The Search for the Perfect Language

Description

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.

Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria in 1932 and has been Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna since 1975 and President of the International Centre for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies since 1988. His books include The Name of the Rose (1980) and Foucault's Pendulum (1988). His most recent works include Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984), The Limits of Interpretation (1990), Apocalyspe Postponed (1994) and The Island of the Day Before (1995).

"This is as much a history of the study of language and its origins as it is a" tour de force" pursuit using scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, thus providing a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European history." " The Medieval Review"