Dead Letters

I envision Ned Maddrell’s last days with fear. I make an image of him—chiefly a craggy face and absurdly bushy white eyebrows that move independent of each other, because don’t all old Anglo men look like that? And a birthmark on his right cheek. Now he is as different as his circumstance.

When he dies, say a month later, the ancient Manx language becomes the extinct Manx language. Not all that many spoke it in the years prior to Mr. Maddrell’s final time—Sage Winvig is said to be the last that could have spoken with him in their tongue—but surely there were some. Once he dies, no one is left to speak it, at least in a frequency that the living can hear. Some will speak it once he's gone, but that doesn't change how life became for Mr. Maddrell, when his tongue became inert.

In between his community and his death, he is a human alone with his language. How incredibly unnatural; we are not wired to possess a language in this way. Marie Smith Jones, Ka'chi Lobo Golden, Tefvic Escenc, Dolly Pentreath, Laura Somersal, Sindick Jimmy, and Red Thunder are, with Mr. Maddrell, among the distinct few: to have a unique voice in a world of broken ears.

Those first days after Ms. Winvig's funeral must be quiet, as the very practical matter of an uninterpreable predicate occurs. With two or more speakers, subjects can act. When the language dies, the subject ceases to be. But the brutal in between, the predicate tells about the subject in a void. The actor is out of work despite a wonderful script, or she has her greatest performance in a barren theater.

I see him in front of me, speaking something organized and real, yet completely unknown; imagine a plant interacting with carbon dioxide as someone walks past thinking about the weather. He looks lost. Does he call to his wife, or Ms. Winvig? Those days must be past—perhaps he calls out to the bartender from his town, or Stephen, the boy who taught him all the bad words, or maybe even the man who stole his wallet decades back. To hear "give me your money" in one's native language must be a joy when no one has been speaking to you in a meaningful way. As the lone speaker, he ceases to be a speaker, and instead curates Manx as an artifact.

But then his time is at a close—how long or short those years of silent speech must have been are difficult for we in a language community to imagine. At the end, we know he celebrates his celebrity. This is not a silent man, but an extant culture, embracing peace, embracing the liberty of a perfect language. Without the possibility of being misunderstand, a flawless communication has resulted. Can you see him now in his joyous isolation: an atheist praying, or your exact likeness driving next to you on the highway as you happen to be looking the other way?

Despite this serenity and power, his speech amputation frightens me. This whole concept is not for any of us that meet on this page. But that's for now. In 1974, long before web logs and days before he dies, Ned Maddrell destroys the basis of our dialog, as he figures out the perfect explanation for the color red in a language no one else knows, and then drops into a long, long sleep.

I used several articles for reference, namely "let them die" by Kenan Malik.