122
ON THE WAY TO LANGUAGE

know the experience of their origin in ringing stillness, and knows even less how sound is given voice and is defined by that stillness.

But then, in this short account of the nature of language, in what way are we thinking of speech and what is spoken? They reveal themselves even now a1 that by which and within which something is given voice and language, that is, makes an appearance insof4r as something is said. To say and to speak are not identical. A man may speak, speak endlessly, and all the time say nothing. Another man may remain Went, not speak at all and yet, without speaking, say a great deal.

But what does "say" mean? In order to find out, we must stay close to what our very language tells us to think when we use the word. "Say" means to show, to let appear, to let been seen and heard.

In pointing out what follows we shall be saying something that is self-evident, and yet hardly a thought has been given to it and all its implications. To speak to one another means: to say something, show something to one another, and to entrust one another mutually to what is shown. To speak with one another means: to tell of something jointly, to show to one another what that which is claimed in the speaking says in the speaking, and what it, of itself, brings to light. What is unspoken is not merely something that lacks voice, it is what remains unsaid, what is not yet shown, what has not yet reached is appearance. That which must remain wholly unspoken is held back. in the unsaid, abides in concealment as unshowable, is mystery. That which is spoken to us speaks as dictum in the sense of something imparted, something whose speaking does not even require to be sounded.

Speaking, qua saying something. belongs to the design of the being of language, the design which is pervaded by all the modes of saying and of what is said, in which everything present or absent announces, grants or refuses itself, shows itself or withdraws. This multiform saying from many different sources is the pervasive element in the design of the being of language. With regard to the manifold ties of saying, we shall


Martin Heidegger (GA 12) On the Way to Language