“I SPEAK ONLY ONE LANGUAGE AND IT ISNOT MINE”

DECOLONIZATION AND THEINVENTION OF LANGUAGE, MESSIANISMBEYOND HUMANIST COLONIALISM

Abstract

The article reflects on the theme of colonization in Derrida
present in The Monolingualism of the Other. The aim is to show how the
modern humanist colonial project is reflected in the language, imposing an
ethnocentric dimension. The aim is, initially, after presenting the idea of an
essential colonization intrinsic to language, to elucidate what Derrida considers
as a quasi-transcendental structure of language given by the game between
the aneconomic element of untranslatability and the economic element of
intertranslatability, of where a universal character of language and the need
to think about it ethically and politically through the idea of language to come,
pointed out by the aforementioned philosopher, are extracted. Secondly, we
will address Derrida’s notion of the future (avenir), briefly relating it to three
ideas with which it appears associated: 1. Democracy to come, 2. Messianism
and 3. Hospitality, with the aim of better understanding the meaning which the
deconstructor attributes to the language to come. Finally, we draw the following
conclusion: the possibility of thinking about the quasi-concept of language and
writing in Derrida as a means to magnetize a language to come.