From the Tree to the Labyrinth (53 page)

The second, incomplete, portion of the
DVE
outlines the rules of composition for the one and only truly illustrious vernacular, the poetic language of which Dante considers himself to be the founder. But it is the first part of the treatise that interests us here.

The
DVE
defines the vernacular as the language children learn to use when they begin to articulate sounds, which they acquire by imitating their wet nurse, and he opposes it to a
locutio secundaria,
called grammar
(grammatica)
by the Romans. Grammar meant a language governed by rules that require extended study and of which one must acquire the
habitus.
This
locutio secundaria
is the scholastic Latin whose rules were taught in the schools of the day, an
artificial
idiom, “perpetual and incorruptible,” the international language of the Church and the university, frozen in time into a system of rules and regulations by the grammarians who had laid down the law when Latin had ceased to be the living language of Rome.

Faced with this distinction, Dante states unequivocally that the vernacular is the nobler language because it was the first one used by the human race; because the whole world uses it “though with different pronunciations and using different words” (
DVE
I, i, 4); and lastly because it is natural whereas the other is artificial.

On the one hand, then, he affirms that the nobler language must fulfill the requirements of naturalness, while the recognized diversity of the vernaculars confirms their conventionality (and Dante admits that the relationship between signifier and signified, a consequence of the faculty of speech, is the product of convention, in other words,
ad placitum
). On the other hand, he speaks of the vernacular as a language everyone shares, even though vocabulary and pronunciation may vary. Since the whole of the
DVE
insists on the variety of languages, how are we to reconcile the idea that languages are many with the fact that the vernacular (natural language) is common to the whole human race? The answer is that it is “natural” and common to all to learn first of all a natural language without being aware of its rules, but that this occurs because all mankind has in common a natural predisposition for language, a natural linguistic faculty, which is embodied, in Scholastic terms, in different linguistic substances and forms (see also Marigo 1938: ch. 9, n. 23; Dragonetti 1961: 32).

Dante affirms in fact (
DVE
I, i, 2) that the ability to acquire one’s mother tongue is natural, and this ability is common to all peoples despite the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. He is not speaking then of a specific language, but of a general ability shared by all members of the species.

It is clear to him, then, that, while the language faculty is permanent and unchanging for all members of the species, natural languages on the other hand are capable of developing and becoming enriched over time, either independently of the wills of individual speakers or, on the contrary, as a result of their creativity—and the illustrious vernacular he is proposing to forge is meant to be a product of individual creativity. But it seems that between linguistic faculty and natural language he wishes to distinguish an intermediate moment.

In the opening chapter of the first part of the
DVE,
Dante, referring to his notion of the vernacular, uses terms such as
vulgaris eloquentia, locutio vulgarium gentium,
and
vulgaris locutio,
while he uses
locutio secundaria
for grammar. We could translate
eloquentia
in the generic sense either as “eloquence” or as “speech” or “manner of speaking.” But the text contains a distinction among various lexical choices that is probably not casual. In certain cases Dante speaks of
locutio,
in others of
ydioma,
of
lingua,
or of
loquela.
He uses
ydioma,
for example, whenever he is referring to the Hebrew language (
DVE
I, iv, 1; vi, 1; and vi, 7), as well as in reference to the branching off of the world’s languages, and the Romance languages in particular.

In I, vi, 6–7, in speaking of the
confusio linguarum
of Babel, Dante uses the term
loquela.
In the same context, however, he also uses
ydioma,
both for the languages of the confusion and the Hebrew language that remained intact. Similarly, he speaks of the
loquela
of the Genoese and of the Tuscans, but he also uses
lingua
for Hebrew and the dialects of the Italian vernacular. Writing again about the confusion of Babel. when he wants to say that, after its destruction, the builders of the Tower began to speak imperfect languages, he says that “tanto rudius nunc barbariusque locuntur,” (“the more rudimentary and barbaric the language they now spoke”) (
DVE
I, vii, 7, p. 14), while, a few lines down, referring to the original Hebrew language, the term used is “antiquissima locutione” (“the most ancient language”) (
DVE
I, vii, 8, p. 14).

