Why ArtLex?
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975, Russian semiologist) observed that all of us “live in a world of others’ words” and our “entire life is an orientation in this world, a reaction to others’ words.” (Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, C. Emerson, editor and translator, 1984, p. 146. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.) People have been using language for 80,000 – 2,000,000 years, depending on how you define language. Gesturing without speech was the earliest stage. “Over there is a thing with lots of teeth,” “This high, this wide,” and “Looking good! [or ugly!]” must certainly have been among the phrases in that gestural vocabulary. In Africa archaeologists have found evidence of several innovations in human behavior that date to 50,000 years ago: a great variety of tools made from stone and bone, signs of long distance trade, and the first art objects. If only we had some documentation of all the long-lost figures drawn in dirt, on stone, vegetation, bone and skin throughout the ages,
