Moreover, I think that the women were called doves by the people of Dodona for the reason that they were Barbarians and because it seemed to them that they uttered voice like birds; but after a time (they say) the dove spoke with human voice, that is when the woman began to speak so that they could understand; but so long as she spoke a Barbarian tongue she seemed to them to be uttering voice like a bird: for had it been really a dove, how could it speak with human voice?
Herodotus, Histories, c. 430 BCE # 5
Birdlike voices of women
Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
Collections that include this source
Keep exploring
- Bacteria, fungus, whale, sequoia - we do not know any life of which we cannot say that it emits information, receives it, stores it and processes it. For universal rules so incontrovertible that, by them, we are tempted to define life but we are unable to do so, because of the following countexampl …
What captured our attention
What captured our attention was the striking argument that remains profoundly disruptive even 2,000 years after it was written. It suggests that the people of Dodona felt superior to the "barbarians" simply because they did not understand these “barbarians”. It means that they looked down on the “barbarian” because of their own ignorance.
Following that thought, it is not the ability to speak or not to speak that separates humans from barbarians, or Dodonian citizens from those who are perceived as “birdlike” inhabitants of Dodonia, but rather the inability to comprehend the language of the latter. This implies that the sense of superiority and the disrespect towards these is rooted not in a capability, but in a deficiency.
Taking this idea further, we might ask: if we could understand the language of birds, would we also learn to respect them?
Meike Gleim and Loretta Mesitiof our Imagination
