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The Search for the Perfect Language
From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was a perfect language, expressing all possible things, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants. This is an investigation into the history of this idea.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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2,374 people want to read
About the author
Umberto Eco
889books11.6kfollowersUmberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.
Eco wrote prolifically throughout his life, with his output including children's books, translations from French and English, in addition to a twice-monthly newspaper column "La Bustina di Minerva" (Minerva's Matchbook) in the magazine L'Espresso beginning in 1985, with his last column (a critical appraisal of the Romantic paintings of Francesco Hayez) appearing 27 January 2016. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has continued to gain recognition for his 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism", where Eco lists fourteen general properties he believes comprise fascist ideologies.
Eco wrote prolifically throughout his life, with his output including children's books, translations from French and English, in addition to a twice-monthly newspaper column "La Bustina di Minerva" (Minerva's Matchbook) in the magazine L'Espresso beginning in 1985, with his last column (a critical appraisal of the Romantic paintings of Francesco Hayez) appearing 27 January 2016. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has continued to gain recognition for his 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism", where Eco lists fourteen general properties he believes comprise fascist ideologies.
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October 8, 2024
[The search for the perfect language ]
"The utopia of a perfect language didn't obsess exclusively the European culture"
"In the beginning there existed a single language given by God, a language thanks to which Adam was able to understand the quiddity of things. It was a language that provided a name for every thing, be it substance or accident, and a thing for each name." Umberto Eco
"The language that I spoke was entirely extinguished before the uncompletable work [the tower of Babel] of the people of Nembrot was even conceived:..."
Adam adressing God in "Paradise", by Dante.
Well, when Eco wrote the above words* it was common to say "Europe is being constructed". In our days, I mean, in our recent days, some may think the exact opposite: "Europe is being destroyed". You may ask Brexiteers and like-minded people, as well as Remainers in the UK....or abroad. Opinions will diverge.
And, coming May, with the elections for the European Parliament taking place, the danger of a Babel Tower scenario, each nation (or political family) pulling its own way for self-interest, ...that's a set of risks to consider. True, at some point Europe may become the place where there's a "confusion of languages". That's a real possibility. Disunity is a possibility.
(over troubled waters...)
Some might also argue how some nations are being destroyed by Europe (I mean, the EU). And that's also reasonable to admit. Still, some strongly believe Brexit will save the "nation". Plus, there's the risk of some other nations to emulate Brexit. That would be terrible. For some.
(...)
This set of essays of Umberto Eco are also about Europe. Eco ponders on (European) "projects" for a common language. And indeed, through time, the number of those projects has increased.
Dante had a project of creating a natural language without recourse to a dead model. Ramon Llull, a Catalan wanting to convert the infidels, "conceived a system for a perfect language". Lull had borrowed some terms from the Arabs, and he "was searching for a set of elementary and primary notions that Christians held in common with the infidels."
"In 1671, Georg Stiernhielm wrote his De linguarum origine praefatio. In 1688, his fellow countryman, Andreas Kempe, wrote Die Sprachen des Paradises; this included a scene in which God and Adam conversed with one another, God speaking in Swedish while Adam spoke in Danish; while they were talking, however, Eve was busy being seduced by a French-speaking serpent".
Just in the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of projects reached 83. In the 19th century, Eco quotes an author mentioning "173 titles".
(Dalgarno classification system)
As a methodological procedure, Eco decided he would limit his analysis to "true and proper languages" (with a few more criteria). Thus he has excluded oneiric languages, insane or trance states, mystic revelations, glossolalia and xenoglossia, poetry and fictitious languages (like the Newspeak of Orwell's "1984"; or Tolkien's), bricolage languages, "fous du langage" and formal languages, natural tongues or jargons. However, near the end of the book, he questions the nature of the "tongues" ("other" languages) spoken by the apostles.
This is a book on the "history of ideas"[mainly the Babel Tower idea], not on Linguistis or Semiotics. It's quite curious that the most adequate title for this book should have been "After Babel", writes Eco in the Introduction. But as another author had already picked that title, Eco discarded it.
I have recently watched a video by Melanie Mueller on “why people invent new languages�. Most interesting was her description on the creation of Esperanto. As Zamenhof, in Poland, noticed people around him spoke (at least) 4 languages and, since they didn’t like each other, he constructed Esperanto (an auxiliary language) in the hope of uniting people.
