Ritual languages/ Magical languages

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
> 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.
>
> Mia
>
Once I had seen this message, something seemed to scratch the
back of my mind, something related - and now I've got it.

I've once learned a magical language, Old Hyksos. This was for a Dutch
roleplaying game, Queeste (http://www.telebyte.nl/~afzien/queeste.htm,
in Dutch). Slightly based on Earthsea, it was nonetheless a wholly unique
language, and, what's better, it had to be actually used. If you'd be
playing a mage in that game, you'd have to be fluent in it. Of course,
the games master, the Questor, has to be fluent, too!  The language has
been in constant use since 1980, and I think there are more speakers of
Old Hyksos in the world than there are speakers of Interlingua.

Even now, years later, I can still wish people serious ill health:
_jappa ne wodanex ne jappa eddas_, or friendship: _jappa morenex ne
jappa eddas._ Since I'm going to start a new campaign soon, I've just
started polishing it up.

One difference between the magical language used in Earthsea, and Old
Hyksos, is that Old Hyksos is not concerned with 'true names' - all things
are _quot_, all animals _cepra_, all vegetation _ne cepra_. All in all
there are a mere 24 words, and _ne_ which kind of negates every word;
there are a few suffixes, too. The basic order is SVO, but if a person,
animal or object other than the mage is the subject, the sentence has
to be prefixed with a spell forcing the other to be the subject:
_jappa zertrex ne jappa_, _jappa zertrex cepra_ or _jappa zertrex
quot_.

For instance:

_jappa_ 'me, I'
_jappex_ 'change into me'
_jappas_ 'mine'
_ne jappa_ 'the other'
_ne jappex_ 'change into the other
_ne jappas_ 'of the other'

And a spell would be: _jappa ne jappex jappa_, 'I change myself into
the other'. There are a few complications that make it quite interesting,
and challenging to learn.


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt