From where do the languages and the peoples come? Did it give a Urvolk, an original language or did exist the diversity from the outset? These questions and the search for answers were a component of thinking from humans and world to all times. In this monumental standard work become the substantial positions, which describes tradition chains and lines of development from theology, philosophy, linguistics, history of art and literature, political history and culture history, Ethnologie and geography represented and in their connection. Developed so a universal history of human thinking, which remained in its kind uniquely and to today basis of the research.
Thus goes the Google translation of an Amazon.de (German) description of a book I really, really want in English.
In my casual studies of language and language origins, I have come across this book several times. While I am fascinated by the entire scope of language origin theory, the religious and mythological basis of the confusion of tongues remains my most passionate endeavor. Previously, I have written posts (here, here and here) that briefly examine some theories about how a Perfect Language became an Imperfect Language, and why we now speak over 6,000 languages around the world. It is this specific divergence of language, as documented in the world's religions and mythologies, that has sparked an extensive search for evidence, for stories that recount this growth.
"Arno Borst, born 1925, taught middle ones and newer history up to its retirement at the University of Konstanz. For its works it was distinguished with numerous prices, last 1996 with the Premio Balzan." (again quoted from the Google Translation Pages) Arno has written a number of books on medievel history, language and other stuff that I could tell you if I read German. As best I can tell, he may still be alive, having received the award mentioned above in 1996. Referenced several times by Umberto Eco (a particularly favorite author of mine) and others, his works seem to be held in high esteem by the linguistic world. One particular book, however, is the object of my affection.
Der Turmbau von Babel was published "back in the day" (year unknown) and re-published in 1995 in German. It is 2,376 pages of linguistic history that spans theology, philosophy, cultural history and more in its search of a universal history of human thinking (according to the translation above). In my search for other histories of language confusion, and information about this book, I posted this article to Usenet newsgroups, hoping for some help. As you can see in the responses, this book was immediately recognized. I believe that this book is exactly what I am looking for.
Unfortunately, I speak no German. Spanish -- sure. Russian -- my little bit of training in that could be the basis for reading Russian. But German -- nope, nada, zilch. I know a few people who know some basic German and could help with some of the basic words, but I am otherwise out of luck.
(I have briefly considered inputting the text of the book into the Google Language Translation website, one paragraph at a time, but decided that I couldn't appreciate the scope of the book that way.)
((Upon reconsidering the statement above, I realize that this might be the best course for me. Or not.))
Which doesn't mean that I won't still buy the book. I will probably fork over the $150 it will take to buy the book and ship it here, just so that I can have it. I figure it will be my destiny to either 1) have the book translated, or 2) write my own on the very same subject. On the one hand, option 1 is easy, but very, very expensive (and I am unsure of copyright issues that might arise). Option 2, though, is intriguing, but would require quite a large chunk of time and effort, both of which I am not sure I can spare right now.
This is one of those, "I wish I would have known about this when I was 12 years old," types of things. Just like I molded much of my young adulthood around the concept of being a psychologist (a lot of good that did, eh?), I probably would have changed gears entirely and pursued Linguistics as a major. And maybe History. And maybe German. And maybe...the list could go on, and be completely pointless in relationship to this article, so I will stop now. But either way, I would have done things a little differently.
I guess that I am writing this not because I expect any of you to be fluent in German and ready to devote a massive amount of time to the herculean task of translating over 2,300 pages of technical text for free (although I would be happy to entertain offers!), but rather because I realize that this is exactly the type of thing I created this website for. As in the Usenet article above, I can dream one day that a University Press sees this article and realizes that there is an audience of at least one for this book. Maybe then my dreams can come true.
At least the dreams that don't include fame, fortune, or Naked Twister. But that's probably a different story.
