My Word! Planet Word, an interactive museum where words come alive

At the entrance of Planet Word, in downtown Washington, DC, you’ll find a magnificent willow in the middle of the courtyard. But it’s not just any tree, it’s a ‘speaking willow’. As I stand under it, the leaves — which hold interactive speakers — begin to rustle. Each ‘leaf’ contains a recording in a different language: I hear women speaking French; a lilting voice introduces me to Gaelic, and I move from branch to branch in search of familiar languages. The surreal experience makes words come alive like never before, and sets the scene for what lies within the enchanting Planet Word.

The museum aptly sits inside a former public school, the Franklin School, which once offered free education to 900 white boys and girls per year (DC schools were segregated when this school was established and it catered to the white population). Today, however, this historic building celebrates languages from around the world.

I step into the building and spot a photo booth. I enter and find a screen that throws a word at me that I must capture in facial expressions and gestures. I’m given ‘ravishing’, and it sends me into a thought loop: who are the public figures that I think of as ravishing? Can I channel them for this snap? Is it a word reserved for outer beauty, or can we use it to describe authors who left us spellbound with their books? There’s too much to mull over as I smile into the camera. A printing machine spits out my photograph with the dictionary meaning of ravishing printed next to my image.

I move on to the karaoke section where one can choose from one-too-many songs. I watch a group of school kids attempt to sing, ‘You are my sunshine’. It’s fun, endearing and abundantly clear that not one from this party will grow up to be a professional singer.

There’s an exhibit where you paint with words. I dip the brush into the ‘Nocturnal’ digital paint bottle. As the brush touches the digital canvas, it goes dark, twinkling lights appear in the night sky and I glimpse an owl in a tree. The ‘Autumnal’ paint creates a warm, earthy scene of bright trees, and dried leaves on a forest floor. I can almost hear the leaves crackling beneath my feet.

There’s an interesting section that reveals marketing secrets. It’s not just words but even sounds, with no meaning, that evoke thoughts and feelings. It’s exactly what copywriters use to influence you. The sound of a baby laughing can make you feel joy and put you in a relaxed state of mind, more amenable to making purchases for your family.

There are several other sections: one where you play dumb-charades to guess the word; a section where you’re encouraged to be a stand-up comedian by playing on words; a section where pre-recorded audios have native speakers introduce you to their languages, including endangered languages.

My favourite is a section where books come alive, literally. You place the book on a magic board and it gets instantly converted into a pictorial, with moving images, while a voice takes you through the book. In yet another section, I watch a recording of a man revealing his painful childhood and the debilitating influence that the scathing words of school bullies continue to have upon him. I come away thinking deeply about the impact of words.

Throughout my stay in multicultural Washington, DC, I hear people speaking a smattering of languages or speaking English in a variety of accents. It’s a common language that helps people communicate, irrespective of their differences. Conversely, words can be used as a divisive force. As USA gears up for their presidential elections, we see the impact of moving speeches made by candidates, or derogatory language hurled by political players. Even as they vie for power, right now it’s the power of words that the presidential hopefuls rely upon.

— The writer is a Mumbai-based contributor