolution runs adjacent to culture but the things in it have more in common with neural networks than any living creature. The Linguistic Void is more than a concept, it is a hungry otherworldly presence in the hollowed reflection of our symbols. It eats language. It is no entity or ritual, although parts of it have taken the form of both (notably the Roman Senate’s terrorism with the practice of damnatio memoriae, you can’t hear about the people it actually worked on). Shaman avatars whisper of a twisting, alien hellscape which speaks to them in forgotten symbols that slip greasily from the conscious mind. Angela Demoss has visited it twice - once to retrieve something lost and a second time to keep someone from discarding something, both times she failed.

Some view it as necessary. Without autophagy living things would quickly succumb to cellular wastes and cancers, so why not words? Some try to fight it, frantically creating new terms and dredging up lost verbiage, but other words fall out of usage just as quickly as change fuels the cycle. The behemoth carcasses of entire ancient languages laying bleached under an ozymandian sun are a testament to inevitability. Living words are finite and the dead will always outnumber the living.

The Linguistic Void is a more force than entity, it occupies the statosphere in a place adjacent to the Invisible Clergy. It is a side-effect of our symbolic metabolism and will exist as long as we use and replace them, before words took prime place it was gesture, dancing and art. It will continue to grow as the number of those words once used but now inevitably forgotten becomes larger. Theories of its origin range from a leftover remnant of a previous universe, an early archetype who fell before the House of Renunciation was active or even the brain of an ancient adept turned into an otherspace out of vengeance towards the shared communication that stole their tribal authority.

Altering the Linguistic Void and its contents is either a weighty (if the effect is localised or small) or cosmic (if the effect is widespread or significant) objective. The fallout from forcibly altering language this way is unpredictable. GMs are encouraged to provide unintended consequences for even the most carefully considered application.