Re: Enochian, also ritual language, was: The search...perfect language

On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Mia Soderquist wrote:

> It seems to me that a really well designed conlang could do wonders to
> enhance the aesthetics and psychological effects of a ritual. That's
Old Church Slavonic is a conlang.  It was created by Sts. Methodios and
Cyril to permit them to present Scripture and Liturgy to the Slavs.
However, they took pains to make it fairly comprehensible to the people
they were preaching to.

> also IMO. The time it takes to construct, the time it takes to learn,
> the degree to which it separates you from your mundane reality, and the
> overall artistry would all be good for setting the stage for whatever
> you are doing.
And if it is not easily comprehensible to the general public in the area,
it acts as a detraction and barrier to the practice of the religion, as
was discovered by Old Believer Russians when they came to America and
their children learned English, their grandchildren learned not a word of
Russian, so the Old Church Slavonic was utterly incomprehensible to
them.  There was quite a great deal of argument over converting over to
English Liturgy and Scripture, but ultimately it was decided that
comprehension was more important than adherance to form for the sake of form.