Solresol language

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:Sol-resol.png Image:SolresolFarben.png

Solresol is an artificial language, devised by a Frenchman, François Sudre, beginning in 1817. He published his major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, in 1866, though he had already been publicizing it for some years. Solresol enjoyed a brief spell of popularity, reaching its pinnacle with Boleslas Gajewski's 1902 publication of Grammaire du Solresol.

Solresol words are made up of only seven different syllables. These syllables can be represented in a number of different ways -- as musical notes of different pitch, as spoken syllables (based on solfege, a way of identifying musical notes), with colours, symbols, hand gestures etc. Thus, theoretically Solresol communication can be done through speaking, singing, flags of different colour, etc. -- even painting and is the only one ideal for mixed categories of handicapped (or not handicapped) people making it the unique Langue universelle (universal language) as declared by Sudre: absolutely no supplemental learning is necessary for the communication between non handicapped and handicapped people (the hand gestures are only the normal representation of the notes with the one hand on the music lines showing with the other hand). Sudre explains in his book: "...elle fournit une langue commune à des êtres privés jusqu'ici de la possibilité de s'entendre, c'est à dire, les aveugles et les sourds-muets; et qu'étant basée sur un principe universel, la musique, exprimant les idées qui sont universelles..." ("...it gives a common language to people who could not hitherto communicate, that is, the blind and deaf-and-dumb; as it is based on a universal principle, music, it expresses universal ideas..."). See page XX in the edition of 1866 of the book of Sudre.

As in Ro, the longer words are divided into categories of meaning, based on their first syllable, or note. Words beginning with 'sol' have meanings related to arts and sciences, or, if they begin with 'solsol', sickness and medicine (e.g., solresol, "language"; solsolredo, "migraine"). (Like other constructed languages with a priori vocabulary, Solresol faces considerable problems in categorizing the real world around it sensibly. For example, it's difficult to discriminate in an a priori manner between "apple" and "pear", or between "Monday" and "Tuesday.")

A unique feature of Solresol is that meanings are negated by reversing the syllables in words. For instance fala means good or tasty, and lafa means bad. It is unclear how this interacts with the way words are categorized by their first note.

Additional features of Solresol include:

highly impartial (equally easy or difficult for everyone, like other a priori constructed languages)
integrated systems (signs, colors, etc.) for most different handicapped people, immediately operative without special learning)
gives fast learning success to illiterate people (only 7 syllables or signs or 10 letters to know and to recognise)
it presents no pronunciation difficulties
very simple but effective system to differentiate the function of the words in the sentences

Solresol did have to face the difficulty that in France, sign languages for deaf people were not allowed until over a century later (congress of Milan 1880 - law Fabius 1991). This is an important reason of the difficult expansion of Solresol.

After a few years of popularity, it faded into obscurity in the face of more successful languages such as Volapük and Esperanto. Despite this, there is still a small community of Solresol enthusiasts scattered across the world, better able to communicate with one another through the electronic medium of the Internet than they might have in days past.

A more recent constructed language based on musical tones is Eaiea, created by Bruce Koestner, which uses the entire 12-step western chromatic scale.

[edit]