Words

Okay, so I'm striking out on a kind of philological bent with this post, but bear with me.

The words we talked about in class on Tuesday, univocal and polyphony, say alot about their relation to orality and literacy from their etymologies. Univocal comes from uni-, one, and voc-, voice. It refers to a single utterance, where in the utterance is a voice.

Polyphonal, on the other hand, comes from poly- meaning many, and phone, which means sound (as in a linguistic phoneme). Polyphony then is multiple sounds, not just multiple voices. It is far broader than the simple definition would apply.

This is interesting in though and depending on how much you buy into the theory that words and language structure your thoughts it could change the way you speak.