[INDOLOGY] language identification (Adam Bowles) > fake languages in literature, Indian and otherwise
Christophe Vielle
christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be
Wed Feb 12 08:02:17 UTC 2014
There is the stanza in Utopian script and language in the beginning of More's Utopia, 1516 and 1518 editions (see attached pictures):
Vtopos ha Boccas peu la chama polta chamaan
Bargol he maglomi baccan soma gymnosophaon
Agrama gymnosophon labarem bacha bodamilomin
Voluala barchin heman la lauoluola dramme pagloni
Latin translation :
Vtopus me dux ex non insula fecit insulam
Vna ego terrarum omnium absque philosophia
Ciuitatem philosophicam expressi mortalibus
Libenter impartio mea, non grauatim accipio meliora
English translation :
“Utopus, my ruler, converted me, formerly not an island, into an island. Alone of all lands, without the aid of abstract philosophy, I have represented for mortals the philosophical city. Ungrudgingly do I share my benefits with others; undemurringly do I adopt whatever is better from others.
For those who are interested in this anecdotic matter I have written in French an essay on this sample of Utopian language, showing that elements of Indian languages could have been used for composing it. The reference is :
“La langue de l’île d’Utopie : les Indes orientales vues des Flandres à la Renaissance”, Acta Orientalia Belgica 26, 2013, pp. 203-222. A preliminary (2009) e-version of these researches, including images, is still available at:
http://belgianindology.blogs.lalibre.be/list/s-b-i-o-library/d-anvers-a-calicut.html
Here is a relevant extract of the 2013 article (without the footnotes):
Même si cela servirait notre démonstration, pour ce qui concerne du moins l’écriture elle-même on ne suivra donc pas John Duncan M. Derrett quand il soutient que les lettres g à l ont « a distinctly South Asian appearance », ou que les modifications du cercle de a à f rappellent l’écriture malayāḷam (du Kérala) « in their general appearance ».
Pour ce qui est de l’analyse de la langue utopienne du quatrain, en mettant de côté l’interprétation de celui-ci par les cryptogrammes qu’a proposée Léon Herrmann (ici hors de propos, quelle que soit sa possible validité), on reviendra sur les résultats de trois analyses détaillées qui lui ont été consacrées. Pour ce faire, il convient de placer en juxtalinéaire les textes latin et utopien ; car manifestement, dans le processus créatif, le premier a précédé le second, qui l’épouse mot à mot.
Vtopus me dux ex non insula fecit insulam
Vtopos ha Boccas peu la chama polta chamaan
Vna ego terrarum omnium absque philosophia
Bargol he maglomi baccan soma gymnosophaon
Ciuitatem philosophicam expressi mortalibus
Agrama gymnosophon labarem bacha bodamilomin
Libenter impartio mea, non grauatim accipio meliora
Voluala barchin heman la lauoluola dramme pagloni
Des mots sont très clairement d’origine grecque : Vtopos, et la paire gymnosophaon (philosophia) / gymnosophon (philosophicam). Voluala (libenter) a une affinité avec le latin (uolo). La négation la dans peu la (ex non), redoublée dans la la-uoluola (non illibenter = non grauatim), est sémitique (hébreu lo’, araméen lā’, arabe lâ). Un système de déclinaisons est attesté par les alternances chama (abl. insula) / chamaan (acc. insulam), et ha (acc. me) / he (nom. ego) / heman (adj. dérivé), qui ressemble au pronom personnel grec de la première personne. Les autres rapprochements lexicaux avec le grec sont beaucoup plus hypothétiques, de même que ceux faits avec le français et le portugais (Bleiler), l’anglais ou le persan (Pons). Pour cette dernière langue, Thomas More écrit pourtant lui-même à propos des Utopiens :
Suspicor enim eam gentem a graecis originem duxisse : propterea quod sermo illorum caetera fere Persicus, non nulla graeci sermonis uestigia seruet in urbium ac magistratuum uocabulis. (p. 180 éd. crit. E. Surtz & J. H. Hexter)
C’est la piste indienne, autorisée par la référence du texte aux gymnosophistes, qui m’amène pour ma part à oser quelques rapprochements avec le sanskrit, et à ainsi noter l’importance de la vocalisation en a ; à voir dans la finale -ta de pol-ta la désinence secondaire moyenne de la troisième du singulier ; dans agrama un « non-village » (a-grāma) qui pourrait servir à désigner une « cité », un « centre urbain » (cf. Malayalam Lexicon s.v. a-grāmya : « not rustic, refined, urban ») ; dans labarem bacha quelque chose d’un (boiteux) labhāmi (prés.) ou abharam (impft.) vācam « je prends » ou « j’ai porté parole » ; dans la finale -min de bodamilomin la désinence du locatif singulier pronominal de tasmin (renforcé par infixation du locatif malayāḷam en -il ?) ; dans la finale -e de dramme la désinence primaire moyenne de la première personne du singulier; dans la finale -oni de pagloni la désinence -āni du nom.-acc. nt. pluriel thématique ; et selon le même b pour v de bacha pour vācam, dans le mot bargol et la forme verbale barchin la même racine VṚJ- « réserver pour soi », dont le dérivé adjectif varja- ifc. signifie « exempt », « privé de », « excepté ».
Christophe Vielle
Le 11 févr. 2014 à 22:13, Richard Salomon a écrit :
> Just for fun, it might be amusing to study and compare such examples of bogus (?) languages in various literatures. For India, an interesting example is the speech of an Indian shipwrecked sailor in a Greek play found among the Oxyrhynchus papyri. Hultzsch (Hermes 39, 1904, pp. 307-311 and JRAS 1904, pp. 309-345) tried to identify it as proto-Kannada, but L.D. Barnett (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 12, 1926, pp. 13-15) doubted this, and thought that "it might be mere gibberish."