Mueller also described Loglan (created to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) which, presumably, would make people think “more logically�. Other languages had other aims: ArtLang for fun; Solresol (only 7 musical letters) a very simple one, which still has “speakers� around the globe.
One very peculiar one Mueller cited is Dothraki used in the fantasy books of George R. R. Martin and developed by linguist David Peterson; peculiar, because it has no words for “thanks�, out of a vocabulary of 3,000 words.
The uniting language of Europe is yet to be created, and quite strangely, the nation which gave birth to the language (English!) which served as a main vehicle for communication between most of the European nations....is on the way out. This is a good (!!??) sign of the degree of unity, in this (my) Europe.
For the time being, I'm too searching for the perfect language. Maybe reading "The Universal Language" by Dr Louise Banks will help.
This book certainly deserves a re-read. I'll be back on it, for sure.
Nothing more appropriate when ending, than quoting Eco to have a picture of present Europe: "The story of the search for the perfect language is the story of a dream and of a series of failures. (...)...today when the peoples of Europe - as they discuss the whys and wherefores of a possible commercial and political union - not only continue to speak different languages, but speak them in greater number than ten years ago, and even, in certain places, arm against one another for the sake of their ethno-linguistic differences"
Babel still reigns
* The 1st English edition of the book dates back to 1995
"The utopia of a perfect language didn't obsess exclusively the European culture"
"In the beginning there existed a single language given by God, a language thanks to which Adam was able to understand the quiddity of things. It was a language that provided a name for every thing, be it substance or accident, and a thing for each name." Umberto Eco
"The language that I spoke was entirely extinguished before the uncompletable work [the tower of Babel] of the people of Nembrot was even conceived:..."
Adam adressing God in "Paradise", by Dante.
Well, when Eco wrote the above words* it was common to say "Europe is being constructed". In our days, I mean, in our recent days, some may think the exact opposite: "Europe is being destroyed". You may ask Brexiteers and like-minded people, as well as Remainers in the UK....or abroad. Opinions will diverge.
And, coming May, with the elections for the European Parliament taking place, the danger of a Babel Tower scenario, each nation (or political family) pulling its own way for self-interest, ...that's a set of risks to consider. True, at some point Europe may become the place where there's a "confusion of languages". That's a real possibility. Disunity is a possibility.
(over troubled waters...)
Some might also argue how some nations are being destroyed by Europe (I mean, the EU). And that's also reasonable to admit. Still, some strongly believe Brexit will save the "nation". Plus, there's the risk of some other nations to emulate Brexit. That would be terrible. For some.
(...)
This set of essays of Umberto Eco are also about Europe. Eco ponders on (European) "projects" for a common language. And indeed, through time, the number of those projects has increased.
Dante had a project of creating a natural language without recourse to a dead model. Ramon Llull, a Catalan wanting to convert the infidels, "conceived a system for a perfect language". Lull had borrowed some terms from the Arabs, and he "was searching for a set of elementary and primary notions that Christians held in common with the infidels."
"In 1671, Georg Stiernhielm wrote his De linguarum origine praefatio. In 1688, his fellow countryman, Andreas Kempe, wrote Die Sprachen des Paradises; this included a scene in which God and Adam conversed with one another, God speaking in Swedish while Adam spoke in Danish; while they were talking, however, Eve was busy being seduced by a French-speaking serpent".
Just in the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of projects reached 83. In the 19th century, Eco quotes an author mentioning "173 titles".
(Dalgarno classification system)
As a methodological procedure, Eco decided he would limit his analysis to "true and proper languages" (with a few more criteria). Thus he has excluded oneiric languages, insane or trance states, mystic revelations, glossolalia and xenoglossia, poetry and fictitious languages (like the Newspeak of Orwell's "1984"; or Tolkien's), bricolage languages, "fous du langage" and formal languages, natural tongues or jargons. However, near the end of the book, he questions the nature of the "tongues" ("other" languages) spoken by the apostles.
This is a book on the "history of ideas"[mainly the Babel Tower idea], not on Linguistis or Semiotics. It's quite curious that the most adequate title for this book should have been "After Babel", writes Eco in the Introduction. But as another author had already picked that title, Eco discarded it.
