...
and so, too, we shall apply letters to the expression of
objects, either single
letters when required, or several letters; and so we shall form
syllables as they are called, and from syllables make nouns and
verbs; and thus, at last, from the combinations of nouns and
verbs arrive at language, large and fair and whole; and as the
painter made a figure, even so shall we make speech by the art
of the namer or the rhetorician, or by some other
art.
Cratylus by Plato (360BCE) trans. Benjamin Jowett
