Andreas Kempe (1622-89) and the Languages Spoken in Paradise

Publisher： John Benjamins Publishing Company

E-ISSN： 1569-9781|5|3|221-226

ISSN： 0302-5160

Source： Historiographia Linguistica. International Journal for the History of the Language Sciences, Vol.5, Iss.3, 1978-01, pp. : 221-226

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Abstract

SUMMARY Several textbooks in general linguistics (by Crystal, Fromkin Rodman, and Waterman) mention a 17th-century Swede who maintained that, in Paradise, God spoke Swedish, Adam Danish, and the serpent French. The name of this Swede is Andreas Kempe (not Kemke, as given in the above-mentioned books), a religious dissenter, persecuted in his Lutheran homeland. In this paper it is shown that the view that Swedish was the original language agrees with that of his contemporary scholars. The statement on Danish and French, however, appears in a context where it is clear that it was to be interpreted as an expatriate's attempt to ridicule his adversaries among the Swedish clergy, and should not, therefore, be quoted as a serious opinion. RÉSUMÉ Plusieurs volumes de linguistique générale (par Crystal, Fromkin Rodman, and Waterman) mentionnent un suédois du XVIIIe siècle qui maintient qu'au paradis, Dieu parle le suédois, Adam le danois et le serpent le français. Le nom de ce suédois est Andreas Kempe (non Kemke tel que donné dans les volumes ci-haut cités), dissident religieux, persécuté dans son pays natal luthérien. L'opinion émise dans l'ouvrage de Kempe selon laquelle le suédois était la langue originale, est supportée par les écrivains contemporains. Tant qu'au danois et au français, il apparaît clairement qu'ilVagit de tourner en ridicule ses adversaires parmi le clergé suédois et, par conséquent, ne doit pas être considéré comme un argument sérieux.