The Search for a Final Language: Comenius’s Linguistic Eschatology

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse and clarify a linguistic-eschatological aspect of Comenius’s language project. First, it investigates hypotheses concerning the origin of language in the works of key figures in the language planning movement: Bacon, Mersenne, Comenius, Dalgarno and Wilkins. Second, it inquiries into their theological justifications for language planning and into the problem of cessationism. Third, it examines the dignity and role of the existing languages according to Comenius and focuses on the notion and goal of the new, perfect, ultimate language as imagined by him. Fourth, it elucidates Comenius’s idea of the final language through the prism of his biblical exegesis and his understanding of sacred history.