I have heard that Jorge Luis Borges, in one of his tales, described the
"Library of Babel," a huge collection of all possible books. Does anyone
know which one?
The metaphor has been used by linguistic anthropologists interested in
preserving the over 6000 languages spoken, most of which are employed only
in spoken discourse. I have something by Bernard Comrie and Martin
Haspelmath that uses this metaphor.
At 06:37 PM 4/30/02 -0600, you wrote:
>Hello dears -
>
>well colour ME embarrassed, but i've been looking for essays or articles
>that analyse the biblical story of the Tower of Babel,
>and am in a SEA of i don't know what.
>
>I'm looking for ways that the story itself has been elaborated
>to discuss language, metaphor, difference, communication,
>but cannot seem to narrow that down to a particular "faculty" of
>thought.
>
>i thought i'd toss this out, in case anyone has come across
>such works in their browsings...
>
>it's not an emergency or anything, and i'll find something eventually,
>i'm just - mostly - frustrated by how hard it is to research
>outside the academic library...
>
>thanks
>diane
R. Keith Sawyer
http://www.keithsawyer.com/
Assistant Professor
Department of Education
Washington University
Campus Box 1183
St. Louis, MO 63130
314-935-8724
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