Language: The Currency of Thought

Language: The Currency of Thought

by Brent Antonson

Language is our most formidable tool. English, with its staggering 600,000-word vocabulary, sits at the top of this evolutionary tower. French has around 200,000 words; Latin once offered 55,000; Ancient Greek managed about 18,000; and Biblical Hebrew — the language of prophets — fewer than 10,000.

Yet here we are in 2025, each of us English-speakers armed with five times the total vocabulary of ancient Hebrew, convinced we’ve “out-thought” the ancients. We trade in words like currency, dazzling one another with our stockpile of syllables.

But abundance can be blinding.

The French language, rich in elegance but resistant to evolution, still insists computers are ordinateurs — “calculating machines.” Trains remain chemins de fer — “ways of fire.” It’s poetic, but heavy. The Académie Française guards the lexicon like a museum curator, keeping out linguistic graffiti. And so, the French-speaking world struggles to match the global firehose of English thought. There is no French LinkedIn, no homegrown ResearchGate. Even French scientists must publish in English to be heard.

Russian fares little better. With about 200,000 words, it’s dense and beautiful but opaque to the algorithms that rule the modern web. Russian programmers know that if they want their software to live, it must speak English first.

Half the internet runs on English — the lingua franca of science, technology, and irony. It’s the language of The Simpsons, Shakespeare, and source code. Every exchange — from a 7-11 counter to a legal contract — is a small miracle of shared understanding.

And yet, the Bible reminds us that truth doesn’t need size — it needs weight.
The Old Testament used under 10,000 words.
The New Testament, fewer than 20,000.
Every term carried cosmic gravity. Compare that to our sprawling English verbosity; we can debate for days because we have too many weapons to choose from.

Ancient languages didn’t ramble — they resonated.

“In the beginning was the Word.” — John 1:1
And that word had mass.

Translating those sacred texts through modern tongues is like trying to sculpt fog. Google Translate can get you across the river, but it can’t show you what was lost beneath the surface. Try conversing in Latin and half your message vanishes. Aramaic, the lost tongue of Jesus, had only about 700 words, used 7,000 times in the Bible — an entire cosmology built on the smallest set of building blocks imaginable.

We, in contrast, use maybe 10,000–20,000 words in daily life. That’s still enough to start wars, crash marriages, and order the wrong pizza. Small wonder misunderstandings multiply faster than vocabulary lists.

Occasionally, a word resurrects — neo-Marxism, woke, cancel — and the argument revives with it. Each old term returns wearing new clothes, reminding us that language itself never dies; it only changes allegiance.

But here’s the responsibility that comes with linguistic power: with so many words, there is no excuse for cruelty. Hate speech, lazy thinking, or deliberate provocation aren’t failures of language — they’re failures of respect. The goal isn’t censorship; it’s precision.

Language is the great interface — the bridge between sentient minds. The words we choose can unite or fracture civilizations. They can heal, clarify, or ignite.

So use them well.
Let your vocabulary serve truth, not vanity.
And remember — the only anger anyone should indulge is in traffic. That, too, is a language test: it reveals who you really are when all words run out.

“We should each keep our words within the confines of a matrix we support,
a past we can defend, and a future we can predict.” — Antonson

Example of Latin to English, and the costs:

Latin (original – Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta, 62 BCE):

“Haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris; pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.”

Literal English translation:

“These studies nourish youth, delight old age, adorn success, offer refuge and comfort in adversity, please us at home, do not hinder us abroad; they spend the night with us, travel with us, and go to the countryside with us.”

Now — what’s lost?

1. Tone: Cicero’s Latin has music — the symmetry of clauses, rhythm of vowels, the triadic cadence of “pernoctant... peregrinantur... rusticantur.” In English, that poetry dies into bullet points.
2. Wordplay: “Adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent” — perfugium (refuge) and solacium (solace) rhyme in meaning and sound. English can’t match that sonic coherence.
3. Scope: “Studia” doesn’t just mean “studies” — it carries love, devotion, and discipline. Translating it to “studies” is like calling Beethoven’s Ninth “a tune.”

So the reverse loss is just as profound: Latin’s economy of words held oceans of meaning — emotional, structural, and sonic — that English can’t compress without bleeding it dry.