Thus Spake
The search for the pre-lapsarian language continues. Having recently completed Umberto Eco’s Search for the Perfect Language, which examined European efforts over the centuries to reconstruct the language of God (originally presumed to be Hebrew) or alternatively to construct a universal tongue, I have a certain appreciation for these biological efforts, if only from an entertainment standpoint, for effectively appeased by such efforts as Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Is it possible to reconstruct an original language? What would we learn if we did? Would we be instantly understood by all the people of the world, like the apostles at Pentacost? Well, maybe not; we’d probably be limited to only such universals as “tastes great, less filling” or “fire bad, friend good,” instead of having our ears opened to some celestial speech permeating the created world.