Chapter II: Two Old-world Theories of Language

Extract

Adam’s first task was giving names to natural Appearances: what is ours still but a continuation of the same?—CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus, 1830.

What is now usually known as the ‘external divine-origin theory’ of language—a misnomer which arose from erroneous theological expositions of the narrative given in the early chapters of Genesis—has still an interest for the modern student; first, because of the prolonged influence which it has had upon language theory in the Western world; and second, because of certain significant facts regarding language which an understanding reader still finds in that old story of language origin, to say nothing of the poetic attractiveness of the story itself.