Walter Benjamin’s Meta-Lingual Language
An Enquiry of the Arkhe-Logos of Languages
Keywords:
The nature and origin of language, naming, spiritual essence, the word of God, the language of Paradise, the language of man, the language of thingsAbstract
The subject of this study is the understanding of language put forward by Walter Benjamin in his article “Über die Sprache überhaupt und über the Sprache des Menschen (On Language as Such and the Language of Man)”. The work, written in 1916, is the earliest of Benjamin’s four main writings focusing on language. In his article, Benjamin puts forward an understanding of language centred on the two narratives of creation and the narrative of the Tower of Babel in the Bible. In his study, which he carries out with the sensitivity of a philosopher, not a commentator, he deals with a wide range of topics and concepts such as the nature and origin of language, the multiplicity of languages, naming, the word of God, human language, the language of things, spiritual essence, linguistic essence, and translation. According to Benjamin, the expression of all kinds of spiritual essence corresponds to language, and all living or non-living beings share in language. In other words, each conveys its spiritual essence in its linguistic essence, that is, in language. In the case of inanimate objects, this transmission activity is carried out against humans, and in the case of humans, this transmission activity is carried out against God. In this sense, there is a hierarchical structure according to the competence of the spiritual essence. God comes first, followed by humans and inanimate beings [...]
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