It might be thought that he uses all these terms as synonyms, if it were not for the fact that
ydioma, lingua,
and
loquela
are used only when what he is talking about is a Saussurean
langue,
while it seems that
locutio
is used in a more generic sense and shows up whenever the context appears to be suggesting the activity of
parole.
Apropos of certain animal cries, for instance, he says that such an act cannot be called a
locutio
because it is not a true linguistic activity (
DVE
I, ii, 6–7). What’s more, Dante uses
locutio
every time Adam addresses God.

It would appear, then, that
ydioma, lingua,
and
loquela
are to be understood in the modern sense of “language,” while
locutio
seems instead to stand for discursive acts.

In
DVE
I, iv, 1, Dante wonders who was the first human being to be given the faculty of speech
(locutio)
and what was the first thing said (“quod primitus locutus fuerit”) and where, when, and to whom, and in what language (“sub quo ydiomate”) was the first linguistic act (“primiloquium”) emitted. I believe, incidentally, that we are entitled to translate “primiloquium” in this way, by analogy with “tristiloquium” and “turpiloquium” (
DVE
I, xi, 2; xiii, 4), used to describe the ugly manner of speaking of the Romans and the Florentines of his day.

Perhaps Dante wanted to stress the fact that Adam speaks to God before giving things their names, and that
God had therefore given him the faculty of speech before he constructed a language.

But what language did Adam speak? Dante criticizes those who, like the Florentines, believe their own native language superior, whereas there exist many languages, and many of them are superior to the Italian vernacular. Next (
DVE
I, vi, 4), he concludes that, along with the first soul, God created at the same time a “certam formam locutionis” (“a certain form of language”). If we translate this expression as “a well-defined form of language” (as Mengaldo [1979: 55] does, how do we explain the fact that in
DVE
I, vi, 7 Dante states: “Fuit ergo hebraicum ydioma illud quod primi loquentis labia fabricarunt” [“So the Hebrew language was that which the lips of the first speaker moulded”]?

Dante explains that he speaks of
forma
“with reference both to the words used for things, and to the construction of words, and to the arrangement of the construction (“et quantum ad rerum vocabula et quantum ad vocabularum constructionem et quantum ad constructionis prolationem” [
DVE
, I, vi, 4]), allowing the inference that, by “forma locutionis” he is referring to a lexicon and a morphology, and hence to a language. But if we translate
forma
as “language,” the following passage would be hard to fathom:

And this form
(forma)
of language would have continued to be used by all speakers, had it not been shattered through the fault of human presumption, as will be shown below.

In this form of language (
forma locutionis
) Adam spoke; in this form of language spoke all his descendants until the building of the Tower of Babel (which is interpreted as “tower of confusion”); this is the form of language inherited by the sons of Heber, who are called Hebrews because of it. To these alone it remained after the confusion, so that our redeemer, who was to descend from them (in so far as He was human), should not speak the language of confusion but that of grace.

So the Hebrew language was that which the lips of the first speaker moulded. (
DVE
I, vi, 4–7)
⁴

If we were to interpret “forma locutionis” as meaning a fully formed language, why then, in saying that Jesus Christ spoke Hebrew, does Dante use at one time
lingua
and at another
ydioma
(while, right afterward, in
DVE
I, vii, 7, recounting the episode of the confusion of tongues,
loquela
is the term chosen), whereas the expression “forma locutionis” is used only for the original divine gift? Furthermore, if we were to grant that “forma locutionis” signified only the faculty of speech, it is not clear why the sinners of Babel would have lost it (while the Hebrews kept it), seeing that the whole of the
DVE
recognizes the existence of a plurality of languages produced (on the basis of some natural faculty) after Babel.