>
> In English, Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well' contains a scene (act IV, scene 1) in which the character speak a mysterious language in order to trick the villain Parolles into a confession. The language sounds suspiciously like Italian and/or Latin:
> First Soldier
> Boskos vauvado: I understand thee, and can speak
> thy tongue. Kerely bonto, sir, betake thee to thy
> faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.
> PAROLLES
> O!
> First Soldier
> O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche
> Second Lord
> Oscorbidulchos volivorco.
>
> But here the language is intentionally fake, so it is a different case from the one under discussion. There must be many more examples of both types, if anyone wants to waste some time...
>
> Richard Salomon
>
>
>
> On 2/11/2014 2:59 AM, C.A. Formigatti wrote:
>> Dear Dr Bowles,
>>
>> At least a part of the last quote is in Italian, but written with a
>> funny English orthography:
>>
>> ‘_Sat tu sicurah da non lasharay andarah, guescha bect-cha, liberal dubo
>> toto suferanza.
>>
>> Sei tu sicura di non lasciare andare questa vecchia, liberala da tutta
>> [la] sofferenza
>>
>> The translation 'Death to you; death by terrible torture' etc. doesn't
>> correspond to the Italian, which means 'Are you sure you want to release
>> this old woman, free her from [the] suffering' or something in this
>> direction (the last part is a little bit strange).
>>
>> I hope I've been able to help you!
>>
>> Camillo Formigatti
>>
>>
>> On 2014-02-11 10:15, indology-request at list.indology.info wrote:
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>>> Today's Topics:
>>>
>>> 1. language identification (Adam Bowles)
>>> 2. Whish Collection! (Dr. Debabrata Chakrabarti)
>>> 3. Re: language identification (Valerie J Roebuck)
>>> 4. Wendy Doniger's book to be withdrawn in India by Penguin
>>> India (Dominik Wujastyk)
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>
>>> A colleague who is not a member of this list has requested assistance
>>> with the following query:
>>>
>>>> I'm editing for a fairly soon publication a play (William Archer's
>>>> _The Green Goddess_) which has simple short bits of dialogue in a
>>>> foreign language, unidentified. The play is a melodrama set in a
>>>> remote place in the north-western Himalayas, north of and so outside
>>>> of the then British-ruled areas (the play's writing date is 1920). I
>>>> have the TS prompt book used by JCW for their Australian production
>>>> in 1924, but of course though that gives bits of dialogue in this
>>>> language, and provide translations into English, the script doesn't
>>>> identify what language they are using. It is not Hindustani, that is
>>>> made clear, though that is also used here and there.
>>>>
>>>> Here are a few samples from the TS along with the translations:
>>>
>>>> ‘_Unkeitha hu_!’ (They are alive!); ‘_Hub sa jumphti odt, hu
>>>> keitha_!’ (Two of them are alive, at least); ‘_Un nukkha jan
>>>> ru_!’ (They are not killed); ‘_Guth, baith un pai hai dosha!_’
>>>> (Back, they may have the Evil Eye).
>>>>
>>>> The Priest’s explanation is given: ‘_Kha hai Adythum_’ (This
>>>> is her temple). ‘_Au ka jahah kaman sa gulbia_’ (She beckoned
>>>> your ship out of the sky). ‘_Kha main tha hunthal Maharaj ka_’
>>>> (The land is ruled by our Raja). ‘_Go hai nuxman_’ (That is the
>>>> palace there). ‘_Ha khaja un ka hasthi_’ (I have sent for him).
>>>> ‘_Kumajo heinga dha_’ (He will be here soon).
>>>>
>>>> Traherne is introduced ‘blindfold’ and the High (Chief) Priest
>>>> curses Traherne: ‘_Sat tu sicurah da non lasharay andarah, guescha
>>>> bect-cha, liberal dubo toto suferanza. Kay sat ychi; kay sat
>>>> ychi_’ (Death to you; death by terrible torture. You pollute our
>>>> sacred temple. The Great Roc found you. It brought you here. Death,
>>>> suffering, the curse of the Green Goddess be on you).
>>>>
>>>> I rather suspect the 'liberal dubo toto suferanza' phrase: it sounds
>>>> like a kind of esperanto pidgin slipped in for audience
>>>> comprehension. But I believe the rest to be a genuine local
>>>> language. Pahari?
>>>>
>>>> any help in this would be most appreciated and of course
>>>> acknowledged in its site of publication: the Manchester UP journal
>>>> _Nineteenth Century Film and Theatre._
>>>
>>> If anyone has any insight to offer, please email Professor Veronica
>>> Kelly at v.kelly at uq.edu.au. Any assistance would be greatly
>>> appreciated.
>>>
>>> Best
>>> Adam Bowles
>>>
>>> The University of Queensland
>>>
>>
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>
> --
> ----------------------
>
> Richard Salomon
> Department of Asian Languages and Literature
> University of Washington, Box 353521
> Seattle WA 98195-3521
> USA
>
>
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–––––––––––––––––––
Christophe Vielle
Louvain-la-Neuve
Editor, Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain series
- Last Indological issues: PIOL nos 53, 60, 63, 64
- Still available: Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (vols 1-2-3-4-5), Asaṅga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha, Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Lamotte's History of Indian Buddhism, etc.
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