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Ritual languages/ Magical languages

From:Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
Date:Friday, June 11, 1999, 20:17
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