Windy Words: Towards a Pneumatic Linguistics.

Abstract

This paper borrows the term ‘Pneumatology’ from writers such as Ferdinand Ebner to refer to a linguistics which addresses both the material and spiritual aspects of language, looking further afield than the individual human brain for an account of linguistic form. It begins with a speculative esoteric reading of the phrase “Word is but wind” in the 13th-century Ancrene Wisse, involving a Barfieldian discussion of the way in which the single Biblical term ruach/pneuma /spiritus has become fragmented into ‘wind’, ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ in later translations. Examples from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Graves are used to support these suggestions. The primary focus is on the linguistic processes which enable these readings.

Keywords: Ancrene Wisse, Owen Barfield, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Graves, pneumatology