Note 105 — Chapter X · THE VEDIC HYMNS
G. S. Whitmarsh translation
Dante at one time was of this opinion. “In his Il Volgare Eloquio, lib. 1, cvi. p. 155, he says: ‘It was the Hebrew idiom which was uttered by the lips of the first man who ever spoke in this world!’ This idea was afterwards relinquished by him, as in the Paradiso he puts these words into the mouth of Adam:—
‘The language I did use Was worn away or ever Nimrod’s race Their unaccomplishable work began.’
“The oldest form of human speech still remains lost in the darkness of antiquity.”—Quoted from Dante in Ravenna by Miss Phillimore.