El monolingüismo del huésped

In a footnote to Derrida's Monolingualism of the Other (originally published in French in 1996), the French philosopher introduces his concept of "monolingualism of the guest". Derrida's monolingualism of the guest revises the notion of mother tongue as distinctively described by Hannah Arendt. In this article, I will investigate Derrida's "monolingualism of the guest" by relying on his notion of "idiom" and on his thinking about translation. My aim will be to demonstrate how Derrida's ideas can help exploring the relationship between language and hospitality, a key concept embedded in his concept of "monolingualism of the guest".