La ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea

[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 Leggi tutto

Chapter "International auxiliary languages" ("Welthilfssprachen")

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, b Leggi tutto

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 Ec Leggi tutto

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 Leggi tutto

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 my Leggi tutto

Interesting topic, but rather dry book.

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 lang Leggi tutto

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 cultur Leggi tutto