“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 its appearance. That which must remain wholly unspoken is held back in concealment as unshowable, is mystery.
Speaking is known as the articulated vocalization of thought by means of the organs of speech. But speaking is at the same time also listening. it is the custom to put speaking and listening in opposition: one man speaks, the other listens. but listening accompanies and surrounds not only speaking such as takes place in conversation. The simultaneousness of speaking and listening has a larger meaning. Speaking is of the itself a listening. Speaking is listening to the language which we speak. Thus it is a listening not while but before we are speaking. This listening to language also comes before all other kinds of listening that we know, in a most conspicuous manner. We do not merely speak the language—we speak by way of it. We can do so solely because we always have already listened to the language. What do we hear there? We hear language speaking.
In our speaking, as a listening to language, we say again the Saying we have heard. We let its soundless voice come to us, and then demand, reach out and call for the sound that is already kept in store for us. By now, perhaps, at least one trait in the design of language may manifest itself more clearly, allowing us to see how language as speaking comes into its own and thus speaks qua language.[…] We hear Saying only because we belong within it.”
-Martin Heidegger, The Way to Language
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