Author(s): Umberto Eco

Culture Ideas Politics

The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, and mystics for at least two millennia. This book investigates the history of that idea, and of its profound influence on European thought, culture and history. From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was just such a language, and that all current languages were its decadent descendents from the catastrpohes of the Fall and at Babel. Eco demonstrates the relation between language and identity, and describes, for example, how and why the Irish, English, Germans and Swedes have variously claimed their languages as closest to the original.