I have recently watched a video by Melanie Mueller on “why people invent new languages�. Most interesting was her description on the creation of Esperanto. As Zamenhof, in Poland, noticed people around him spoke (at least) 4 languages and, since they didn’t like each other, he constructed Esperanto (an auxiliary language) in the hope of uniting people.
Mueller also described Loglan (created to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) which, presumably, would make people think “more logically�. Other languages had other aims: ArtLang for fun; Solresol (only 7 musical letters) a very simple one, which still has “speakers� around the globe.
One very peculiar one Mueller cited is Dothraki used in the fantasy books of George R. R. Martin and developed by linguist David Peterson; peculiar, because it has no words for “thanks�, out of a vocabulary of 3,000 words.
The uniting language of Europe is yet to be created, and quite strangely, the nation which gave birth to the language (English!) which served as a main vehicle for communication between most of the European nations....is on the way out. This is a good (!!??) sign of the degree of unity, in this (my) Europe.
For the time being, I'm too searching for the perfect language. Maybe reading "The Universal Language" by Dr Louise Banks will help.
This book certainly deserves a re-read. I'll be back on it, for sure.
Nothing more appropriate when ending, than quoting Eco to have a picture of present Europe: "The story of the search for the perfect language is the story of a dream and of a series of failures. (...)...today when the peoples of Europe - as they discuss the whys and wherefores of a possible commercial and political union - not only continue to speak different languages, but speak them in greater number than ten years ago, and even, in certain places, arm against one another for the sake of their ethno-linguistic differences"
Babel still reigns
* The 1st English edition of the book dates back to 1995
June 14, 2016
After the twin realization that not only did I very much like Umberto Eco's work, but I also had read almost none of it, I went through my library seeing if I had any of his books tucked away and, lo and behold, I came up with this one. I honestly have no idea how I got it or how long I've had it, but it's got no jacket and has a chunk missing from the binding. In any case, I read it very quickly, pacing myself to only a few chapters a day, and found it delightful.
You may find it strange that I call a book about mankind's search for "a perfect language" delightful. After all, this is basically a book about linguistics and semiotics, the way we as a people decide what words mean and the way we assign written symbols to things in the first place. For about a thousand years, Europe has been asking the question, "What was the first language ever spoken?" on the assumption that this first language, whatever it is, would by definition be the best language, the one before the splintering of dialects that has led to disharmony and conflict among human beings ever since. And by the 18th century, Europe more or less gave up on this question and decided to, instead, try making a new language which would achieve the goal of universal harmony but which would be better than any language humanity had developed in use.
Eco walks us through all this with masterful erudition and no small amount of humor. He has a gift for explaining complicated issues in easy terms, something he does by first summarizing the thing using the author's own language before adding a short, concise, and wonderfully illustrative, "in other words..."
By the end of THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT LANGUAGE Eco helps us to understand that linguists and semioticians had more or less given up, with Esperanto being the artificial language that, for all its marginal status, has best come close to realizing the original goal. But, more important, the book becomes a rejection of its own premise. That is, when we search for a "perfect language" we are chasing the wrong fox. Rather than rejecting the multiplicity of language and culture, we should embrace it. It is exactly these differences in language, perspective, in world view, that make humanity interesting and wondrous. In that sense, the fall of the Tower of Babel was not a curse, but a blessing. Ours is a Fortunate Fall.
You may find it strange that I call a book about mankind's search for "a perfect language" delightful. After all, this is basically a book about linguistics and semiotics, the way we as a people decide what words mean and the way we assign written symbols to things in the first place. For about a thousand years, Europe has been asking the question, "What was the first language ever spoken?" on the assumption that this first language, whatever it is, would by definition be the best language, the one before the splintering of dialects that has led to disharmony and conflict among human beings ever since. And by the 18th century, Europe more or less gave up on this question and decided to, instead, try making a new language which would achieve the goal of universal harmony but which would be better than any language humanity had developed in use.
Eco walks us through all this with masterful erudition and no small amount of humor. He has a gift for explaining complicated issues in easy terms, something he does by first summarizing the thing using the author's own language before adding a short, concise, and wonderfully illustrative, "in other words..."
