From the Tree to the Labyrinth (78 page)

If their way of speech is so admirable, even more so is their writing … and though to us it seems very difficult to decipher them, custom makes the practice very simple.
¹

Instructions in the manner of writing follow; here vowels are indicated with dots marked in different positions, while the thirty-six consonants of the alphabet are little strokes that surround the dots and are recognized by their angles. Foigny mentions these graphic devices obviously making fun of similarly complicated systems, such as, for example, Joachim Becher’s
Character pro notia linguarum universalis
(1661), which proposes a form of notation capable of completely muddling the reader’s ideas. He then continues, citing composites that can be achieved:

For example:
eb,
clear air;
ic,
hot water;
ix,
cold water;
ul,
damp earth;
af,
dry fire;
es,
white air.… There are another eighteen or nineteen, but in Europe we have no consonants corresponding to them.

The more you consider this way of writing, the more you will discover secrets worthy of admiration:
b
means clear;
c
hot;
x
cold;
l
wet;
f
dry;
n
black;
t
green;
d
nasty;
p
sweet;
q
pleasant;
r
bitter;
m
desirable;
g
bad;
z
high;
h
low;
j
red;
a
joined with
i,
calm. The moment a word is spoken, they know the nature of what it denotes: to indicate a sweet and desirable apple, they write
ipm;
nasty and unpleasant fruit is
ind.
I cannot explain all the other secrets that they understand and reveal in their letters.

The verbs are even more mysterious than the nouns. For example, they write and pronounce
af,
to say “to love”;
a
means fire,
f
means the scorching caused by love. They say
la
to mean “I Love,” which means the secretion that love produces in us;
pa,
“thou lovest,” sign of the lover’s sweetness;
lla,
“we love,” the double
ll
indicating the number of persons;
oz
means “to speak,” the letter
o
standing for salt, which seasons out speech, while
z
indicates the inhaling and exhaling necessary to speech.

When a child is being taught, the meaning of all the elements is explained to him, and when he unites them, he learns both the essence and the nature of all things he is saying. This is a wonderful advantage both for the individual and for society, because, when they have learned to read, as they always do by the age of three, they understand at the same time all the characteristics of all beings.

In this language the single letters are chosen arbitrarily, and each refers to a simple notion or to a thing. When compound entities are denoted, however, the syntax of expression appears isomorphic with reference to the content. Assuming that stars are a compound of fire and clear-colored air, the syntagm
aeb
expresses “naturally” the nature of the thing. The expression is isomorphic to the content, to such a degree that changing one element of the expression denotes a different content. In fact,
aab
does not mean stars; it means
sun
because (in the astronomy of the Austral Land) the sun is obviously a double, clear fire. In this sense the language of real characters is distinguished from the natural languages where, if
month
means a length of time, the relationship between noun and notion (or thing) in both cases is entirely arbitrary. In other terms, if, by mistake, we write
catt,
this does not indicate, say, a cat with an extra leg, whereas, if in the Austral language you write, or say,
icc
instead of
ic,
probably you want to indicate water not hot but boiling hot.

As I said earlier, the system recalls the language of chemical formulas: if you write H
₂
Au instead of H
₂
O in theory you indicate a different chemical compound. But here the first drawback of the system crops up. In chemistry, the system remains, so to speak, open (accommodating neologisms) in case an absolutely new compound has to be named, but the acceptance of the neologism is conditioned by the system of the content. Because in nature the number of known or admitted compounds is limited, one may confidently read H
₂
Au as a mistake, a misspelling, as it were. But in the Austral language, what happens if one rungs into the syntagm
al?
Must one admit the possibility that there exists a “wet fire”?

A problem of this sort emerged in connection with the semantic universals that Ramon Llull subjected to combinations and permutations, where the free combination of letters could theoretically produce an utterance repellent to the philosophical bases of the system into which it was introduced (or, in other words, a heretical utterance, such as “truth is false” or “God is lascivious”). But in these cases Llull considered null the theologically unacceptable combination. This also occurred because the letters denoted metaphysical entities that, in the realm of the theology of reference, were precisely defined.
Bonitas est magna
means that Goodness is great, but as Goodness was already defined in this way, it was impossible to conceive of its opposite,
Bonitas est mala
(Goodness is evil). Likewise, the
Ars
did not contemplate the possibility of metaphorical expression or even of periphrases. The primitive terms employed defined the entire universe of what was theologically sayable. Llull, with his perfect theological language, was not interested in talking about stars or hot water.

