The Double by José Saramago — Read

WELL, THAT'S NOT QUITE TRUE. THERE WAS A TIME WHEN there were so few words that we did not even have enough to express something as simple as, This is my mouth, or, That is your mouth, still less ask, Why are our mouths touching. It doesn't occur to people nowadays what a lot of work was involved in creating those words, it was necessary, in the first place, to realize that there was a need for them, which may, who knows, have been the most difficult thing of all, then to reach a consensus on the significance of their immediate effects, and finally, a task that will never fully be completed, to imagine the consequences that might ensue, in the medium and long term, from these effects and from these words. Compared with this, and contrary to common sense's peremptory statement of last night, the invention of the wheel was no more than a lucky chance, as would be the discovery of the universal law of gravity, all because an apple happened to fall on Newton's head.

The wheel was invented and stayed invented forever and ever, whereas words, those and all the others, came into the world with a vague, diffuse destiny, as highly provisional phonetic and morphological clusters, however much, thanks perhaps to the inherited glow of their glorious creation, they may insist on passing themselves off, not so much in their own right, but on behalf of the thing they variably mean and represent, as immortal, undying, or eternal, depending on the taste of the person doing the classifying.