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Aphasia is a common problem seen in neurology practice. Easily misunderstood even by physicians, the word comes from the Greek word meaning "speechless" and can be seen in a variety of neurological conditions such as strokes, dementia or brain tumors. Though aphasia can manifest itself in a multitude of ways, it is in all cases a disorder of language, such that a patient with it has an impaired ability to either express or comprehend the meaning of words.

Many, if not all, neurological symptoms have the potential to devastate a person. Aphasia, however, has a unique way of stripping a person of his relating with others though he may still be able to walk and eat on his own. For some, the words "I love you" or "how are you?" are empty sounds on an eardrum that bear with them no meaning or sentiment capable of stirring emotion or connection. One might only be able to produce a fluent string of words that, when assembled together, contain no coherent meaning. For others, the conviction to reconcile with an estranged spouse or sibling is left exiled by the inability, literally, to find the words to say.

Language is powerful. It is humanity's way of communicating the meaning of reality to one another, a grappling with sights and experiences that, though often indescribable by words alone, must be shared. If we lose or change the meaning of words, we will lose the means by which to relate and live in unity together.

In our current historical moment, we have a crisis of language. Aiding a person in their suicide has been framed as providing "death with dignity," as if dignity lies in the absence of suffering rather than inherent in the very life itself that is being extinguished. Killing an unborn child is defined by some as "women's reproductive rights" or, worse, "reproductive health." Basic pronouns of "he" or "she" that have always corresponded to the male or female sex, respectively, are touted by some to be a self-defined term that can be chosen and self-applied.

Defend these positions if you like, but say what you mean. Words and their applications certainly do evolve over time, and new words frequently come into existence. But if the bedrock of language that our culture rests on is morphed at will by those in power, then we have decided that words have no inherent meaning when they in fact will never surrender that titanic power to sway and alter our perceptions. Reality will remain the same, constant and unchanging as ever, but a diseased understanding of language will alter our ability to relate with it. A culture that makes itself aphasic will have destroyed the common code through which to discover and unravel reality's meaning together, and all that will remain is chaos as each person defines reality as he sees fit. We will have constructed our own Tower of Babel.

Once a stroke has crippled the brain's language centers, there is little to be done. With months of speech therapy some language function can slowly be recovered, but there is no magic pill to bring back what has been lost. The work to preserve language, then, lies in stroke prevention through promoting healthy lifestyles and controlling risk factors. It lies, like so much of health, in education.

Likewise, upholding the integrity of our culture's language will be challenging, if not impossible, to fully reverse once we sacrifice ourselves wholly to the mayhem of word redefinition. The antidote rests in good education, starting in families. We must teach our children the power of language and the need to speak precisely. We must convey the wonder of words and their potential to shape our perceptions. As we guide them to the discovery of reality, we must equip them with the tools to speak well so as to convey and seek the truth.

The world is what it is, and language is our tool to describe, name and communicate to one another the truths and the beauty of the reality that we behold. Let us preserve the integrity of our language and thus safeguard our culture from an irreversible aphasia.

Dr. Jacob Goodwin, of Rochester, is a neurology resident.