Another quick lyrics question

[crow]

you say high falutin, i say not of interest to me. nothing more nothing less, i have no knowledge apart from knowing what i like, Chinese language i think can be agreed is not hi falutin in general but i don't answer questions about Chinese either :

i would say that the basic unit of any language is the letter. i presume lyrics are language? if so then i say the letter is the basic unit. after that the word and after that the line or part line. you say semantic [which relates to the meaning of a word, phrase or other collection of intelligible collections of letters.] in which case i still say the letter. they need to be formed in a way to have meaning. after that, all you have is language. be it poetry/song or prose. most can be and often are interchangeable. as for colloquialisms... they are often a part of what ever type or language we write, as often is dialect. my shout out is
as dumb as it gets

I'm with you. Saying "huh? now, whaddya think?," which is what my original prompt amounts to, isn't compelling, and I'll try not to post such an open errand futurewise.

Fwiw, lots of written languages don't have letters. Like . . . I forget which ones.