By the end of THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT LANGUAGE Eco helps us to understand that linguists and semioticians had more or less given up, with Esperanto being the artificial language that, for all its marginal status, has best come close to realizing the original goal. But, more important, the book becomes a rejection of its own premise. That is, when we search for a "perfect language" we are chasing the wrong fox. Rather than rejecting the multiplicity of language and culture, we should embrace it. It is exactly these differences in language, perspective, in world view, that make humanity interesting and wondrous. In that sense, the fall of the Tower of Babel was not a curse, but a blessing. Ours is a Fortunate Fall.
April 11, 2021
Chapter "International auxiliary languages" ("Welthilfssprachen")
September 26, 2014
A review of many attempts (from about 1200 to 1900) to reconstruct or invent a perfect language. At first this was based on the idea of Adam speaking in a perfect language before the tower of Babel. Later philosophers tried to construct perfect classification systems and rules of thought. Umberto Eco, being a postmodernist, uses the survey to point out the absurdity of any attempt to reduce the world to one comprehensive system. A scholarly look at a fascinating topic.
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May 7, 2019این نظر در مورد خود کتاب نیست، در مورد ترجمۀ فارسی آن است:
در طول خواندن فکر میکرد� که آیا کسانی مانند رضا علیزاده و حسین شهرابی سطح توقع ما را بالا بردهاند�
زبان ترجمه� این کتاب نسبت به آن چیزهایی که در بازار کتاب ایران پیدا میشو� واقعا خوب بود، اما به نظر میرسی� در حد نوشتها� از اکو نباشد، مخصوصا با خواندن نوشته ای که دکتر فکوهی در مورد این مجموعه نوشته بودند( )، انتظار خیلی بیشتری می رفت
تقریبا در بیشتر موارد مترجم اسامی خاصی که معادل های معمول یا قدیمی در فارسی دارند را چیزهای عجیب و غریبی ترجمه کرده بود. به طور کلی هم در جریان موضوع کتاب نبود.
به عنوان یک مثال بامزه در آخر کتاب وقتی از پروژه� اراسموس صحبت میشود� مترجم به جای آن که در پانوشت در مورد این که یک بورس دانشگاهی برای دانشجویان خارجی است توضیح دهد، در مورد دسیدریوس اراسموس توضیح میده� و میگوی� که به زبان لاتین مینوش�!
در طول خواندن فکر میکرد� که آیا کسانی مانند رضا علیزاده و حسین شهرابی سطح توقع ما را بالا بردهاند�
زبان ترجمه� این کتاب نسبت به آن چیزهایی که در بازار کتاب ایران پیدا میشو� واقعا خوب بود، اما به نظر میرسی� در حد نوشتها� از اکو نباشد، مخصوصا با خواندن نوشته ای که دکتر فکوهی در مورد این مجموعه نوشته بودند( )، انتظار خیلی بیشتری می رفت
تقریبا در بیشتر موارد مترجم اسامی خاصی که معادل های معمول یا قدیمی در فارسی دارند را چیزهای عجیب و غریبی ترجمه کرده بود. به طور کلی هم در جریان موضوع کتاب نبود.
به عنوان یک مثال بامزه در آخر کتاب وقتی از پروژه� اراسموس صحبت میشود� مترجم به جای آن که در پانوشت در مورد این که یک بورس دانشگاهی برای دانشجویان خارجی است توضیح دهد، در مورد دسیدریوس اراسموس توضیح میده� و میگوی� که به زبان لاتین مینوش�!
February 16, 2017
I skipped certain sections of this book but it was useful research for me and on a subject I've always been interested in reading ever science I read language thought and reality by whorf. This books is about the various methods there were used to create the perfect language eg Esperanto for example. It looks at some of the biblical references to languages, the link with Kabbalah, dantes language in his books, various monogenetic theories, language in china and how that developed, influence of Greek on language, etc. there were certain sections I had to skip but overall I think worth the read.
September 12, 2015
I so wanted to like this book. I looked forward to reading it. I was happy the day I came home from Borders with it. (Remember Borders?) It was so boring I had trouble finishing it. I like the topic, I should have liked this book. I threw it on my closet floor for a long time before I could bring myself to finish the last chapter. I still have this book. I keep thinking if I was perhaps smarter I would have appreciated it more so I hang onto it in some misguided attempt to make me feel good (or perhaps bad?).
