Each of us speaks but a single sentence...

March 6, 2007 5:50 PM

In one of his interviews (in The Grain of the Voice, p. 103) Roland Barthes quotes a linguist whose name he does not remember: "Each of us speaks but a single sentence, which only death can bring to a close." Where does this sentence come from? The interview was in May 1970, so it would have been written before then.
posted by nasreddin to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

(Of course I do not mean the sentence which is supposed to last the length of your life, but the sentence in quotes)
posted by nasreddin at 5:59 PM on March 6, 2007

This is a non-answer, but a translated version of something un- or mis-remembered is, I would say, verra verra difficult to track. I have read Barthes' Œuvres Complètes in the Pléiade version, and I can't really help you beyond suggesting that is sounds a lot like something Emile Benveniste may have written. Call it the grain of his typewriter. Sorry again, but it could be a little piste to follow.
posted by Wolof at 3:28 AM on March 7, 2007

This is also a non-answer, but that sure doesn't sound like anything a linguist would say. A philosopher, maybe.
posted by languagehat at 5:40 AM on March 7, 2007