Gods of the Word: Archetypes in the Consonants

Gods of the Word is a rare, beautiful and poetic work of revolutionary science. If Freud was the first to listen to his patients, Margaret Magnus is the first to listen to words and what they are saying to us. Anyone involved with language -- reading, speaking, listening, writing, understanding -- will never see their medium in quite the same way again, and will be richer for the experience of reading this book.
For they will have discovered the underlying phonosemantic structure of inherent meaning in the arbitrary connections between the signifiers and signifieds of their language.
In psychoanalysis and intellectual history, the selected fact is ignored until the anxiety it provokes can be tolerated, and insight (new paradigm) achieved. 2400 years ago, Socrates said in Cratylus that sounds and words are imitations of the essence of their referents. It seems no one got around to testing this theory until Margaret Magnus.
In this book you will learn that monomorphemic (single-syllable) words tend to reduce to a relatively small number of meaning groups (concepts), defined by their phonemes (sounds), and tend to cluster in related groups of meanings. Each phoneme has its own underlying related concepts (or pre-conceptions) which cluster and are different in meaning and direction from other phonemes. The inherent meanings of phonemes interact with the more arbitrary connections between words and what they mean (reference). Inherent phoneme meaning varies between languages but often points to the same underlying concepts.
These are the subterranean "Gods of the Word" that speak through us.
This book is both scientific and spiritual. It offers a testable hypothesis about material reality (provable at home in three hours or less) that calls into question basic assumptions about language, meaning and communication that have been scientific (academic) dogma since de Saussure and responsible for both the shaping and subject of much of twentieth century "discourse." It is spiritual because it points to a realm beyond the arbitrary connections of material reality, to an underlying world of inherent meaning, where sounds and letters and words have essential, formative and poetic capabilies.
The ultimate value of Gods of the Word lies in its capacity to link these two worlds and viewpoints by showing their intimate connections in language. It should open doors in a number of directions.

Magnus eloquently shares the findings of her research in sound symbolism. Contrary to popular assumtion, the assertion is not so much that the phonemes of a word create its denotation; but that the connotative difference between two synonyms is accounted for by the assotiative sound qualities of the phonemes of the respective words.

This small, lovely book is for people who love words, books, a turn of phrase; folks whose hearts can resonate with the throb of a well-crafted poem. Its design- look, feel, and sound- is elegance itself. If you are the sort of person who is happiest when submerged in words, this book is a salve to the heart, an inspiration to the mind, and a confirmation to the spirit, which always Knew there was something more to words than the dry bones they taught you about in school.

This book gets into sound symbolism. She points out that certain strings of consonants mean related things, when they occur in words. Now she works mainly with English, which is ok. The book is itself fascinating, as far as it goes, however it is only a beginning. I wish she had taken it further. Language is powerful, and seeing it broken down this way is just very interesting. The Visionary: Entering the Mystic Universe of Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), and another book by Joseph Rael, get into sound symbolism also, especially as it relates to the Medicine Wheel.

Her ideas about how meaning works may be a bit off the beaten path but she makes IMHO a very convincing case.

This is exciting stuff ... for a linguist or lay linguist like me.