Let us, then, attempt an alternative translation:

And it is precisely this form that all speakers would use in their language, if it had not been dismembered through the fault of human presumption, as we shall demonstrate below.
This is the linguistic form
in which Adam spoke: all of his descendants spoke
thanks to this form
until the building of the Tower of Babel—which is interpreted as the tower of confusion: this was
the linguistic form
that the sons of Eber, who were called Hebrews after their father, inherited. To them alone it remained after the confusion, so that our Redeemer, who was to be born of them through the human side of his nature, should enjoy, not a tongue of confusion, but a tongue of grace. It was, then, the Hebrew language
that the lips of the first speaker framed.

What, however, is this linguistic form that is not the Hebrew language nor the general faculty of language and which was given to Adam as a divine gift but lost after Babel—and which Dante, as we shall see, is endeavoring to rediscover with his theory of the illustrious vernacular?

Corti (1981: 46 et seq.) has suggested a solution to the problem, based on the principle that Dante cannot be understood if he is seen simply as an orthodox follower of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Dante appeals, depending on the circumstances, to various philosophical and theological sources, and there can be no doubt that he was influenced by various strands of that so-called radical Aristotelianism whose major representative was Siger of Brabant (whom Dante places in the Heaven of the Sun). But Boethius of Dacia too, one of the major representatives of the Modistae grammarians (and also in the Heaven of the Sun), was associated with the circles of radical Aristotelianism (and like Siger incurred the condemnation of the bishop of Paris in 1277). Dante is alleged to have been influenced by his
De modis significandi.
Corti sees the Bologna of his time as the seedbed from which these influences were passed on to Dante, either as a result of a personal stay there or through contacts between Bolognese and Florentine intellectual circles.

If such were the case, it would become clearer what Dante meant by “forma locutionis.” It was the Modistae who argued for the existence of linguistic universals, that is, for a set of rules underlying the formation of any natural language. In the
De modis,
Boethius observes that it is possible to extract, from all existing languages, the rules of a universal grammar, distinct from either Latin or Greek grammar (
Quaestio
VI).

What God gave to Adam, then, was not the mere faculty for language, and not even a natural language, but the principles of a universal grammar, the formal cause, “the general structuring principle of language both as regards lexicon and as regards the morphological and syntactic characters of language, which Adam will frame little by little, as he goes on living and giving names to things” (Corti 1981: 47).
⁵
The
forma locutionis
given to him by God could be understood as a sort of innate mechanism reminiscent of the same universal principles studied in Chomsky’s generative grammar.

It seems likely, then, that Dante believed that, with Babel, what had disappeared was the perfect
forma locutionis
—the only form that would permit the creation of languages capable of reflecting the very essence of things (the identity between
modi essendi
and
modi significandi
), of which the Hebrew spoken by Adam was the incomparable and perfect result—and that the surviving
formae locutionis
were incoherent and imperfect—just like the Italian vernaculars whose inability to express lofty and profound thought is pilloried by the poet.

If this is how the
DVE
is to be read, we can finally understand the nature of that illustrious vernacular that Dante claims to be tracking down like a perfumed panther, “whose scent is left everywhere but which is nowhere to be seen” (
DVE
I, xvi, 1).
⁶
It shows up here and there in the texts of the poets whom Dante considers major, but it still appears to be unformed, unregulated, unarticulated in its grammatical principles. Confronted with the existing vernaculars, natural but not universal, and with a universal but artificial grammar, Dante pursues the dream of a restoration of the Edenic
forma locutionis,
which is both natural and universal. Unlike many men of the Renaissance, however, who will go in search of a Hebrew language restored to its revelatory and magical powers, Dante’s goal is to recreate the original conditions with an act of modern invention. The illustrious vernacular is to be a poetic language, his language, and it will be the means by which a modern poet is able to heal the post-Babelic wound. The whole of the second book of the
DVE
is not to be read as a mere treatise on style, but as an effort to create the conditions, the rules, the
forma locutionis
of the only conceivable perfect language, the Italian of Dante’s poetry (Corti 1981: 70). This illustrious vernacular will possess the
necessity
(as opposed to the conventionality) of the original perfect language, because, just as the
forma locutionis
allowed Adam to speak with God, the illustrious vernacular will allow the poet to make his words equal to the task of expressing what they have to express, which would otherwise be inexpressible.