June 12, 2017
در سفر پیدایش کتاب مقدس آمده: و هرچه آدم هرکدام از مخلوقات زنده را نامید، نامش آن بود نامی که آدم بر روی این مخلوقات می گذاشت، از سرشت آن مخلوق ناشی می شد یا قرارداد؟ و اصلا آدم ابوالبشر به چه زبانی حرف می زد؟
اونقدر که یک کتاب جیبی می تونه خوب باشه، این کتاب هست
اونقدر که یک کتاب جیبی می تونه خوب باشه، این کتاب هست
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November 22, 2012I gave up on this about a third of the way through. Someday, I'll pick it back up again.
January 7, 2022
Interesting topic, but rather dry book.
January 17, 2017
One of the leitmotifs of European history since the Middle Ages has been the search for a language that is perfect: describes reality exactly, and is easy to learn and use. In Genesis 10:5, each tribe of humanity is said to speak its own language, and in Genesis 11:1, the whole earth was of one language and one speech; the modern Documentary Hypothesis says that these passages come from two different sources, yet for medieval Europeans this contradiction was at the heart of the world. Kabbalists thought that the Hebrew language (they did not distinguish between the language and its customary alphabet) forms the fabric of reality, so by manipulating Hebrew letters they could alter reality. In De Vulgari Eloquentia Dante Alighieri says that before Babel, humanity spoke a perfect language, which Adam and Eve spoke to God and Eve spoke to the serpent. Later it fragmented the way Latin has fragmented into different Romance languages, which Dante divides into those in which the word for "yes" is "oc", those in which it is "oil" and those in which it is "si" (there is a Romance language in which the word for "yes" is "da" in the 2000s; what was it in the 1300s?). Raymond Lull invented machines for combining logical terms, hoping that the obvious truth of resulting propositions would convert Muslims to Christianity; he was a forerunner of Gottfried Leibnitz, the inventor of modern symbolic logic. If one part of the machine could select between "God" and "angels", and another between "good" and "great", the combinations could be "God is good", "God is great", "angels are good" and "angels are great". When European missionaries such as Matteo Ricci came back from China, they explained the nature of the Chinese writing system; somebody proposed it as a universal written language (I was reminded of the chapter "The Singlish Affair" from John DeFrancis's The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy: at the peak of Japan's World War II victories a Japanese scholar and a Chinese, a Korean and a Vietnamese collaborator are inventing a Chinese character-based writing system for English).
A figure that touches on many topics of this book is Athanasius Kircher. He thought that ancient Egyptian was the original language of humanity, and tried to translate the hieroglyphics by inventing a spiritual meaning for them; although his translations were wildly off the mark, Champollion later used his data for better translations. Kircher also considered Chinese characters inferior to Egyptian hieroglyphics, expressing mundane ideas, and Mayan writing inferior still, being mere pictographs. Kircher also wrote a book on universal translation: to translate one language into another, one should parse a sentence in the first language into roots and morphemes using a table, and then translate these roots and morphemes into the second language; the list of roots and morphemes was based on Latin. That the grammar of German is rather different from that of Latin, which limits the usefulness of this scheme, never occurred to him. Kircher, John Wilkins and several other scholars have attempted to construct artificial logical languages, creating general classification schemes for all the ideas in the world. One scholar divided all ideas into 44 classes; one class contained fire, wind, smoke, ashes, Hell, Purgatory, center of the Earth. We now understand that classification schemes reflect the prejudices of their creators: in the Soviet library system, Marxism-Leninism is a top-level category; in the Dewey Decimal library system, religion is a top-level category; of its 9 subcategories, 8 have to do with Christianity, and the last one is "Other religions". It was after reading about Wilkins that Jorge Luis Borges invented a fictional Chinese encyclopedia with a fanciful classification of animals.
Overall this nonfiction book is similar enough to Eco's novels for the same people to enjoy both.
A figure that touches on many topics of this book is Athanasius Kircher. He thought that ancient Egyptian was the original language of humanity, and tried to translate the hieroglyphics by inventing a spiritual meaning for them; although his translations were wildly off the mark, Champollion later used his data for better translations. Kircher also considered Chinese characters inferior to Egyptian hieroglyphics, expressing mundane ideas, and Mayan writing inferior still, being mere pictographs. Kircher also wrote a book on universal translation: to translate one language into another, one should parse a sentence in the first language into roots and morphemes using a table, and then translate these roots and morphemes into the second language; the list of roots and morphemes was based on Latin. That the grammar of German is rather different from that of Latin, which limits the usefulness of this scheme, never occurred to him. Kircher, John Wilkins and several other scholars have attempted to construct artificial logical languages, creating general classification schemes for all the ideas in the world. One scholar divided all ideas into 44 classes; one class contained fire, wind, smoke, ashes, Hell, Purgatory, center of the Earth. We now understand that classification schemes reflect the prejudices of their creators: in the Soviet library system, Marxism-Leninism is a top-level category; in the Dewey Decimal library system, religion is a top-level category; of its 9 subcategories, 8 have to do with Christianity, and the last one is "Other religions". It was after reading about Wilkins that Jorge Luis Borges invented a fictional Chinese encyclopedia with a fanciful classification of animals.
