Language as an archive

I am decoding the lines and strokes of the Japanese language where even the origin of the word is shown in the writing of the word. 

This language is an archive of settlers, traders, colonisers, war, religion, art. Everyone who has ever spoken it has shaped it with their tongue. Every tool which has written it has imprinted its shape on the page. It has weathered a lot. 

It is a map with routes to follow and landmarks - is that your mum or my mum? - and a smattering of inconsistencies.

It is a body which moves in dialect, forgets in Chinese, sits in one alphabet and remembers in another. 

Several strokes indicate silence:

つ

＿

ッ

。

Words wrinkle on my tongue like the skin skimmed from the top of a hot milky coffee.