The Oldest Language
Govinda, a plant breeder and a molecular biologist, joined the C4 rice project in 2010 as a postdoctoral research fellow. He led the mutant verification team from 2010 to 2012 and the gene discovery team from 2013 to 2015 to hunt genes for C4 syndrome. Govinda has worked with soybean, sorghum, rice, wheat, maize, Setaria and has designed experimental field plans, supervised large scale cultivation of mutants and transgenic plants as well as performed high throughput phenotyping. Govinda's works on gene identification involved mutant characterization through detailed phenotyping and next-generation sequencing, and gene validation through a transgenic approach. He has a fruitful collaboration with scientists from Australia, the USA, the UK, Korea, and China. Having worked in laboratory, greenhouse, and field environments as a mutation breeder and next-generation sequencing practitioner, Govinda has gained extensive work experience in agronomy, plant breeding, molecular biology, plant physiology, and bioinformatics, various research skills, and the ability to work with people of different cultural and academic diversity. Govinda is meticulous, attentive to detail, and an enthusiastic team player. He is diligent, quick to pick up new skills, and comfortable to learn from others. He has good experience supervising and training staff members of different educational levels. Govinda also has provided thesis students with research guidance, supervision of data analysis, and result interpretation.
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6245-1996
Govinda Rizal
Language is the expression and exchange of thoughts. That definition fits the language of communication invented and used by human beings. However, the oldest language disentangles more functions. Humans did not invent the oldest language. It evolved as a biological coincidence with the formation of the first living cell some million years ago. Since its study has been for less than a century, we discover new traits in every movement.
The language has four alphabets, and exactly three are used to make a word. Each of the four alphabets has shapes like that of two-pin and three-pin plugs and two- and three-hole sockets; thus, one fits one and not to any other. For their convenience, scientists denoted them as A, C, G, and T, and sometimes U substitutes T. The A partners with T or U and C with G. By permutation, 64 words are possible, but we only know the meanings of only one-third. There is a word for a full stop and three words to start a sentence. The combination of words gives meaning to a trait, action, or expression. They not only give meaning, but they also command actions and do works. Several sequences of sentences make a process.
Unlike the languages and dialects that pass across the generations through teaching, learning, imitation, or repetition, the children or offsprings only can inherit the oldest language from their biological parents and conserve within natural in-groups like species.
The process of inheritance is unique. Each organism carries an epic encoded in natural software that gets copied and pasted in each new cell. The ‘copy and paste’ mechanism involves the role of a printing block or letters. Like in lithography or printing, each alphabet copies itself into a mirror image and, upon finding a pair, reverts to the original object.
The story seems more like prose, with several traits of an epic. Like in a novel, each sentence has a different length and structure, and like in an epic, there are several unrelated phrases and words used as fillers, even without which the story would be complete.
The natural language seems simple, easily replicable, and widely divergent to carry a different story for each species and biotypes.
The study about the oldest language began after Watson and Crick discovered DNA double helix in cells. In less than a century, the study has uncovered the living system’s unlimited secrets. The research is nowhere closer to a conclusion.
The oldest language is also the most proficiently evolving. Anyone interested to learn the oldest and the most vibrant language must study living cells.