The Colonized Concept
This essay follows The Geometry of the Unsayable, which explored how large language models think in geometric space — concepts without names, meaning without words. It extends that argument into translation: what happens when the geometry of one language is forced into the coordinate system of another. Sometime in the early centuries of the Common Era — scholars debate whether the second, third, or even fifth century — a philosopher named Patañjali composed what may be the most translated sentence in the history of contemplative practice.