Search For The Perfect Language Book

After the twin realization that not only did I very much like Umberto Eco's work, but I also had read almost none of it, I went through my library seeing if I had any of his books tucked away and, lo and behold, I came up with this one. I honestly have no idea how I got it or how long I've had it, but it's got no jacket and has a chunk missing from the binding. In any case, I read it very quickly, pacing myself to only a few chapters a day, and found it delightful.

You may find it strange that I call a book about mankind's search for "a perfect language" delightful. After all, this is basically a book about linguistics and semiotics, the way we as a people decide what words mean and the way we assign written symbols to things in the first place. For about a thousand years, Europe has been asking the question, "What was the first language ever spoken?" on the assumption that this first language, whatever it is, would by definition be the best language, the one before the splintering of dialects that has led to disharmony and conflict among human beings ever since. And by the 18th century, Europe more or less gave up on this question and decided to, instead, try making a new language which would achieve the goal of universal harmony but which would be better than any language humanity had developed in use.

Eco walks us through all this with masterful erudition and no small amount of humor. He has a gift for explaining complicated issues in easy terms, something he does by first summarizing the thing using the author's own language before adding a short, concise, and wonderfully illustrative, "in other words..."

By the end of THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT LANGUAGE Eco helps us to understand that linguists and semioticians had more or less given up, with Esperanto being the artificial language that, for all its marginal status, has best come close to realizing the original goal. But, more important, the book becomes a rejection of its own premise. That is, when we search for a "perfect language" we are chasing the wrong fox. Rather than rejecting the multiplicity of language and culture, we should embrace it. It is exactly these differences in language, perspective, in world view, that make humanity interesting and wondrous. In that sense, the fall of the Tower of Babel was not a curse, but a blessing. Ours is a Fortunate Fall.