Langue(s) et utopie – I : Remarques générales

• Main Author: Nicole Guilleux
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2010-12-01
• Series: Kentron
• Subjects: glossolaly; auxiliary international language (auxlang); Klemperer; constructed language (conlang); universal language; utopian language
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/kentron/1395

The aim of this paper is to give an overview on the relations the language and languages bear to utopia. Thus, on the one hand, the paper explores the range of constructed languages (conlangs), whether they are created consciously (jargons, slangs, pidgins, as well as auxiliary international languages [auxlangs] and pasigraphies) or not (such as religious and non-religious glossolalies). This investigation is led in order to show how these languages work and what is at stake in them. On the other hand, natural languages (natlangs) are sometimes involved in utopian processes, when linguistic policies implement drastic reforms (Attaturk’s linguistic reform, the “rebirth” of Hebrew) or when totalitarian regimes prevail (Hitlerian German). Even if imaginary languages are found in each literary genre, most of them appear in fictional utopias, where they have various functions. In the voyages of standard utopias, imaginary languages are a mere ornament or they serve as a means to authenticate the utopian civilisation. In the dystopias, however, the linguistic manipulations are the very symptom of the distorted societies. At last, forging an imaginary language can give its creator the opportunity of developing metalinguistic considerations mirroring the scholarly concerns of his time.