The power of the alphabet, part 2

On the commute to work this morning, I was thinking about my last post, on the "power of the alphabet."  Both Kabbalists and more orthodox readers of Scripture describe language as created with the universe, and the means by which the universe was created.  Before the creation event, existence is called a "formless void" -- in some sense, perhaps only because no language exists by which to describe it.  Names of the Divine, then, would not predate creation; we cannot address It in words in Its "original state," but only as a creating Being.

It's interesting that we as humans share in that power to create with language.  This point never strikes me more than when I think about the computer scientist's task of writing an interpreter or compiler for a programming language: here, language is turned in on itself, and abstraction and expressive power increase.  It's no coincidence that the bane of many an MIT undergraduate, the textbook "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs," has a wizard on its cover!