The existential condition we refer to as human being (technically,homo-sapiens) is UNIQUE in the realm of beings in more than one sense. For example, unlike the other creatures, humans can smile, can cook food, can lie, prefer to burry their dead or burn them, and can romance without making love. Even dogmatic evolutionists would agree that the evolution gap between Man and monkey is qualitatively different from that between the sparrow and the girraffe. A clue to understanding how Man comes to be PRIMORDIALLY different from sea weeds, apple trees, amoeba, gnats and camels, is to reflect upon the meaning of the existenceof Man compared with that of those lower-order entities. Unlike these entities, Man does not only exist but also BECOMES. My body, for example, is the total sum of all the natural things I have assimilated ever since I came to life. My knowledge, to give a second example, is the total sum of all the things I have been able to absorb and then reconstruct mentally. Because we are HUMAN, we GROW, a cover term I use for maturating, expanding, invading, extending and the many other things men do to BECOME everything they are NOT. The primordial difference between Man and the other forms of existence is that only Man is a BEING. A stone, to give an extreme example, is a closed existence which is identical with nothing BUT itself. A stone WILL EXIST but cannot expect, anticipate, long for how she will probably exist. Man, on the other hand, does not only exist; rather, he IS. He is BEING not just existence. The future of Man is not a mere upcoming series of events but a HOPE. Man being BEING, rather than existence, explains why an individual as well as a community must have an IDENTITY. Identity is BEING the shape our BEING takes when we BECOME. Identity, therefore, is both BEING and the shape our BEING takes when we BECOME the world. The word IDENTITY in English,IDENTITE in FRench, and Alhouwiyya in Arabic involve one serious inadequacy if we intend the form of the term to reveal what we use it for.One of the strong points in the Amazigh language is that the word for identity in it, TAMAGIT, may also mean BEING since the root -ga means TO BE (iga; tga; nga; gigh; etc). Identity is the mode of BEING THE WORLD. Our TAMAGIT is `` who we are`` (the shape our BEING takes) and the process of BEING this shape (the process of becoming who we are). For more clarification, compare the root -lla (illa; tlla; nlla; lligh; etc.) with the root -ga. The former is used for being somewhere (the locative use: lligh gh tigmmi) or for existence in the absolute sense (the existential use: rrbbi ayllan) . In contrast, the latter, -ga, is for Being something. The former is closed existence; the latter is open existence; the former is a predicate; the latter isan existential link relating the theme (or a subject) with a rheme (or a predicate). One of the wonderful usages of -iga in the Amazigh language is the possibility of focalizing the object of BEING (what we BECOME, the identity we acquire, etc.) of this verbal root, which sets the subject as UNIQUE with respect to the focalized feature. For example, unlike in all the languages I know, the object of -iga (= the object of BEING)can be focalized : Amazigh ad gigh. In English, on the other hand, you cannot say: it is an amazigh that i am. TAMAGIT, therefore, is not just the quality of being who you are. It is also the dynamic of becoming who you are.
Posted on: Sat, 03 May 2014 15:35:48 +0000
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