Re: Non-human languages

Ray Brown scripsit:

> 'Tis true, Dante has the odd demon actually speak in the Divine
> Commedy; but the odd scraps of 'demon-talk' are sort of
> "not-quite-human", as Umberto says, e.g. "papé Satàn, papé Satàn
> aleppe".
That's Plutus, who is more a monster than a demon; one of the (Greek)
Giants also babbles in this way.  But Minos, the Centaurs, the devils
of the Fifth Bowge, and many others of Hell's non-human denizens do
speak, naturally in good Italian.  Dante also describes the various
angels of Purgatory speaking to him, with little or no suggestion that
they are projecting thoughts into his brain (though they are able to
read his mind, it's true).  So Dante's theory did not (excusably)
quite match his practice.

> In a word, has any conlanger considered devising a language for
> beings who communicate either by "pure thought" or in some other
> non-spoken way - in some way quite different from human language?
I'm not clear on what it would even mean to have a language if one
communicates by pure thought.  We do have constructed sign languages
and pasigraphies, of course.

--
Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so,         John Cowan
is a tax on income.  --Lord Macnaghten (1901)           jcowan@reutershealth.com

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