When it comes to the process of self-cognition carried out by absolute thought in the person of man, it is language that turns out to be the privileged form of outward manifestation in which this process both begins and ends

When it comes to the process of self-cognition carried out by absolute thought in the person of man, it is language that turns out to be the privileged form of outward manifestation in which this process both begins and ends. It is in language that thought finally returns to itself from all the cycles of its alienations, regaining that original form which it had before its fall from grace, before the creation of nature and of any finite spirit whatever. …Absolute knowledge is revealed to thought, which thereby becomes absolute thought, as a system of word meanings which form, in their connection, the immediate expression of the universal structure of the world order, its ideal scheme.

Evald Ilyenkov, from the paper “Thought and Language in Hegel” at the 10th International Hegel Congress, 26 August 1974.

This was the first philosophical congress held in the USSR. I have never understood Hegel and have never taken much interest in him. But the congress gathered Communist thinkers from all over the world, and the people plainly knew what they were talking about. I only wonder whether Hegel himself had any idea what a great thorn in the side he would become in the future?