Overall this nonfiction book is similar enough to Eco's novels for the same people to enjoy both.
March 13, 2013
I first read this book in the late 90s. This book made a pleasing impression--from the physical aspects of the book such as the cover art and the typeface, to the writing style of Eco.
Since high school, I've been interested in the history of ideas. This book traces a certain strain in Western culture: the quest for the perfect language. Various figures in history believed that the attainment of a perfect language would bring benefits.
Here are some examples. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, some believed that the language used by Adam and Eve was such a perfect language, and that its re-attainment would let us understand the true nature of things. Another example occurred in the 20th century. Some analytic philosophers were proponents of an Ideal Language. They held that such a reform of language would solve philosophical problems. However, some of their fellow analytic philosophers argued that such a project was mis-conceived. A third example are "constructed" languages such as Esperanto. The creator of Esperanto, L.L. Zamenhof, sought to create an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that transcends nationality and would foster peace and international understanding between people with different regional and/or national languages.
The book, of course, gives many more examples. I think, though, that Eco could have given more examples of constructed languages in science fiction and fantasy.
Since high school, I've been interested in the history of ideas. This book traces a certain strain in Western culture: the quest for the perfect language. Various figures in history believed that the attainment of a perfect language would bring benefits.
Here are some examples. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, some believed that the language used by Adam and Eve was such a perfect language, and that its re-attainment would let us understand the true nature of things. Another example occurred in the 20th century. Some analytic philosophers were proponents of an Ideal Language. They held that such a reform of language would solve philosophical problems. However, some of their fellow analytic philosophers argued that such a project was mis-conceived. A third example are "constructed" languages such as Esperanto. The creator of Esperanto, L.L. Zamenhof, sought to create an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that transcends nationality and would foster peace and international understanding between people with different regional and/or national languages.
The book, of course, gives many more examples. I think, though, that Eco could have given more examples of constructed languages in science fiction and fantasy.
April 10, 2020
То редкое чувство, когда жаль, что книга закончилась. Все эти мечтатели, мистики, психи и гении стали такими близкими, почти родными, что не хочется с ними расставаться. Компания тут собралась интересная: ребята, которые изобретали комбинаторное исчисление ради мистического просвещения, собственные языки и письменности ради мира во всем мире, способы овладеть всеми языками человечества за два часа ради тотального экономического доминирования, алгоритмы генерации текстов для постижения тайн этого и всех остальных миров, и генеративную грамматику за 500 лет до Хомского на десерт. Кроме того присутствуют: средства коммуникации с инопланетянами и ангелами, системы письменности для ядерного пост-апокалипсиса, универсальный язык на базе музыки, шифры, коды, и (куда же без них) тайные общества. Астрология породила астрономию, алхимия - химию, а каббала - компьютерную лингвистику, криптографию и искусственный интеллект.
Придётся найти ещё что-нибудь про Афанасиуса Кирхера. И Лейбница. И Сефер Йецира. И всех остальных.
Придётся найти ещё что-нибудь про Афанасиуса Кирхера. И Лейбница. И Сефер Йецира. И всех остальных.
June 8, 2011
Interesting point: I was lead to this book through a comment read on Facebook. A friend of one of my friends has always posts in all kinds of languages, some I speak myself. So we ended up being friends. She has a vast culture. She commented on this book once, and I was not disappointed reading it. Eco at his best, with fascinating stuff about the search for Adam’s possible language � didn’t he name the animals? Also on issues related to Babel � there was already a diversity of languages BEFORE Babel, according to the Bible, so what? And all kinds of intriguing and crazy inventions of languages that could work for everyone everywhere…well, almost.
