Bellybable: non-human multilingualism in European literature

Abstract

In a global and multilingual society, indubitable is the importance of a reflection on the Self and the Other as defined by language. In our study we investigate a centenary trend in European literature, which identifies a peculiar form of multilingualism with the non-human. From Dante’s Inferno to Joyce’s The cat and the Devil, the netherworld, its inhabitants and captives are characterized by the use and coexistence of several (usually not intelligible) languages. According to this representation, while the clarity and precision of a single language contributes to define a human identity, the plurality of languages is often a sign of a lost identity and of not being human anymore. It is not by chance that the verses of Dante “There sighs and wails and piercing cries of woe / […] Strange languages, and frightful forms of speech, / words caused by pain, accents of anger, voices / both loud and faint” are echoed in Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man (1946). The multilingualism is a central point in Levi’s memories of the time spent in the concentration camp where “languages absolutely not understandable [...], the orders shouted in languages [we] were not able to recognize”and the “endless Babel where everyone is shouting” symbolise the lost human condition. Both the damned souls and the prisoners of the camp are not human anymore because they have lost their language and, with it, their identity. In our study, a comparative analysis of the narrative and the lexicon of (semi)fictional multilingualism in European literature reveals a strong connection between human identity and purity of language – a manifestation of human rationality and humanity tout court. On the contrary, a number of recurrent lexical choices and figures of speech seem to define the non-human as a multilingual world characterized by sighs, wails and strange languages, like the bellybable of Joyce’s devil.