Re: OT: Anne Heche - Celebrity Conlanger?

Well, as you can see, I'm still here.  Promised
to depart, but didn't.  This Anne Heche!  I simply
must find out more about her.  When was her
interview?  If it was recent, then I think it was
HILARIOUS that I went on NPR and talked
about MY conlanging.  If in the wake of the
Heche interview, then I'm sure I'm counted as
one of the crazies of the academic world.

This business of speaking an angelic language
is as old as the hills.  There's a remarkable
medieval Irish text I'm examining in which the
anonymous author claims to know and use an
"angelic" language.  He punctuates his religious
expostulations with samples of God's language
which he then translates.  It has far more affinities
with glossolalia than with conlanging as we know
it, or as Hildegard practiced it.  Glossolalia is the
"speaking in tongues" of Pentecost--where one
is given the gift of another ancient tongue to pray
in that is not one's own, but understood by others.
Contemporary definitions describe it today as
"free vocalization," conducted  in an "oneiric," a
religious or trance-like state, which someone else
then "translates."  I've seen it in the Gospel church
I have attended down the street, and I've read some
books.  Shallow linguistic studies of it remark on its
propensity for "open syllables":  la ma pha ta ki li
po ha ti-- but a lot of natural languages have that
feature!  Schnapp and Yaguello call it "infantile."
As though they are babbling--ba ba ma ma fa.
Sigh.  The other great Angelic language is Enochian,
supposedly spoken and recorded by John Dee of
the sixteenth century, and his assistant, Edward Kelly.
It's incomprehensible, much of it consisting of impossible
consonant clusters.

This is fascinating to me.  Where can I get a transcript
of this interview with the famous Heche?  Who is
she?  Why was she being interviewed?  When did it
happen?    She has a word for God, which suggests
that it's more than speaking in tongues.  I love this list.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Dirk Elzinga <Dirk_Elzinga@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: Anne Heche - Celebrity Conlanger?


> >On page 109 of September 17, 2001's Time Magazine, there's a little
> >"News Quiz" at the bottom of the page.  Number 4 asks:
> >
> >What did Anne Heche NOT tell Barbara Walters?
> >A) she talked to God using an invented language
> >B) Ellen provided her best sex ever
> >C) her autobiography is called "Call Me Crazy"
> >D) she was really proud of "Six Days, Seven Nights"
> >
> >And according to the answer key on the bottom, the correct answer is
> >(D).  Out of those four things, the only one she didn't say was that
> >she was really proud of the movie "Six Days Seven Nights".  Which
> >means that she *did* tell Barbara Walters that she talked to God
> >using an invented language!
> >
> >Does anyone know more about this?
>
> Well, I confess that I actually watched the interview. Not only did
> she tell BW that she spoke to God in an invented language, she
> actually spoke in this language. She claimed to have been taught it
> by an angel while she was crazy (her word not mine), so I don't think
> that she has any grammatical notes anywhere that she could put up on
> a website for us.
>
> Dirk
> --
>

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