Les Langues du Paradis est traduit en douze langues :
• Le Lingue del Paradiso. Ariani e Semiti : una coppia provvidenziale, Introduzione di Jean-Pierre Vernant, trad. Roberta Ferrata, Première édition Bologna, Il Mulino, 1991. Édition revue et augmentée, Bompiani, 2016, 265 p.
Qual era la lingua parlata da Adamo ed Eva nel Giardino dell’Eden? L’ebraico, il greco, il latino? Olender ripercorre il dibattito delle grandi discipline (filologia, linguistica comparata, storia delle religioni), mostrando come nel momento di massima “positivizzazione” delle scienze umane emerse una biforcazione tra Ariani e Semiti, decisiva per tutto il sistema culturale occidentale. Lo studioso ci conduce alle radici della nostra identità religiosa e culturale, e ci consente di intravedere come all’incrocio tra filologia e mitologia, tra religione e scienza si stagliano, già nell’800, come scrive Jean-Pierre Vernant nell’introduzione “quasi sullo sfondo oscuro di un quadro le ombre dei lager e il fumo dei forni”.
• The Languages of Paradise. Race, Religion, and Philology in the Nineteenth Century, trad. Arthur Goldhammer, Foreword by J.-P. Vernant, Cambridge, Mass., London, Harvard University Press, 1992.
Revised and augmented edition, Harvard University Press, Paperback edition, 2009, 228 p.
Michel Foucault observed that “the birth of philology attracted far less notice in the Western mind than did the birth of biology or political economy.” In this penetrating exploration of the origin of the discipline, Maurice Olender shows that philology left an indelible mark on Western visions of history and contributed directly to some of the most horrifying ideologies of the twentieth century.
The comparative study of languages was inspired by Renaissance debates over what language was spoken in the Garden of Eden. By the eighteenth century scholars were persuaded that European languages shared a common ancestor. With the adoption of positivist, “scientific” methods in the nineteenth century, the hunt for the language of Eden and the search for a European Ursprache diverged. Yet the desire to reconcile historical causality with divine purpose remained.
Because the Indo-European languages clearly had a separate line of descent from the biblical tongues, the practitioners of the new science of philology (many of whom had received their linguistic training from the Church) turned their scholarship to the task of justifying the ascendance of European Christianity to the principal role in Providential history. To accomplish this they invented a pair of concepts—Aryan and Semitic—that by the end of the century had embarked on ideological and political careers far outside philology. Supposed characteristics of the respective languages were assigned to the peoples who spoke them: thus the Semitic peoples (primarily the Jews) were, like their language, passive, static, and immobile, while the Aryans (principally Western Europeans) became the active, dynamic Chosen People of the future.
Olender traces the development of these concepts through the work of J. G. Herder, Ernest Renan, Friedrich Max Müller, Adolphe Pictet, Rudolph Grau, and Ignaz Goldziher. He shows that, despite their different approaches, each of these men struggled more or less purposefully “to join romanticism with positivism in an effort to preserve a common allegiance to the doctrines of Providence.”
With erudition and elegance, Olender restores the complexity and internal contradictions of their ideas and recreates the intellectual climate in which they flourished.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Foreword by Jean-Pierre Vernant
- Preface
- Archives of Paradise
- Divine Vowels [Richard Simon, Robert Lowth, J. G. Herder]
- The Cycle of the Chosen Peoples [J. G. Herder]
- The Hebrews and the Sublime, [Ernest Renan]
- The Danger of Ambiguity [Friedrich Max Müller]
- The Monotheism of the Aryas, [Adoiphe Pictet]
- Heavenly Nuptials [Rudolph Friedrich Grau]
- Semites as Aryans [Ignaz Goldziher]
- Secrets of the Forge
- Notes
- Index
• Die Sprachen des Paradieses. Religion, Philologie und Rassentheorie im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt/ New York, Paris, Campus Verlag, Editions de la Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1995). Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée : mit einem Vorwort von Markus Messling und einem Vorwort zur Erstausgabe von Jean-Pierre Vernant. Mit einem Essay von Jean Starobinski, aus dem Französischen von Peter D. Krumme, Berlin, Kadmos Verlag, 2013, 231 s.
