Visual Morphemes
Dwight L. Bolinger · Language · 1946
The fact that most writing is the graphic representation of vocal-auditory processes tends to obscure the fact that writing can exist as a series of morphemes at its own level, independent of or interacting with the more fundamental (or at least more primitive) vocal-auditory morphemes. Recognition of visual morphemes is also hampered by the controversy, not yet subsided, over the primacy of the spoken versus the written; the victory of those who sensibly insist upon language as fundamentally a vocal-auditory process has been so hard won that any concession to writing savors of retreat. Yet, so long as a point-to-point correspondence is maintained, it is theoretically possible to transform any series of morphemes from any sensory field into any other sensory field, and keep them comprehensible; the only condition is that contact with the nervous system be maintained at some point. More than theoretically: it is actually done for the congenitally deaf-and-dumb reader of Braille, who ‘reads’ and ‘comprehends’ with his finger-tips. Just as here is a system of tactile morphemes existing with no connexion (other than historical) with the vocal-auditory field, so there is nothing unscientific in the assumption that a similarly independent visual series may be found.