Published 09/22/2025
Keywords
- Hebrew,
- Un(translatability),
- Language-culture Relationship,
- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,
- East-West Relations
- Border Crossing ...More
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2025 L'Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Moving from the Hebrew original, through the LXX, the Vulgata and the version of Luther, up to some modern European languages, this paper discusses the possibility of restoring the actual content of Gen. 1, 6–10, which is deeply permeated by tradition and its original culture. It argues that this content is unavoidably bound in its expression to the language in which it is written, and propose this particular example in order to debate Joel Sherzer’s view of a “Discourse-Centered Approach to Language and Cultures”.
References
- Abravanel, Daniela. 1999. Il segreto dell’alfabeto ebraico. Milano: Mamash Edizioni.
- Astori, Davide. 2006. “La micrografia ebraica: tradizione di un’innovazione. L’uso dell’alfabeto tra estetico ed estatico”. Bollettino del Museo Bodoniano 12: 35-42.
- Astori, Davide. 2010. “Delle castagne, di Sapir e di Whorf”. Memoria Ethnologica 10 (36-37): 97-102.
- Astori, Davide. 2012. “Avra(ha)m and Šara(i): Infertility Overcome by a Linguistic Redox”. In Name and Naming: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives, edited by Oliviu Felecan, 36-52. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Astori, Davide. 2017. “Per un’interpretazione tradizionale”. In Genesi 1,1. Alcuni percorsi traduttivi, a cura di Davide Astori, 5-50. Parma: Bottega del Libro.
- Atran, Scott. 1990. Cognitive Foundations of Natural History. Towards an Anthropology of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- De Benedetti, Paolo. 2011. I segreti dell’alfabeto ebraico (prefazione di Gabriella Caramore). Brescia: Morcelliana.
- de Souzenelle, Annick. 1993. La lettre, chemin de vie. Le symbolisme des lettres hébraïques. Paris: Albin Michel.
- Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors.Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press.
- Boas, Franz. 1911. Handbook of American Indian Languages. Washington: Government Print Office (reprint Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
- Busi, Giulio. 2002. “Lettere della creazione. Usi e concezioni asemantiche dell’alfabeto nel giudaismo”. In: Alfabeto in sogno. Dal carme figurato alla poesia concreta, a cura di Claudio Parmiggiani, 227-256. Milano: Mazzotta.
- Donnet.Guez, Brigitte. 1996. Légendes et commentaires sur la Genèse. La Varenne: Vera Pax.
- Dornseiff, Franz. 19252. Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie. Leipzig-Berlin: Teubner.
- Fishman, Joshua A. 1960. “A Systematization of the Whorfian Analysis”. Behavioral Science 5: 329-339.
- Fortuna, Igor. 2011 [2010]. “Riflessioni interlinguistiche intorno al Padre nostro. Parte I”. Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese 5: 101-113.
- King, Leonard William. 1902. Enuma Elish: The Seven Tablets of Creation. The Babylonian and Assyrian Legends Concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind. London: Luzac & Co. Online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/stc/index.htm, last accessed on April 22, 2024.
- Lennenberg, Eric H. 1953. “Cognition in Ethnolinguistics”. Language 29: 463-471.
- Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. 1997. Les mystères de l’alphabet. L’origine de l’écriture. Paris: Assouline.
- Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1991. The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
- Rosch, Eleanor. 1977. “Linguistic Relativity”. In: Thinking. Readings in Cognitive Science, edited by Philip N. Johnson-Laird, Peter Cathcart Wason, 501-519. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language. An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
- Sapir, Edward. 1956. Culture, Language and Personality. Selected Essays. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University California Press.
- Sherzer, Joel. 1987. “A Discourse-Centered Approach to Language and Culture”. American Anthropologist 89/2 n.s.: 295-309.
- Sholem, Gershom. 1998. Il Nome di Dio e la teoria cabbalistica del linguaggio. Milano: Adelphi [Der Name Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala, 1970].
- Sirat, Colette. 1981. La lettre hébraïque et sa signification. Paris/Jerusalem: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, The Israel Museum Jerusalem, Department of Judaica.
- Speiser, Ephraim Avigdor. 19693. “The Creation Epic”. In Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard, 60-72. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Sperber, Dan. 1996. Explaining Culture. A Naturalistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Virya, Georges Lahi. 1997. L’alphabet hebreu et ses symboles. Les 22 Arcanes de la Kabbale. Roquevaire: G. Lahi éditeur.
- Wallis Budge, Ernest Alfred. 1921. The Babylonian Legends of Creation and the Fight Between Bel and the Dragon, with the assistance of Sidney Smith. London: Harrison and Sons. Online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/blc/index.htm, last accessed April 22, 2024)
- Weinreb, Friedrich. 1990. Buchstaben des Lebens. Das hebräische Alphabet erzählt nach jüdischer Überlieferung. Weiler im Allgäu: Thauros Verlag.
- Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956. In Language, Thought and Reality. Selected Writings of B.L.W., edited and introduced by John Bissel Carroll, foreword by Stuart Chase. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.