So yes, Facebook can ALSO be used as a window opening on culture, all depends how you use it.
original post:
Emma @ Words And Peace
So yes, Facebook can ALSO be used as a window opening on culture, all depends how you use it.
original post:
Emma @ Words And Peace
December 20, 2009
I found that this book, considering what it was about, was nearly indecipherable...I think that is gloriously ironic, hence 2 stars rather than 1.
January 29, 2019
"Her söz bir fikir olduğundan, bir evrensel dilin zamanı gelecektir! ... Bu dil ruhtan ruha olacak, her şeyi içerecektir: Kokular, sesler, renkler ..." (Rimbaud, Paul Demeny'ye Mektup, 15 Mayıs 1871)
March 25, 2021
اکو،بزرگترین کرم کتابی که تا اکنون شناختم.
در جست وجوی زبان کامل» از مجموعه دروس افتتاحیه کلژ دو فرانس، یکی ا زمعتبرترین موسسات دانشگاهی جهان به شمار می رود؛ این دانشگاه در عین حال بیشتر از آنکه دانشگاه باشد، مرکزی است برای گسترش دانش انسانی در پیشرفته ترین و آخرین مراحل تحول و تکامل آن.
این اثر، خطابه امبرتو اکو در دوم اکتبر 1992 و در خصوص پیدایش زبان و به عبارتی در جستجوی زبان کامل است.
نویسنده در این کتاب مطرح کرده است که یکی از نظریه های قابل توجه در باب منشاء زبان را می توان دراثر ابن حزم، (فقیه و طبیب و شاعر و فلسوف اندلسی) یافت؛ به باور او زبان ها نمی توانند با قرارداد بوجود آیند زیرا انسان ها برای وضع قواعد همواره به زبان نخستین نیاز خواهند داشت.بنابراین، در آغاز زبانی خدادادی وجود داشته که از انواع اسم ها و مترادف ها بهره مند بوده است چرا که به کمک این زبان آدم ابوالبشر باید قادر می بود ��دون هیچ گونه ابهامی کلیه ایای جهان را نام گذاری کند.همچنین، این زبان باید حامل همه زبان ها باشد.
در جست وجوی زبان کامل» از مجموعه دروس افتتاحیه کلژ دو فرانس، یکی ا زمعتبرترین موسسات دانشگاهی جهان به شمار می رود؛ این دانشگاه در عین حال بیشتر از آنکه دانشگاه باشد، مرکزی است برای گسترش دانش انسانی در پیشرفته ترین و آخرین مراحل تحول و تکامل آن.
این اثر، خطابه امبرتو اکو در دوم اکتبر 1992 و در خصوص پیدایش زبان و به عبارتی در جستجوی زبان کامل است.
نویسنده در این کتاب مطرح کرده است که یکی از نظریه های قابل توجه در باب منشاء زبان را می توان دراثر ابن حزم، (فقیه و طبیب و شاعر و فلسوف اندلسی) یافت؛ به باور او زبان ها نمی توانند با قرارداد بوجود آیند زیرا انسان ها برای وضع قواعد همواره به زبان نخستین نیاز خواهند داشت.بنابراین، در آغاز زبانی خدادادی وجود داشته که از انواع اسم ها و مترادف ها بهره مند بوده است چرا که به کمک این زبان آدم ابوالبشر باید قادر می بود ��دون هیچ گونه ابهامی کلیه ایای جهان را نام گذاری کند.همچنین، این زبان باید حامل همه زبان ها باشد.
Read
July 24, 2011Since ancient times and right down into the present, mankind has been searching for (1) the original language of humans, (2) the holy language that God and Adam used, (3) language that reveals the mystical essence of the universe and things, and (4) a language that eliminates the problems of ambiguity and ill logic so common to natural language, that reveals in its very form the scientific essence of things and (4) a simpler language that all people can learn and communicate with, and so achieve Utopian peace and harmony. Eco tells this story with his usual erudition and intimate knowledge of European cultural history.
For me, most of the story since the Enlightenment was known to me, but prior to that the story was wholly new. There's a whole world of European civilization that I (and I suspect most Americans) have never known, primarily due to the fact that most of us don't read Latin and Italian.
The most negative thing I can say about the book is that, while most of the time foreign language citations are translated, sometimes they are not -- and at crucial places for understanding. I assume this is an oversight, since Eco is so comfortable in so many languages. He probably has difficulty remembering the limitations of us mere intellectual mortals!
