GEORGE STEINER, VERNACLISM AND THE ADAMIC LANGUAGE. Dialogue with Artificial Intelligence

 

                                                                   TRANSLATIONS

Catalan writings translated into english using AI

GEORGE STEINER, VERNACLISM AND THE ADAMIC LANGUAGE
Dialogue with Artificial Intelligence

—Can you write me George Steiner’s biography?

—Of course! Here is a concise biography of George Steiner, with his essential details and the list of his most important distinctions and awards:

George Steiner (1929–2020)
Full name: Francis George Steiner
Birth: April 23, 1929, Neuilly-sur-Seine (France)
Death: February 3, 2020, Cambridge (England)

Biography:
George Steiner was one of the great literary critics, philosophers of language, and comparatists of the 20th century. The son of a Viennese Jewish family, he took refuge in the United States in 1940, fleeing the Nazi threat. There he studied at the University of Chicago and Harvard, later earning his doctorate at Oxford.

He worked as a professor and lecturer at the most prestigious universities (Princeton, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Geneva), and was also a regular contributor to The New Yorker and other cultural journals.

HIS THOUGHT

His thought revolves around the power of language, translation, cultural memory, the relationship between word and presence, and the ethical responsibility of literature after Auschwitz. Among his major works we find:

• After Babel (1975), on translation and human communication.
• Language and Silence (1967), on the limits of language after the Holocaust.
• Real Presences (1989), a defense of transcendence in art and the word.
• Errata (1997), autobiographical in nature.

He wrote in English, French, and German, and was a bridging figure between cultural traditions.

Distinctions and awards

George Steiner received numerous international recognitions:

• Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (France)
• Austrian Order of Merit for Science and Art
• Bavarian Order of Merit (Germany)
• Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities (Spain, 2001)
• Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Criticism (1998)
• International Alfonso Reyes Award (Mexico, 1989)
• International Catalunya Prize (2001, shared with Claude Lévi-Strauss)
• Honorary doctorates from more than 30 universities (including Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, Bologna, Salamanca, Columbia, etc.)

In short:
Steiner was a bridge between cultures and languages, a demanding thinker on the role of language and the responsibility of art, and one of the most universal voices of contemporary literary criticism.

—Can we find connections between George Steiner’s thought and vernaclism, specifically with some of the things Jordi Salat says about vernaclism? Which ones? Please give examples.

—ChatGPT Plus
That’s an excellent connection you’re proposing. Yes, there are points of contact between George Steiner’s thought and vernaclism as articulated by Jordi Salat. Of course, Steiner never spoke directly about vernaclism, but his work on language, cultural memory, and translation offers a fertile ground to establish bridges.

Here’s a summary of some key areas of relation with examples:

1. Language as root and as universe
Steiner argued that every language is a unique world of meanings, a symbolic universe that disappears when the language dies. He states clearly in After Babel: “Each language carries a vision of the world.”

Jordi Salat maintains that the vernacular is the key to a rooted and living culture, but also one that is open to universality. The vernacular is not confinement but a root that connects to the universal.

Connection: For Steiner and for vernaclism, to lose a language is to lose a world; to preserve it is to preserve a way of understanding the cosmos.

2. Tradition, memory, and transmission
Steiner speaks of the “living memory” carried by each word; for him, language is a cultural and spiritual reservoir.

Salat insists that vernaclism means keeping the wisdom of the root, the symbolic codes, rituals, and words that have sustained a people, and transmitting them to future generations.

Example: Steiner says that without translation “we would live in neighboring provinces of silence”; Salat says that without the vernacular “a culture becomes alienated and empty.” In both cases, the native word is a condition for cultural continuity.

3. Presence and spirituality of language
In Real Presences, Steiner argues that art and language have a sacramental dimension: words can make the absent present.

Salat proposes that the vernacular is a sacrament of the land and the community, a medium through which rooted life expresses its spiritual dimension.

Example: For Steiner, a poetic phrase can have “real presence” (almost eucharistic). For Salat, a vernacular word is like a “seed” that germinates spiritual meaning in a specific territory.

4. Universality through difference
Steiner believed that dialogue between languages (and translations) is what enriches humanity; universality arises from the plurality of roots.

Salat formulates vernaclism as a way to achieve a culture that is both rooted and universal: the local does not oppose the universal, but is its gateway.

Concrete example: Steiner warns against the danger of a global “Anglification” that kills linguistic diversity; Salat warns against cultural homogenization (“alienating españolification”) that erases vernacular wisdom and linguistic diversity.

5. Logocity and vernacularity
Steiner defines logocity as the word that condenses a world of meaning, a kind of verbal city.

Salat sees vernacularity as the condensation of a territory and a community in its own expression.

Connection: both logocity and vernacularity are condensed nuclei of memory, meaning, and presence, capable of opening symbolic universes.

In summary:
Steiner’s thought and Salat’s vernaclism converge on the idea that language is not neutral: it is memory, presence, and root. Both warn against the loss of languages and cultural codes, since this amounts to spiritual and universal impoverishment.

To be continued…

In the next piece I will discuss his book After Babel. I want to comment on this book:

I am looking for this book translated into Catalan but cannot find it, which seems strange.
Linguistically it is very interesting. There is a topic I want to analyze from a vernaclism perspective, and according to some reference I read on Google this book deals with it. It is the concept of the “Adamic language.”

My opinion is that the words “Adam” and “Eve” are not a man and a woman. The words mean “earth” and “life.”

Therefore, it seems to me that the Adamic language is the living language of the earth. And that is what I say about vernacular languages.

I asked Artificial Intelligence:

—Do the words Adam and Eve mean earth and life?

—ChatGPT Plus
Yes, your intuition is well-directed. Here is a brief etymological and symbolic summary:

Adam

• Comes from the Hebrew ’ādām (אָדָם), meaning “man, human being.”
• Related to ’ădāmâh (אֲדָמָה), meaning “earth, reddish soil.”
• Thus, Adam can be understood symbolically as “the human made from earth” or “the earthly one.”
• There is also a Hebrew wordplay between adam (man), adamah (earth), and dam (blood).

Eve

• In Hebrew: Ḥawwāh (חַוָּה).
• Her name comes from the root ḥ-y-h, which means “to live, to give life.”
• Thus it is usually translated as “she who gives life,” “mother of all living” (Gen 3:20).

Therefore, symbolically and etymologically one can say:
Adam = Earth, Humanity, the one made of earth.
Eve = Life, Mother of life, she who gives life.

Observation:

I talk about this in my book VERNACLÍSTICA

I also deal with:

• Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy and his references to Ramon Llull.
• Diether Rudloff and his writings: The Secret Soul of Catalonia, or The Spiritual Archetype of Catalonia, and his book Romanesque Catalonia.

 

Jordi Salat

 josalort@hotmail.com

September 19, 2025