“Maurice Olenders Vorhaben in Die Sprachen des Paradieses ist klar umrissen: Es besteht darin, aufzuzeigen, wie erheblich der Einfluß der Theologie unter den Philologen, die sich auf die objektive Wissenschaft beriefen, lange Zeit blieb. Es beabsichtigt – mit Hilfe einer fundierten und verläßlichen Dokumentation -, die Anwesenheit des Mythos im Inneren eines Diskurses zu erhellen, der beanspruchte, mit rationalem Denken Aufklärung in die überlebten Formen der mythischen und religiösen Anschauungen zu bringen. Wissentlich oder unwissentlich blieben Glaube und Apologetik in den Werken jener am Werk, die sich zuweilen mit Paläontologen verglichen und die wir für die Begründer der modernen Sprachwissenschaft ansehen können. » Aus dem Nachwort von Jean Starobinksi
“So verblüffend sieht die Geschichte der vergleichenden Philologie des 19. Jahrhunderts aus, die so eng mit Religionsgeschichte verbunden ist. Maurice Olender erzählt sie mit Respekt vor ihrer ganzen Komplexität und ihren Widersprüchen. » Jacques Le Goff
“Und wenn mir das Buch Maurice Olenders gefallen hat, so deshalb, weil es sehr gut zeigt, wie sich Wissenschaftler in denkbar bestem Glauben haben täuschen können. » Jean Starobinski
“Eines der schönsten Bücher, die ich zu diesem Thema kenne, ein außergewöhnliches Buch – ich zitiere es oft. » Umberto Eco
INHALT :
• Le chonot gan-eden, traduit en hébreu par Yoram Bronowski, Jérusalem, Tel Aviv, Schocken Publishing House, 1999.
• Les Langues du Paradis, traduit en arabe par George Suleiman, Beyrouth, Arab Organization for Translation, 2007.
• Traduction en japonais, Tokyo, Hosei University Press, 1995.
• Jazyky Raja. Arijci a Semiti : Dvojica z vôle prozretel’nosti, trad. par Eva Piovarcsyova, Bratislava, Causa editio, 1996.
• Cennetin Dilleri. Tanrisal bir çift : Ariler ve Samiler, trad. Nevzat Yilmaz, Ankara, Dost, 1998.
Şu soruyla başlar kitap&;#59; “Cennet Bahçesi’nde Adem, Havva, Tanrı ve yılan İbranice mi, Flamanca mı, Fransızca mı, yoksa İsveççe mi konuşurlar?” ve dilin kökeni üzerine yapılan tartışmaların 19. yüzyılda ne türden bir “ırkçılık”a doğru uzandığını göstermek ister.
Ari ve Sami olarak adlandırılacak iki dil ailesinin icadı, aynı zamanda, bu dillerin kültür evrenlerine dahil olan halkların da, kendi aralarında, üstün ya da aşağılık olarak sınıflandırılmasına varacaktır. Uygarlık, hareketlilik, yaratıcılık, Arilere atfedilecek, Samilerin payına ise kımıltısızlık ve muhafazakarlık düşecektir.
17. yüzyıldan 19. yüzyıla uzanan bu inceleme, ilahiyatçıların, filologlaın, sözcüğün en basit anlamıyla “nasıl yanıldıklarını” gösterirken, bu yanlışın bizi nerelere götürmüş olduğunu da, bu kitabın önsözünü yazan Jean-Pierre Vernant söyler: “… toplama kamplarının gölgesinin yansıdığını ve fırınlardan dumanların yükseldiğini bugün nasıl görmeyebiliriz?” Dinselliğin ve mitin, insan ve toplum bilimlerinin akılcı söylemlerine, en azından 19. yüzyılda, nasıl içten içe işlediğini görmek isteyenler, bu coğrafyada bir zamanlar sorulmuş soruların da nerelerden kaynaklandığını göseren bir kitap.
• Limbile paradisului. Arieni si semiti : un cuplu providential, Bucarest, Nemira, 1999.
• Las Lenguas del Paraiso, trad.V. Villacampa, Barcelone, Seix Barral, 2001.
• Ezitzite na Raya, trad. Tatiana Batouleva, Sofia, Editions Lik, 2002.
• Las lenguas del Paraiso, trad. Horacio Pons, Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Economica , 2005.
• As linguas do Paraiso. Arianos e semitas : um casamento providencial, trad. B. Feitler, Sao Paulo, ed. Phoebus, 2013.