{"title":"Up from Babel: On the (r)evolutionary linguistic thought of Eugène Lanti","authors":"David Karlander","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.02.003","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Esperantist radical Eugène Lanti (1879–1947) anticipated a total ‘unification’ of humankind, envisioning that national, linguistic, and social differences would soon give way to a global, stateless, monolingual, postcapitalist utopia. This vision was grounded in Lanti's understanding of history as teleological progress toward increased rationality, social integration, and demythologization, as well as in his cosmopolitan reinterpretation of the social utility of Esperanto, which prioritised anti-nationalism, revolutionary tactics, and class-struggle over humanism and language rights. Lanti's linguistic–political thought is, consequently, an enticing and a reflexively potent example of a non-canonical approach to linguistic community, progress, and radical equality. A critical reading of it – as is laid out here – casts light on some of the tensions immanent in any linguistic universalism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271530924000120/pdfft?md5=17f59ff6fca83c1db4bf0ba31dff768e&pid=1-s2.0-S0271530924000120-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language & Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271530924000120","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Esperantist radical Eugène Lanti (1879–1947) anticipated a total ‘unification’ of humankind, envisioning that national, linguistic, and social differences would soon give way to a global, stateless, monolingual, postcapitalist utopia. This vision was grounded in Lanti's understanding of history as teleological progress toward increased rationality, social integration, and demythologization, as well as in his cosmopolitan reinterpretation of the social utility of Esperanto, which prioritised anti-nationalism, revolutionary tactics, and class-struggle over humanism and language rights. Lanti's linguistic–political thought is, consequently, an enticing and a reflexively potent example of a non-canonical approach to linguistic community, progress, and radical equality. A critical reading of it – as is laid out here – casts light on some of the tensions immanent in any linguistic universalism.
期刊介绍：
This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.
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