La búsqueda de la lengua perfecta en la cultura europea
- Eco, Umberto
- Asunción Bernárdez Rodal trad.
ISSN: 1135-7991, 1988-4001
Year of publication: 1998
Issue Title: Retórica
Issue: 4
Pages: 133-148
Type: Article
More publications in: CIC: Cuadernos de información y comunicación
Abstract
The utopia of finding a perfect language has haunted the imagination of the greater thinkers of western culture. In this work Umberto Eco exposes the different theories of a perfect language, theories which could produce the linguistic unity of Europe, and the consequences that these have had not only to thought but to the western life in general, because many of the social, political or economical questions are mingled along the history, with the problem of a perfect original language: or language imitates things, or is it a mere convention, or it reflects a sort of spiritual order. The passing from a thought of Babel as a god¿s punishment to a concept of a symbol of universal unity in diversity has not been a sole theoretical exercise, but also has made easy to us the understanding of a multilingual European reality and the impulse still existent to the search of a universal human communication code.