The Power of Language

I had a weird experience today while playing a game, Assassin's Creed 2, in Italian. The game, set in Italy, portrays the life of an angst fueled daredevil named Ezio. Assassin's Creed 2 is based in Renaissance Italy and tells a grand story of betrayal, revenge, and bloodshed...but that is neither here nor there. What was so astounding to me was how different the game is when it is played in Italian. I can only compare it to watching the movie Pan's Labyrinth in non-native English and then watching it in it's native tongue of Spanish. Regardless of one's ability to understand the language is not important, but the ability to understand human signs and meaning is. Understanding the words and the dialog is certainly important and even necessary at times but there is a universal language that can be understood without knowledge of all languages and without need for subtitles. It can be frustrating at times to not understand what is going on but I feel as though not being able to understand the language causes you to tune into the more intricate details of of human conversation.
Things like subtle eye movements, tone, physical reactions, and facial expressions are all lost when you focus on the language and try to hear every word that comes out of every person. But when all of that is stripped away you are much like a newborn child who is unable to understand the words being spoken around you. With those words taken away you tune into everything else, as if by instinct, to try and make sense of the situation. It's an interesting and exhilarating survival instinct that kicks in automatically as if your body is trying desperately to help you out. Without knowing a word of Italian it was clear to me the emotions and motivations of every character. My Spanish, being almost as bad as my Italian, made Pan's Labyrinth difficult to understand without subtitles but the overall message and plot was understandable after a bit of thinking. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of words, I'm a writer after all, but I am trying to show the amazing spectacle that is the human mind. The way it compensates for what you lack by making you notice things you've never paid attention to. What use is picking up on physical and emotional cues if every word is spoken out and every action planned and plotted? Give it a try, go check out a movie in another language or even more simply just try to have a conversation with someone and attempt to pick up on the cues and the emotions. See if you can reach into the conversation and garner more than what was said. It's an interesting challenge to try if nothing else.