About the Book: The Origin of Languages Melody and Musical Imitation
Essay on the Origin of Languages is a collection of a short essay, On
Theatrical Imitation, which summarises and paraphrases Platos discussions of
imitation in the Republic. Rousseaus approach to language is romantic in many
respects, but it cannot be aligned with any simplistic opposition in
intellectual history. He stresses the expressive power of language in his
version of the Genie Des Langues, and in his account of the connection between
language and the passions and the importance of metaphor. But, he does not
reject the thesis of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign or