His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

Worte entfremden. Sprache ist kein Medium für Begehren. Begehren ist Hingerissensein, nicht Austausch. Nur dadurch, dass die Sprache das Begehrte entfremdet, beherrscht sie es.

He would not mind hearing Petrus’s story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa.

As you speak I swear I can hear words being selected, one after another, from the word-box you carry around with you, and slotted into place. That is not how a true native speak, one who is born into a language.’‘How does a native speak?’‘From the heart. Words well up within and he sings them, sings along with them. So to speak.

Es ist nicht die Sprache, die den Menschen zum Menschen macht, sondern die Sprache der anderen.