Can we invent a language alone?
Self-Portrait 26.114, 2026
Language is a way of breaking the ice that separates two beating hearts.
This sentence came to me when I discovered a story told by Herodotus nearly 2,500 years ago.
Pharaoh Psamtik I is said to have had two infants raised without anyone ever speaking to them, hoping to discover which language would spontaneously emerge.
Behind this cruel experiment lies a question: do we need others to invent a language?
Every human society has developed languages made of words.
Until now, writers were the most skilled at working with them. They knew how to find them, make them shine, and thread them onto imaginary strings to weave sentences, novels, poems, songs, scripts…
They now face a new competitor: artificial intelligence.
With large language models, something of the magic of words evaporates. At least to my eyes.
They become what they have always been: signs.
Old, pre-coloured beads, quietly waiting for a human, or an AI, to play with them.
And above all, they do not contain what they describe.
The word “fear” does not tremble.
The word “love” loves no one.
The word “pain” has never hurt.
Perhaps that is why, when I was young, I wanted nothing to do with them.
Things are better now, but I still struggle to connect them to my emotions.
I have often used words mechanically, without feeling that they truly expressed what I was experiencing.
And one day, I needed to invent another language.
Unlike the pharaoh's experiment, I was not trying to communicate.
I needed to release the energy trapped inside me.
I needed another vehicle.
I chose the line.
From it, I developed a grammar: a set of rules to guide my hand while leaving room for intuition and the unexpected.
Self-Portrait 11.11, 2011
With each drawing, the language grew more complex.
And through repeated practice, I discovered something I had not anticipated:
A language creates its own reality.
It opens up possibilities, but also draws boundaries. It determines what can emerge within its structure, until its rules begin to evolve in turn.
Marshall McLuhan showed something comparable with media: a new medium does not simply carry what we say. It also transforms the way we perceive, act, and relate to the world.
The Internet has considerably expanded our reality. Words are still there, but they now coexist with images and sounds in new forms of expression.
And yet, at the very moment I am writing this text, I am still a prisoner of words.
Pinned against the wall of a reality they help create, partial and rudimentary.
That is the paradox.
I invented a language to express what I could not put into words. But that language led me towards forms, relationships and narratives I had never imagined.
I invented it alone, without trying to be understood.
Today, I am trying to share its grammar so that others can learn to read it, without imposing a single interpretation.
Perhaps a language can be born in solitude, but takes on another dimension when it becomes something we can share.
As for artificial intelligence, its ability to manipulate words, establish connections and generate knowledge can certainly expand what is possible for us.
But that does not replace the experience of living through it.
And what if, by entrusting some of our tasks to it, we could regain something more precious?
Time.
Time to invent other languages.
Other ways of perceiving.
Other realities.