At ten, I remember I accompanied her a few times to her 'cases', just to move my trembling fingers over a mother's swollen belly, I felt so proud. My grandmother later taught me to recognize different signs and messages a pregnant woman's walk, cravings, limb movements, pains, and bodily odours emitted. With the first cry of the just-born, I thank God and look at my soiled hands with pride. Each time it happens I feel a joy. Fingers that 'see' and 'read' are as chameleon-like as the words that describe them.
Native tongues are just as semiotic.
Living words weep and laugh, make double entendre , weave a double helix into gender, status and group. But I can only speak for myself. And I can only speak of the past. I meet all my Natives, I meet all my Strangers, in libraries and archives. Historians never observe the past.