Universal phonology and Namu Myoho renge kyo

That there are universal meanings of sounds used in languages is called Universal Phonology and there is a field of study called Universal Linguistics. There are two studies “that supports the idea that there could be universal associations between language sounds and specific meanings.” — UNCONSCIOUS FRAMEWORKS IN YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS by Jan Reed

Some language sounds may have meanings or associations that are universal to all. For example, “According to the postulated universal language associations, two of the relations that are instinctively known to all humans and all infants are “ d ” and “ th ” as in “ those ” . According to the relationships postulated in this work, the universal language meaning of “ d ” is awe, wonder, or subordination , and the universal language meaning of ‘th ‘ ” is anger. — (Ibid)

People from almost every culture who bangs his little toe replies “Ou” or “Ah”. Sounds of sexual gratification are other examples, “ooh” or “hahh”. “Ssssss” when mimicking a snake or “tsss” when mimicking a cat’s hiss. Crying sounds are very universal, even pets understand them.

“Narrow sounds, such as /i/, as in ‘poquito’ (Spanish), ‘kitty’ (English), and ‘maomi’ (Mandarin), frequently refer to smaller beings or objects (supposed to be such since smaller creatures can only produce higher pitched sounds).” — ibid

“The theory postulates that there is a universal language instinctively known to all normal humans from birth; that the universal language meanings of all language sounds, rhythms, forms of word structure, and all grammatical structures are instinctively known to all normal human infants, and are understandable to infants from the time they are able to discriminate sounds used by their parents or care-givers to communicate with each other.”

“However, the arbitrariness of the sign is not complete. Every language has a certain amount of phonetic symbolism. There are always onomatopoeic words like whoosh and tick-tock, and this natural sound/meaning connection may bleed through to some extent into fairly large areas of vocabulary, as in English flip/ flap,/flop, clink/clank/clunk, etc. And in some languages, there are specific classes of words, sometimes called “ideophones”, where these quasi-natural sound-meaning correspondences are systematized, sometimes to a considerable extent.” — Language Log of Mark Liberman (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005437.html)

“An additional complication in the analysis of intonational units arises because of the extremely strong role played by phonetic symbolism in constraining intonational meanings. In no other aspect of language is “l’arbitraire du signe” less manifest than in intonation., and we have every reason to believe that a substantial portion of the content of the intonational lexicon of English is determined by the universal symbolic (better: metaphorical) value of tones and tone-sequences. However, there are also many clear examples of language-specific tunes, and meanings for tunes, so that some degree of arbitrariness or conventionalization must be built into the system.” — Ibid

“Rabbit”, so what! Bunny, hmm, even a dog knows “bunny”. Some words express their meaning, perfectly, the sound of the word or words uttered is a perfect expression of the meaning or phenomenon.

All language shares this mystery. That is why Namu Myoho renge kyo is such a beautiful expression of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Every Buddha knows that this is Shakyamuni’s Buddha enlightenment, whether that Buddha speaks icelandic, nepalese, french, or alien. Namo Saddharma Pundarika Sutra elicits no such understanding. The difference between Namo Saddharma Pundarika Sutra and Namu Myoho renge kyo is the difference between “rabbit” and “bunny”.

This is not a complete and exhaustive study of these principles. In conclusion, when we are talking about the Original Eternal Buddha and his Enlightenment, the sounds of his enlightenment is expressed as Namu Myoho renge kyo and he intoned these words.