Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/158

150 "silent graphic signs". He is thinking, as he puts it, of the "elementary particles of language—the sounds of the alphabet", and of the theory, developed by him, that "the first sound of a word is like the President of a society, directing all the multiplicity of the word's sounds.“ It is clear that, for all his theoretical talk of a "silent" and "written" language, Khlebnikov is actually still haunted by his old and central obsession With a universal language of pure sounds.

In his 1915-1916 "propositions", Khlebnikov presented his "universal language" as a "language of numbers". After describing his proposal to assign numbers to all the world's thoughts, he writes:

That is the first international language.

It seems here, however, that Khlebnikov is being a little ironical. The reduction of language to such a hum~drum, official "rational" form—~a form deprived of sound—content and used only to communicate abstract concepts~—was something which Khlebnikov deplored, and which he saw as far too characteristic of language already. Of his "language of numbers" idea, Khlebnikov writes


 * It has already been partially introduced in law—codes.

He was referring to the procedures of case—law, where already it was possible to refer to a mass of legal precedents and "thoughts" without going through them all, simply referring to the cases in question. Khlebnikov thought that this ultra-"rational“ use of language might as well be carried to its ultimate absurdity: assign numbers to all the world's thoughts, and to the great speeches made by Cicero, Cato and others in the past, and, forgetting about language, just hold up boards with the relevant numbers on them. This would ease the ears and save a lot of effort:


 * Languages will remain for art and become free of their offensive burden. The ear is tired.