The divine and the grammarian: Theological disputes in the 17th-century universal language movement

William Poole
Downing College, Cambridge
Summary

This paper discusses the theological background of the linguistic ideas of the three major universal language-planners writing and publishing in England in the 17th century, John Wilkins, George Dalgarno, and Francis Lodwick. Through an examination of these men’s attitudes to the three biblical sites central to early modern linguistics – the accounts of Adam naming the beasts, the fall of man, and the Confusion of Tongues at Babel – it is demonstrated that Wilkins, Dalgarno, and Lodwick held different views on these events and their linguistic ramifications. Wilkins and Dalgarno disagreed about the nature and perseverance of the original Adamic language. Francis Lodwick proposed a far more radical solution: under the influence of the French heretic Isaac La Peyrère, he proposed that men had existed, polygenetically, since long before Adam, and that language hence did not originate with Adam. This paper therefore significantly qualifies the intellectual coherency of the ‘universal language movement’, and does so by the use of hitherto almost entirely neglected manuscript material.

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