Jungle Book 2: Power of language

While reading these stories, it becomes apparent how unique Mowgli is to both man and animals. It is obvious that he has characteristics that qualify him in each society, but it proves difficult to distinguish whether he is more man or more animal. In "The King's Ankus", he shows both qualities in his interactions with Kaa, especially when they wrestle. Kaa "played carefully, and never loosed one-tenth of his power. Ever since Mowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough handling, Kaa had taught him this game, and it suppled his limbs as nothing else could" (236). The fact that Mowgli can learn from Kaa shows his unique ability to understand animals as a part of their society. Even the beginning of the story shows his acceptance into the culture because "Kaa never made fun of Mowgi any more, but accepted him, as the other Jungle People did" (235).

Animals wrestling [1]

A major contributing factor to his inclusion as a Jungle Person was his ability to communicate to many of the animals. Mowgli continually has dialogue with wolves, snakes, bears and tigers. The power of language is prevalent in these stories as Mowgli is the only character that can communicate to both animals and humans. This can be seen in "Tiger-Tiger" when it is stated that "It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. So, as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut" (50). Here, Mowgli understands the usefulness of language and quickly learns how to communicate with village people other than the simple gestures he uses in the beginning of the story to show he is hungry. In this sense, it is easy to see the differences between man and animal independent of their actions. The depiciton of what qualifies each as animalistic and human is a completely different story based on actions, but for language it is clear. And for Mowgli, his ability to bridge both barriers shows his inclusion in each realm.

Mowgli's got some power[2]

I have a friend that works at the Rosetta Stone stands in the mall, and it's basically the same concept. By equipping ourselves with knowledge to speak other languages, we are giving ourselves power to be a part of their culture and society. She's been trying to convince me to purchase a language by discussing the opportunity cost in doing so. The price of $500 to learn a language is a bargain if you think about how valuable it would be to talk fluently to my grandparents in the only language they speak, Tagalog. Improving my power for a lifetime is priceless, and proves true for Mowgli. Here is the Top 10 Reasons to Learn a Language taken from the Rosetta Stone website.

Even in the Philippines, there are several languages with the 2 main ones having unique differences that create language barriers. The following video shows how these barriers create problems and very strong opinions about language and culture associated with that.



Language Barriers in the Philippines[3]

[1] http://www.verona8.it/images/Lupetti/disegni%20da%20colorare/mowgli%20e%20kaa.gif
[2] http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://shop.advanceweb.com/images/products/2008/SP/SP_casual_logowear/shirts_tops/07460_LanguagePowerTee_SP/07460_LanguagePowerTee_SP_ac1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://shop.advanceweb.com/casual-logo-wear/shirts-tops/7460-womens-language-is-power-speech-language-pathology-slp-short-sleeve-tshirt.aspx&usg=__lafGu4oTnNE9-LZpTkbz67wZF3U=&h=279&w=279&sz=67&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=Hdx2QnQnP0wh9M:&tbnh=114&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlanguage%2Bpower%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbnNAJ7FQz0