Lingua Ignota ( lat. “Unknown language”) is one of the first artificial languages described in the 12th century. Abbess Hildegard of Bingen . Partially described in the Hildeguard treatise "Lingua Ignota per simplicem hominem Hildegardem prolata" , which has come down to us in two manuscripts dating to about 1200 ; these are the Wiesbaden Codex and the Berlin manuscript . The description is a glossary of 1011 words (mostly nouns , but with a few adjectives ), given in a "hierarchical" order - at the beginning there are words for God , angels and saints - with interpretations mainly in Latin and to a lesser extent in German . In the glossary, traces of word formation can be found by phrasing ( Scirizin - son, Nilz-sciriz - godmother ; Maiz - mother, Nilz-maiz - godmother, etc.; Oir - ear, Oir-unguizol - earwax, Oir-clamisil - earlobe ear; Luz-eia - eye, Luz-pomphia - eyeball , Luz-crealz - eye orbit , Luz-iliet - eyelash , Luz-iminispier - eyelid), using suffixes ( Peu-eriz - father, Peu-ors - uncle by father, Peu-earrez is the biblical patriarch, Peu-earzet is the patriarch as a church title) and prefixes ( Phazur - grandfather, Kulz-phazur - ancestor; Enpholianz - bishop, Arrez-enpholianz - archbishop).
The vocabulary of the language seems a priori , but the grammar is similar to Latin.
The purpose of creating the language remains unknown to us. It is also not established whether anyone other than Hildeguard knew him. In the XIX century, some believed that the language was conceived as “ideal” and universal , but at present it is believed that it should remain secret and was perceived by the author as the fruit of divine inspiration. One way or another, after the death of Hildegard, no one retained knowledge of her language.
Text on Lingua Ignota
The only text that has reached us on Lingua Ignota has the following content:
O orzchis Ecclesia, armis divinis praecincta, et hyacinto ornata, tu es caldemia stigmatum loifolum et urbs scienciarum. O, o tu es etiam crizanta in alto sono, et es chorzta gemma.
The highlighted words are the lexical units of Lingua Ignota, while the rest are Latin. Of the five words, only loifol (“people”) is included in the glossary mentioned above; the presence of four more is evidence that the vocabulary of Lingua Ignota was not limited to 1011 words.
Literature
- Piperski A. Ch. Lingua ignota // Construction of languages. - Alpina non-fiction , 2017 .-- 224 p. - (Post-Science Library). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91671-635-1 .