A Note on Languages

Traps, and a Possible Bridge

Diary page — the day I started noticing how words can be made to bend people.

While thinking about languages, I realized something simple and heavy: we probably need a kind of joining language — a bridge language — something universal enough to connect without turning into chaos.

For a long time I assumed that bridge was English. But lately I’ve felt how easily a language can be sharpened and used for manipulation — not only by people, but by the way meanings are allowed to slide in text.

The little traps I started noticing

Is it a soldier wearing camouflage… or someone soldering a board full of microchips?
Is it iron — the metal in the ground and furnaces… or ironing clothes to look “presentable,” like a role someone is forced into?
Is it steel — strong, polished, and forged under pressure… or stealing — taking what someone else built, bought, carried, or needed to survive?
And is it a liar… or a lawyer — someone who knows how to dress a lie in formal words until it starts looking legal?

Similar sounds. Different realities. And sometimes people can use that resemblance deliberately.

The same traps disappear in Lithuanian

In Lithuanian, these particular English echoes separate completely. The words do not look the same, do not sound the same, and do not carry the same visual image in the mind.

Soldier → kareivis / karys
Soldering → litavimas
Iron → geležis
Ironing → lyginimas
Steel → plienas
Stealing → vogimas
Liar → melagis
Lawyer → advokatas / teisininkas

Different image. Different sound. Different written form. The confusion that exists in English simply does not appear in the same way here.

But Lithuanian has its own little traps

Does that mean there is nothing in Lithuanian that might make me hesitate before choosing it as a bridge language?

Well, sadly, after thinking about it a little longer, I found similar things here too.

But to me, there is an important difference. These associations often seem less deeply integrated into the meaning itself, and more dependent on how someone chooses to use the words. If someone wants to hurt another person through language, even a familiar, innocent word can be given a cruel edge — sometimes so subtly that the listener barely knows why it hurts.

Mėlynės — blueberries, or bruises

Take a lovely example. A girl might ask, “Would you like some blueberries? Mėlynių?”

In Lithuanian, mėlynės can mean both blueberries and bruises — including the marks someone might receive from being beaten. An ordinary, caring offer suddenly has another possible echo. Of course, that does not make the offer threatening. When people care for one another, it can simply be a little reminder to be gentle, respectful, and kind.

Pašalpa — help, or the echo of mockery

Then there is pašalpa — financial assistance, such as an unemployment income — and the strangely similar pašaipa, meaning mockery.

Imagine someone who has lost work, been robbed, or fallen into hardship. They need support so that they can stand up again, recover, and return to life. Yet the very word for that support can echo the feeling of being mocked.

I find this especially painful when help from public institutions feels humiliating instead of humane. I cannot tell from a resemblance between words whether anyone intended it. But when someone seeking assistance is actually treated with contempt, the harm is real — and the wordplay can make that experience feel even more bitter.

Sometimes people who have already been hurt struggle to ask for help. If they are mocked again when they finally try, it can push them away from trust and kindness, into a harsher, more defensive way of living. That is a terrible thing for a society to cultivate.

And there are more examples. I am still noticing them.

Perhaps that is what saddens me most: the words themselves are not always the trap.

In English, a single word can carry several different meanings, sometimes with painful associations connected to harm. Such ambiguities can feel as though they are already woven into the language itself.

But in Lithuanian, at least in the cases I have noticed, there is often a choice. The same idea can be expressed using different words. For example, instead of pašalpa (welfare benefit), one could use parama (support), bedarbio pajamos (unemployed income), saugumo tinklas (safety net), pagalba (help), or išmoka (payment or benefit), depending on the context.

So sometimes the trap lies not in the word itself, but in a institution choice — which word to use and what underlying meaning to give it. Someone can choose a word that hurts repeated over deckades, humiliates, or carries unpleasant associations, even when other words could express the same idea while preserving respect and kindness.

And perhaps that makes it even sadder. When there is an opportunity to choose kindness, sometimes mockery is deliberately chosen instead.

So sometimes the trap is a choice. Deliberate choice — to turn a possible double meaning into a harm when it could just as easily be left harmless, or even made kind.

After noticing these patterns, part of me wanted to throw the whole thought into the bin and walk away. But this is the language I use most. We have what we have, and we still have to speak: naming things, asking for help, defending ourselves, building friendships, building futures.

Then I started thinking about other languages and noticed something else: some languages (or at least some ways of using them) feel like they’re built partly to defend against outsiders — like a wall made of grammar, slang, and hidden meanings. It’s clever… and also a little tragic when what we need most is connection.

The sadness behind “defensive” languages

When I realized that some languages are shaped mainly to defend against other languages, I didn’t feel angry — I felt sad. Because a language doesn’t only protect borders; it also forms the people inside it.

It shapes the body in small invisible ways: how the throat moves, how the jaw rests, how breath becomes rhythm. The vibration changes — and with it the emotional tone of speaking, the tempo of thought, the default shape of attention.

Over time it can even reshape the felt reality of a place: what feels normal to say, what feels risky to say, and what never becomes sayable at all. A defensive language can become a defensive life.

(This is a personal observation — metaphor and pattern recognition — not a scientific claim.)

So what do we choose?

I love how Chinese and Korean look. Even when I don’t know a word, I can feel the design — the logic — the way the system holds itself together.

And still, the first language I reached for was Japanese. It’s beautiful. Multiple scripts — like different instruments playing in one orchestra.

But I know this is also personal desire: the wish to connect, to learn something beautiful, to open a new door in my mind. That isn’t the same as a universal bridge. A bridge language shouldn’t belong to one tribe emotionally — it should feel like open ground, like public air.

And then… I thought about Lithuanian

Lithuanian is complex in a wild way — but also flexible. We can create words and meanings on the fly and people still catch the point. The alphabet is straightforward, the pronunciation is surprisingly clean, and the language can carry a lot of information without collapsing.

Sometimes you can encode a whole idea — even a whole country and what it stands for — into a single name. And honestly… I love how it sounds. I love hearing it.

There’s also a strange rumor I can’t forget: I once saw someone claim they could “read Lithuanian” in the pyramids — not literally the same letters, but a familiar logic wearing different symbols. I don’t know what to believe about that, and I’m not trying to sell it as truth. But the idea itself sticks to the mind.

For now, I’m keeping my mind open. I’m watching words more carefully. And I’m still looking for a language that connects people without quietly turning into a leash.

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