It's strange to have learned enough kanji, finally, before leaving, that I can identify what some things are. I have no idea what they SAY, but I know what they MEAN (representation vs. signification?) Like that sign over there? I know that kanji means, like, "leg" and that one means "earth" and those two mean "don't"... so that sign must mean "don't be puttin` your mud leg here"! Or maybe it means "take off your shoes". This is a funny thing about language, and it happens on a verbal level as well. I have no idea half the time what people are SAYING, yet I know enough about gesture and expression and a hundred other signs and meta-lingual expressions that operate on a near subconscious level that I can understand what they MEAN. It lends credence to the idea that we are born with language, or the framework of language, in our minds, and that that framework is universal and intrinsic to our being human. Language is something we KNOW. Not like the birds in Plato's cage of ideas, it is part of what makes the cage itself.

On the other hand, there's my students...