Everything about Solresol totally explained
Solresol is an
artificial language devised by
François Sudre, beginning in
1827. He published his major book on it,
Langue musicale universelle, in
1866, though he'd already been publicizing it for some years. Solresol enjoyed a brief spell of popularity, reaching its pinnacle with
Boleslas Gajewski's
1902 posthumous publication of
Grammaire du Solresol.
Vocabulary
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 color — even painting.
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 (for example, 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.
The following table shows the words of up to two syllables:
| First second syllable |
(none) |
-do |
-re |
-mi |
-fa |
-sol |
-la |
-si |
| Do- | no, not, neither, nor |
(imperfect) |
I, me |
you [sg] |
he |
self, oneself |
one, someone |
other
|
| Re- | and, as well as |
my, mine |
(past) |
your, yours [sg] |
his |
our, ours |
your, yours [pl] |
their
|
| Mi- | or, or even |
for, in order to/that |
who, which (rel pron), that (conj) |
(future) |
whose, of which |
well (adv) |
here/there is, behold |
good evening/night
|
| Fa- | to |
what? |
with, jointly |
this, that |
(conditional) |
why, for what reason |
good, tasty, delectable |
much, very, extremely
|
| Sol- | if |
but |
in, within |
wrong, ill (adv) |
because |
(imperative) |
perpetually, always, without end, without ceasing |
thank, thanks
|
| La- | the |
nothing, no one, nobody |
by |
here, there |
bad |
never, at no time |
(present participle) |
of
|
| Si- | yes, okay, gladly, agreed |
the same (thing) |
each, every |
good morning/afternoon |
little, scarcely |
mister, sir* |
young man, bachelor* |
(passive participle)
|
* Feminine versions are formed by stressing the last syllable.
Additional features
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
The teaching of sign languages to the deaf mute was
forbidden between 1880 and 1991 in France, contributing to Solresol's descent into obscurity. In any case, Solresol doesn't perform well as a sign language, since the signed form is more similar to spelling words by hand (sign languages naturally develop to take advantage of the greater range of 'phonemes' available, there being thousands of possible simultaneous combinations of hand form, location, orientation and movement).
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's 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Solresol'.
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