Port Royal grammarians held that language, thought, and reality perfectly mirror one another

Evidence

The Port Royal grammarians believed in the isomorphism of language, thought and reality – that is to say that language mirrored thought and thought in turn mirrored reality. (I am reminded of a certain French general who is alleged to have remarked that ‘It seems to me that French is the most perfect of all languages because its grammar exactly reflects the way I think.’) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 257

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Chomsky’s Cartesian Linguistics, which the passage itself names — a line running from Jansenism through modern generative grammar.
• SHARE: The French general anecdote about French grammar reflecting how the speaker thinks is a perfect bite-sized curiosity for anyone into linguistics or language philosophy.