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Re: Splintered Light (was Re: Steg's wonderful .sig)

From:Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 9, 1999, 1:58
From: Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>

> Yes, that hurt me too. O tempora, o mores... (Not counting the > first confused moment when I read Legos ;-).
OK, for the benefit of those who don't know: Lo=B7gos n. 1. Philosophy. a. In pre-Socratic philosophy, the principle governing the cosmos, the source of this principle, or human reasoning ab= out the cosmos. b. Among the Sophists, the topics of rational argument or the arguments themselves. c. In Stoicism, the active, material, rational principle of the cosmos; nous. Identified with God, it is the source of a= ll activity and generation and is the power of reason residing in the human soul. 2. Judaism. a. In biblical Judaism, the word of God, which itself h= as creative power and is God's medium of communication with the human race. = b. In Hellenistic Judaism, a hypostasis associated with divine wisdom. 3. Theology. In Saint John's Gospel, especially in the prologue (1:1-14) (http://www.cforc.com/kjv/John/index.html), the creative word of God, whi= ch is itself God and incarnate in Jesus. In this sense, also called Word. [Greek. See leg- below.] This is one of my favorite words. I've also always admired John from an artlang standpoint: 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word wa= s God. 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory= , the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. In the first novel I ever wrote, the cosmology focused on The Word First Spoken, and how the Word splintered into many words and then many languag= es. My cosmology also had its own version of the Babel Text (which I used as = the Fall From Grace in this mythos), and culminated in a Pentecost-like event= , where the heroes of the time were able to divinely speak one another's languages. Much of this was inspired by Owen Barfield's work. Barfield was an Inkli= ng and a close friend of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Tolkien said that Barfield had an incredible influence on his view of language, but mentioned that i= n only one place did this peek through into _The Hobbit_: To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the langu= age that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. (s= ee also http://www.langmaker.com/ml0104.htm) If you haven't read Barfield, I highly recommend Poetic Diction, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081956026X/ . Especially if you a= re working on languages close to the beginning of time in your conworld. Best regards, Jeffrey Henning http://www.LangMaker.com/ - Invent Your Own Language http://www.Jeffrey.Henning.com/ - Santa Paravia & Fiumaccio for Windows