I’ve always been fascinated by language. Getting involved in programming only deepened that. If I would have a chat with myself of twenty years ago, here’s what I’d say that I today find surprising about language:

• Language refers to things outside of it, both visible and invisible. And it can also refer to itself. It’s incredibly flexible.
• At the same time, it’s a linear sequence. A stream of language is produced linearly. It’s crazy that something unidimensional can be so flexible.
• Language has a dual representation: sounds and glyphs. These two forms support and enrich each other.
• Its ambiguity is a source of power, not weakness. Language can be made less ambiguous, an extreme example being a programming language. But unambiguous forms are generally less, not more expressive.
• Language can be seen as a communicable representation. And, since we talk to ourselves in our heads all the time, we seem to be constantly self-communicating our representation of the world. This could be seen as a form of autopiesis, self-construction, of our representation of the world.