Paulo Coehlo says the following through the main character in the Alchemist.
He is a shepard traveling in Northern Africa from Spain. He hears two conversing, one speaks Arabic and one Spanish and they understood one another perfectly well.
"There must be a language that doesn't depend on words," the boy thought.
There is. Behavior.
I have always held a place in my heart for this question. I have attempted to learn Spanish, French, Italian, Sawahili. But it doesn't catch it. I want to speak the language that Everyone understands. And I want to be as fluent in it as I am my own.
Behavior uses different mechanics. You don't get to plant a concept using just the exact words that insinuate just the right feeling, but then again when these words land it may not be as you intended anyway. People bring their own experiences, their own feelings to the words you say. So, it's possible, even with careful delivery, you'll never be fully understood as you intended.
And then there is behavior. At the outset to me, it seems brute in comparison to the poetry of words. I'll push if I don't want it, take if I do want it. But what about dance? Dance is a series of movements that convey feeling. What about a 12 year old boy in a wheel chair, cognitively delayed with no words, who pulls his cousin in for a hug spontaneously. Behavior can be poetry, and it can be in response to the most subtle of cues that only the behaver has picked up on. Let me learn and communicate in this language as adeptly as I do my first language.
