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2 - Language and Cosmos in the Epic of Creation
Jacobo Myerston, University of California, San Diego
Book:

Language and Cosmos in Greece and Mesopotamia

Published online:

16 May 2023

Print publication:

06 April 2023, pp 43-75
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Summary

This chapter presents a detailed examination of the theory of language put forward in the Babylonian cosmogony, Enuma elish. This poem locates the origin of language at the very beginnings of the cosmos’ formation, even before the gods came to be. Accordingly, language is one of the first principles on which the world is founded. Thus, just as there is a temporal and spatial dimension of existence, there is also a linguistic one that is beyond the human and the divine. The poem futher explores this idea in using wordplay and etymology of sacred places, divine objects, and gods. In this context, the patron god of Babylon, Marduk, is conceptualized as a polyonymous cosmic divinity who incorporates into his persona the names of other gods.