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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to position the seventeenth-century quest for a philosophical language within an eschatological framework of first and last things. Modern accounts of these projects often focus exclusively on theological first things: namely the Adamic language and its fragmentation at the destruction of the Tower of Babel. But Babel had its equally important anti-type in the biblical account of speaking in tongues at Pentecost. The primary focus of the paper will be to explore seventeenth-century interpretations of Pentecost, which, rather unexpectedly from a modern point of view, turn out to involve not glossolalia, in the narrow sense of speaking in the tongues of angels rather than the tongues of men, but xenololia, in the equally narrow sense of speaking in a human language that one has never learned.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Henry Sweet Society colloquium, Oxford, April 2002, and at a conference organized by the English Philological Society of Japan, Tokyo, in December of the same year. For clarification of many of the issues under discussion I am particularly indebted to Louis Kelly, Avi Lifschitz, Rhodri Lewis, Jaap Maat, William Poole, John Walsh, and Jonathan Witztum. I should like to dedicate this paper to the memory of Vivian Salmon, whose support and encouragement I enjoyed from the very start of my work on seventeenth-century philosophical language schemes.
Notes
1 On the topological parallel between Babel and Pentecost, see Chrysostum Hom. in Act. 4 (PG 60: 40) and St Augustine in Ps 50 (PL 36: 636).
2 For broader discussion of seventeenth-century ideas on the origin of language in the context of philosophical language schemes, see Katz (1981), Dutz (1988), Bono (1995) Aarsleff (1999), Coudert (1999), Lewis (2007), and Poole and Henderson (2011).
3 Identifying Malay as being what is nowadays called a lingua franca, Wilkins says (1668: 10): ‘This is the onely Language (for ought I know) that hath ever been at once invented’. Wilkins’s motivation for calling attention to the successful spread of an invented language is that this establishes a precedent for the eventual adoption by humanity of a philosophical language.
4 Wilkins cites Scaliger (1610), who identifies eleven mother-tongues, four major ones (Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Slavonic), and seven lesser ones (Albanese, European Tartar [Scythian], Hungarian, Finnic, Cantabrian [Biscay], Irish, and Gaulish/Welsh). Brerewood (1614) adds four others (Arabic, Cauchian [spoken in East Friesland], Illyrian, and Jazygian [spoken in Hungary]).
5 ‘Every one of these reputed Mother-tongues, except the Arabic, (and perhaps the Hungarian) was used in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire. But whether they were all of them so ancient as the Confusion of Babel doth not appear; there wants not good probability to the contrary for some of them’ (Wilkins, 1668: 4).
6 In Chapter II, Wilkins discusses the various non-supernatural factors which cause or facilitate change in vulgar languages, and concludes: ‘Those learned Languages which have now ceased to be vulgar, and remain onely in Books, by which the purity of them is regulated, may, whilst those Books are extant and studied, continue the same without change. But all Languages that are vulgar, as those learned ones formerly were, are upon the fore-mentioned occasions [i.e. the list of factors causing change] subject to so many alterations, that in tract of time they will appear to be quite another thing then what they were at first’ (Wilkins, 1668: 6). On Wilkins’s theory of language change more generally, see Subbiondo (1990).
7 The patristic view that the age of miracles is past had become a commonplace in the seventeenth-century, as can be documented by its frequent invocation in the plays of Shakespeare. A parallel proposition, more controversial in a seventeenth-century context, was that the gift of prophecy likewise belonged to an earlier age of the world and ‘was taken away in later times’ (Ray, 1691: 298).
8 It is not often enough highlighted that scientific explanation in the seventeenth century allows radically different laws to operate at different ages of the world’s development in a way that usually strikes the beginning student as simply incoherent and counter-intuitive. The rigorous compartmentalization of explanatory laws is of course precisely what is contradicted by the principle of ‘uniformitarianism’, as established in the nineteenth century.
9 Dalgarno drew such criticism upon himself by making an explicit parallel between the function of his universal language scheme and the gift of tongues (by which he clearly understands xenolalia) in his 1657 broadsheet: ‘[all nations] shall be able to understand one another, as fully and clearely as if they should speake one unto another, in their owne proper Idioms, or, as if they had the gift of languages’. (Cram and Maat, 2001: 86).
10 Comparatively little attention has been paid to the issue of Pentecost in the vast and ever-growing literature on seventeenth-century universal language schemes. For exceptions to the rule, see the relevant sections in Céard (1980), Demonet (1992), Bono (1995), Poole (2003), and Lewis (2007).
11 An entry is supplied by William Lloyd’s dictionary, which is appended to the Essay (with the gloss ‘Festival for the descension [sic] of the Holy Ghost’), but no derivation or place in the taxonomic tables is assigned to this.
12 For a brief but well-documented discussion of this distinction, see Screech (1997: 107–10). The theological ramifications of speaking in tongues as one of the charismatic gifts can be readily explored by consulting any of the major catholic encyclopaedias.
13 In particular in the modern pentecostal churches, on which see Cutten (1927), Kelsey (1965), and Christie-Murray (1978). On the analysis of glossolalia from a structural linguistic perspective, with sample transcriptions, see Samarin (1972) and Courtine (1988). On the connection between glossolalia and the language of angels, see Certeau (1985) and Cram (2010: 272–76).
14 For a parallel example, see the annotation to Acts, chapter 2, verse 6 in the widely read Bible commentary by Matthew Poole (1683–85) ‘[T]he Apostles did speak to every one in their proper and intelligible Language; and this was the gift of Tongues, which for some time after also was continued in the Church’. For a more comprehensive discussion, with key patristic references, see Poole (1669–76, iv: col. 1404).
15 The full details of this story can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat, 88/ii. I am grateful for Jonathan Witztum for help in tracing this source. He also drew my attention to the fact that, in the Midrash Tanhuma on Noah (Genesis) section 19 of the regular (non-Buber) edition, there is an eschatological idea of unification of languages; this invokes the previously mentioned verse from the Book of Zephaniah (chapter 3, verse 9).
16 Peter unambiguously addresses his speech to them, beginning ‘Ye men of Judæa’ (Acts 2:14).
17 [On Acts 2:4:] ‘They that were unlearned men, were all suddenly filled with the Holy Ghost, who inspiring their minds with Sacred Light of Knowledge and fervor of affection, caused them to utter these in various Languages, which they had never learnt in the Praises of God and his works’. [On Acts 2:13] ‘It is but nine a Clock at which time Men use to pray fasting (and Drunkeness will not enable a Man to speak various Languages.)’ (Baxter, 1685: G4v).
18 On Quaker speech, Quaker silence, and Quaker eschatology, Bauman (1983), Ormsby-Lennon (1991), and Underwood (1970). On the larger background, see Nuttall (1946), Hill (1972), Ormsby-Lennon (1988; 1999), and Smith (1989).
19 For an expression of Fox’s more radical linguistic views, which prompted his attack on the teaching of languages in the universities, see the entry in his Journal for 1658 (Fox, 1998: 255–56) and his preface in the jointly written Battle-Door pamphlet (Fox et al., 1660: A2v).
20 Letter from Boyle to John Mallet, dated November 1651 (Boyle, 2004, 1: 104–05). I am grateful to Will Poole for drawing my attention to this story (which he retells better than I) as also for many informative discussions while this article was in the making.
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David Cram
David Cram is an emeritus fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, formerly university lecturer in general linguistics. His research interests have focused primarily on seventeenth-century universal language projects, and their underpinning in various aspects of contemporary philosophical and scientific thinking.
Correspondence to: David Cram, Jesus College, Turl Street, Oxford ox1 3dw, UK. Email: [email protected]