Re: Non-human languages

Ray wrote:

<<What would the language of angels be like, or the language of
jinns or the Paracelsian spirits: sylphs, salamanders, undines
& gnomes?>>

This reminds me of a couple things:

1.) According to Milton, had man (i.e., Adam and Eve) *not* eaten of the tree
of knowledge, they eventually would have not only gained all knowledge, they
would have become angels.   In that sense, they'd be a kind of
pre-evolutionary step to angels, and so human language might, in a sense, be a proto form of
angel language.   So, maybe evolve a language till you can barely see
straight...?

2.) A subset of my friends continued, after elementary school, to be
interested in role playing games (the non-video game variety), to the extent that they
subscribed to some sort of monthly/quarterly magazine (I have the distinct
feeling that it was sponsored either by AD&D or Wizards of the Coast--probably
the latter).   In each of these issues they had sections devoted to
"language"--two pages, each.   An example of one was a language spoken by dwarves.
According to them, the language had two types of sounds--those dwarves could
easily produce, and those they couldn't.   The ones they could easily produce could
be written by "striking a stone with an axe in a straight line".   So these
would be (we're looking at orthography here):

v, x, w, i, l, t, z, y

And the difficult ones:

c, a, o, u, e, s, h, g

Basically all the ones with curves which would be "difficult to produce by
striking an axe against a rock".

Needless to say, all the letters stood for their English equivalent.

Now, it's easy enough to say, "This is ridiculous!   It's nothing remotely
even resembling a language!"   The more interesting question, in my mind, is: If
they feel it worth their while enough to devote a section to made-up
"language" in every issue they put out, how is it that we're not getting paid to
create languages?

-David

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