Andreas Kempe (1622–89) and the Languages Spoken in Paradise

Abstract

Summary Several textbooks in general linguistics (by Crystal, Fromkin & Rodman, and Waterman) mention a 17th-century Swede who maintained that, in Paradise, God spoke Swedish, Adam Danish, and the serpent French. The name of this Swede is Andreas Kempe (not Kemke, as given in the above-mentioned books), a religious dissenter, persecuted in his Lutheran homeland. In this paper it is shown that the view that Swedish was the original language agrees with that of his contemporary scholars. The statement on Danish and French, however, appears in a context where it is clear that it was to be interpreted as an expatriate’s attempt to ridicule his adversaries among the Swedish clergy, and should not, therefore, be quoted as a serious opinion.