WEBVTT

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The tongue is the most powerful
organ of our body.

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Not only because it has 17 muscles,
but for all the things that it can do.

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With your tongue
you can make them fall in love,

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you can convince,

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you can humiliate,

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you can heal

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and even bring somebody down.

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Once, when my son was 5,pp

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he got mad at me because I told him off.

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It was Father's Day and he said:

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"You know what? Happy NOTHING's Day."

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(Laughter)

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He tore me up.

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He was tall as my knee
and he brought me down,

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like David to Goliath.

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Just with his tongue.

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On the other hand, a friend of mine

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used to sell rings
and earrings in the bars of Palermo.

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He is of those "smart talkers"
who can make easy compliments.

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He'd go from one table to another

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and girls tried the rings,
and maybe one of them would say:

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"How do I look with this earrings?"

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And he'd look at her and say:

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"You're something else."

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(Laughter)

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Truth is maybe the rings
and the earrings weren't so nice

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but what was worth
there were my friend's words.

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I mean, language has a really
strong persuasive power.

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However, sometimes it seems like we make
all we can to take away that strength.

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Some time ago

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I used to dictate
writing courses for professionals.

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And the biggest mistake that I noticed

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was the use of the language in autopilot.

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What is this?

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It is when somebody starts to specialize

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in a certain field and starts to use

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some kind of vocabulary,
like an almost personal language.

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And when they communicate with somebody

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who is not that much
into the subject, they fail.

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I remember once I had an allergy
and I went to the doctor

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and they tell me:

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"I'm going to prescribe you a cream,

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you will apply it on the pruritic area."

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"What is the pruritic area?"

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"The place that itches!"

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Well, he should have said
that from the beginning.

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That is communication.

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I don't want to know where the people
who didn't ask applied the cream.

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So, when the doctor speaks as a doctor,
a lawyer speaks as a lawyer,

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the computer technician speaks
as a computer technician,

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and they try to communicate
with each other, they can't.

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They need some kind of translator
to help them understand each other.

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It's very important to try
to adapt the message,

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to make the language fit
so the other understands me.

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And this capacity language has
of adapting and transforming

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is one of the secrets of its strength.

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Think that we speak Spanish,

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which actually derives
from spoken Latin, right?

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Roman Empire disseminates all its power,

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distributes that spoken Latin
they used to trade,

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and also to dominate I guess,
and to legislate,

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and in the 3rd century,
Romans' Wi-Fi failed,

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the Empire falls, the roads are blocked,

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but that daily used Latin
remains and in each isolated province

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people start to speak Latin
in a particular way.

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As they didn't need to communicate,

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or they couldn't, with the other
provinces, in each place Latin derives

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in a specific direction, mixed up
with the conquered tongues.

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That's how Italian, French,
Portuguese, Spanish are formed.

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I mean, we speak a slang Latin.

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A "fierita" Latin.

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What happened?

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It started to transform

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like some kind of mutant virus
through the ages

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that spoken Latin changed
from generation to generation,

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adapting to the new needs

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and we ended in this Spanish
that keeps transforming,

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because language transforms constantly.

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I'll give you an example.

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In my writing workshop,

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sometimes I tell the participants:

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"Be careful with this part of the text,

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the "needle kind of jumps out"
in that part of the text.

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And now, people in their 20s
look at me and say:

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"What does "the needle jumps out" mean?"

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(Laughter)

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Unless they are retro
and they like vinyls.

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And if you update that and you say:
"The CD jumps in that part."

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That will last for some time now,
but CDs are getting out of use.

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I end up saying:

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"Watch out, in that part
the text kind of makes some noise."

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That still works.

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Or the expression
"their Wi-Fi fails to connect",

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it will be understood for some years
until something else comes

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and people don't know anymore
what Wi-Fi is.

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So this capacity of the language,

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of being all the time adapting
in order to shine,

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or to call our attention,

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to make us laugh,

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to let us keep insulting each other
as we always do,

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to keep falling in love,

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it's like the language
sharpens all the time.

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It gets renewed.

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We live inside our language,

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it's hard to see how much
are we made of our language,

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because we grew up inside a language
and that language grows inside us.

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And we can only see how much
we are made of that language

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with people that has some kind
of neurological disease

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like aphasia.

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Aphasia is the loss of language.

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When the aphasia is gradual,

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we notice that the person's dictionary
gets deleted little by little.

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So, at first,

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they want to say something
but they don't remember the word,

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"Pass me the..."

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Later, they won't know
what they want to say

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because their inner dictionary
is being deleted,

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the internal language
structures are being erased.

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And that causes a gradual absence,
they become absent.

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They start to be like lost to themselves,

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because they can't think themselves.

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Language is a way we have to be in time.

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For example, I know that today I am here,

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yesterday I did some things,
tomorrow I will do other things.

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I can think myself

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and language helps me to do that,

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it's like a big GPS that guides me

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through all my emotions and memories.

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And you have your whole life inside you.

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There is a verse at the end of a poem
by Dylan Thomas that says:

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"The ball I threw
while playing in the park

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has not yet reached the ground."

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There is childhood floating there.

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Or he hit it so hard
and the ball stayed in a roof,

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or he tries to say that,

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that your childhood is still happening,

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the child you were is still with you.

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You are all your life put together,

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your whole life is with you.

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The little child, the teenager you were,

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the one you are,

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the one you want to be
or you are afraid to be.

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Accumulated time, that's what we are.

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And the thing that let us
sense that is the language.

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Now.

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Something really important

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that I believe is the way we...

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Well, let's see.

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I'll tell you something.

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Why do I know this?

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I talk about aphasia.

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It happened to my mom.

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And her illness made me
notice that language

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is something you can't take for granted.

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Language is a gift

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that we have to make real,
apply it, enjoy it, take care of it.

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Excercise it.

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And think that we are all the time
crossed by speeches of others.

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I mean, TV, education, family,

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all the time they are trying to tell you

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what you should think

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and the only way to know
what you do think is by saying it.

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What would you say about that?

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Because if you don't speak,

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there's a risk that somebody
will speak for you.

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And to say your version of things,
you don't have to be a writer.

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You can do it talking to other people,

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writing a journal that nobody will see.

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You can write a blog,
or have a twitter account, whatever.

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The important thing is that it is yours.

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All our brain energy can be there,
in the tip of our tongue.

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We can use the language as a weapon

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or we can use it

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like a hand that goes through the dark

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to reach out to someone, to communicate.

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Each of us has to discover

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our own verbal power.

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Nobody can do that for you.

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Like a Jedi Master would say:

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"May the force of language be with you".

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)