For me, most of the story since the Enlightenment was known to me, but prior to that the story was wholly new. There's a whole world of European civilization that I (and I suspect most Americans) have never known, primarily due to the fact that most of us don't read Latin and Italian.
The most negative thing I can say about the book is that, while most of the time foreign language citations are translated, sometimes they are not -- and at crucial places for understanding. I assume this is an oversight, since Eco is so comfortable in so many languages. He probably has difficulty remembering the limitations of us mere intellectual mortals!
June 14, 2012
This is really not one of my favorite books. It's a very VERY detailed description of the search for the perfect language, as the title implies. But nearly 90% of it actually is about religion. The author talks endlessly about what was written in the Bible, about Adam, about glossolalia, about the Tower of Babel and it sometimes seems as if he takes these things for granted. It's really difficult to read, because of all these heavy religious things and how people try to find out about the language of God or Adam or the original language before the building of the Tower of Babel. Then come about 10% about real, semi-successful projects of constructed languages (maybe I was expecting this book to be more about artificial languages), this is actually the most interesting part. In fact, the part about Volapük and Esperanto is the most interesting one, well written and from a very neutral perspective, albeit very short and riddled with misspellings. I feel that after I have read this book, I have learned many new details about things I already knew, so many details in fact that I doubt I will remember anything of it anymore in a month or two.
April 19, 2016
This is essentially a book about the philosophy of language, but I found it annoyingly unphilosophical in the points where it matters. The Enlightenment was the age of algebra and taxonomy -- what sort of benefits did these writers see in developing a similar universal standard for natural language? How did the foreign languages they encountered (e.g. hieroglyphics, Hebrew, Chinese) influence their ideas of how language works in general? Eco's writing, simultaneously dense and chatty, is weakest on tough questions like these.
March 17, 2014
I'm sure there was a really interesting story in there somewhere, but Eco just wasn't the person to bring it out. Parts of it were fascinating, but there was far too much detail, especially about the whackier ideas of Kabbalists and Renaissance loonies. The idea of the tower of Babel - well, I can understand why he'd theme the book around that. But I got the impression that it was more than just a fairy story to Eco, that at some level he considered it a reality.
July 29, 2015
Con esta obra, Eco se adentra en el debate sobre la «mejor» lengua de la humanidad. Hay varias lenguas de gran valor para las tradiciones, otras eminentemente prácticas para la comunicación internacional, otras pueden tener más hablantes que otras. Pero, ¿cómo determinar cuál es la óptima? Un interesante ensayo sobre lingüística y una buena reflexión acerca del idioma en general.
July 31, 2008
I only got a tiny bit into this book before I returned it--the structure and writing are so technical that the book is unreadable by laymen. It's a shame--the topic sounded extremely interesting.
Shelved as 'didnt-finish'
July 26, 2010Wasn't really about what I wanted it to be about.
April 10, 2014
Incredibly interesting if you are looking for a Semiotics books, par excellence.
February 8, 2021
Un libro interesante, me resultó atrapante en el principio pero luego me fue desmotivado las innumerables referencias a autores y corrientes.
February 17, 2025
Technically tedious at times and the conclusion is a tad ambiguous, but this is a tour-de-force. It's been living rent free in my head since I first read it 10 years ago, and this re-read confirmed why. Pairs well with Jennings on Pentecost.
June 6, 2022
good as a european historical review. wish there’d been more theoretical asides. plenty of fun details and anecdotes though
August 22, 2024
It's not really an easy read, and unlikely to be of wide general interest. Eco largely documents the attempts to come up with a philosophical language that would somehow correspond to the real world. It seems that an enormous amount of effort was expended on this apparently pointless task. Clearly, this is better than devising ways to kill people or inciting them to do so, but it does nonetheless seem like a vast waste of intellectual resources.
For a more enjoyable canter through similar territory, try In the Land of Invented Languages.
For a more enjoyable canter through similar territory, try In the Land of Invented Languages.
January 28, 2017
This was an excellent overview of the history of 'perfect language projects,' including Cabalism, logic and auxiliary languages. It is an academic book, and is very technical. I had to read it fairly slowly and take good notes. This is definitely a book for research and study, rather than enjoyment. It is also one of the best linguistics books I've read.
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