Re: a 12th century conlang
| From: | Sally Caves <scaves@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, March 24, 1999, 5:02 |
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Irina Rempt wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, sidonian wrote:
>
> > I hope our fellow listers will excuse the reference to Laadan as the *only*
> > other language constructed by a woman. This is obviously very untrue.
>
> She probably means "by a woman famous enough to get publicity or
> arrogant enough to seek it". Also, Sally and I and the other women on
> the list don't make a language to change the world with (as far as
> I'm aware of) which is certainly Elgin's aim. I don't know about
> Hildegard; probably it was another of her undertakings to know
> everything about the world.
>
> Irina
As far as I can tell, Hildegard used it more or less the way you andI throw
ourselves passionately into language invention. This isn't
"glossolalia," as some critics have tried to label it, but conlanging
for personal aesthetic and spiritual reasons. Hildegard's words
crop up frequently in her poetry; one of the reasons I asked on
the Lunatic Survey about the sexiness, the sensuality, and the
*spirituality* of inventing a language was because my Teonaht,
back when I was a callow youth in my teens, was a language of
prayer. Therefore I can relate pretty personally to what I think
Hildegard is doing.
From Liturgical Song 67:
O *orzchis* Ecclesia,
armis divinis praecincta,
et hyazintho ornata,
tu es *caldemia*
stigmatum *loifolum*
et urbs scientiarum.
O, O, tu es etiam *crizanta*
in alto sono et es *chorzta* gemma.
Oh immense Ecclesia,
girded with divine arms,
and bedecked in hyacinth,
you are the fragrance
of the wounds of peoples
and the city of knowledge.
Oh, oh, you are truly anointed
amidst lofty sounds and are
a sparkling gem.
trans. J. Schnapp
Hildegard spoke some kind of Germanic dialect as her
first tongue... undoubtedly her exposure to Latin opened
up for her a world of lexical wonders. All of us on this
list who were moved at an early age by a foreign language
could probably relate to this magical contact with an
"unknown" language inside of us.
Sally