La Mélancolie du langage perdu de l’enfance

Book cover: La Mélancolie du langage perdu de l’enfance

Extent: 203 pages

Publisher: Wiley-VCH

Subject: Language & Linguistics

Series: Domaines linguistiques

Language: French

Paperback (Forthcoming)

(December 2026)

ISBN: 9782406211679

5.94 x 8.66 inches

Price: $37.00

Hardback (Forthcoming)

(December 2026)

ISBN: 9782406211686

5.94 x 8.66 inches

Price: $108.00

Giorgio Agamben and Pascal Quignard argue that human beings are not born “already speaking.” In order to become subjects in language, children need to move beyond the pre-lingual stage of the infans; yet, between the ages of three and twelve, a longing arises for a lost linguistic paradise, which Jean-Bertrand Pontalis has termed the “melancholy of language.”