On the contrary, the Austral language uses a very limited battery of primitives but must serve to express every possible experience, that is, to replace through compositions of primitives the entire vocabulary. Thus, as can be seen from the quotation above, it must employ periphrases that, in Foigny’s satirical version, are highly questionable metaphors: apple becomes sweet and desirable water, and the act of loving is expressed as
af
(dry fire), or burning derived from the fire of passion. If
dry fire
means love, then why should
wet fire
not be able to mean metaphorically some other thing? The problem that arises, analyzing this caricature of language, is a serious problem: if a few primitives must denominate many things, it is indispensable to recur to periphrasis, and this is precisely what happens with the “serious” projects of Wilkins and Dalgarno. And the confines between periphrasis and metaphorical expression can become very hazy. In fact, in Dalgarno’s serious project compounds were introduced on the order of “animal
+
full-hoofs
+
spirited” to signify horse and “animal
+
full-hoofs
+
huge” to signify elephant.

The equally serious project of Wilkins was based on the fact that all ambiguities of language had to be reduced so that every sign would refer to a single, rigorously defined concept. But some metaphorical operators were introduced to allow the language to express entities for which no terms existed in the philosophical dictionary, whose format had inevitably to be reduced. Wilkins asserts that it is not necessary to have a character for
calf
because the concept can be reached by combining
cow
and
young;
nor does one need a primitive
lioness,
since this animal can be denoted by combining the sign for
female
with that for
lion.
Thus Wilkins develops in his grammar (and then transforms into a system of special signs in the part devoted to the writing and pronunciation of the characters) a system of “Transcendental Particles” intended to amplify or alter the character to which they are applied. The list contemplates eight classes amounting to a total of forty-eight particles, but the criterion that assembles them is not at all systematic. Wilkins harks back to Latin grammar, which makes use of endings/suffixes (that allow the creation of terms like
lucesco, aquosus, homunculus
); of “segregates” such as
tim
and
genus
(allowing the creation, from a root, of
gradatim
or
multigenus
); and determination of place (hence
vestiarium
) and agent (cf.
arator
). Some of his particles are without doubt of a grammatical nature (for example, those that transform masculine into feminine or adult into young). But Wilkins himself recurs also to the criteria of rhetoric, citing metaphor, synecdoche, and metonymy, and, in fact, the particles in the metaphorical-like category are simply signs of rhetorical interpretation. Thus, adding one of these particles to
root
one gains
original,
while adding it to
light
yields
evident.
Finally, other particles seem to refer to the cause–effect relation, or container–thing contained, or function–activity, as in the following examples:

like
+
foot
=
pedestal

like
+
blood
=
crimson

place
+
metal
=
mine

officer
+
navy
=
admiral

artist
+
star
=
astronomer

voice
+
lion
=
roar

From the point of view of linguistic precision, this is the weakest part of the project. In fact, Wilkins, who supplies a long list of examples of the correct application of such particles, warns that they are, in fact, examples. Therefore the list is open, and its enrichment depends on the inventiveness of the speaker. It seems almost that Wilkins, concerned about the mechanical quality of his language, is anxious to leave room for its users’ creativity. But once the user is free to apply these particles to any term, it is obvious that ambiguity will be hard to avoid.

And so the artificial language loses its one virtue: that of denoting always and only the same thing with the same character.

The Austral language (like the models it parodies) deliberately rejects the fundamental mechanism of every natural language, namely, double articulation. It is obvious how much double articulation (in which the units of second articulation are without meaning) can contribute to the free formation of neologisms. If, with three meaningless characters
(p, c, f),
I can compose six syntagma
(pot, top, opt, pto, otp, tpo),
and only three of these are admitted by the dictionary, the other three remain available for constructing neologisms or indicating the most subtle differences between otherwise similar entities. As long as they remain available, however, if they happen to appear in a context, they may be understood as errors in pronunciation or spelling.

Foigny’s system, on the one hand, allows the creation of neologisms only through metaphor and, on the other, obliges us to seek out a meaning for every syntagm admitted by the ars
combinatoria
, because even the slightest phonetic or orthographic change immediately reflects on the content and denotes a different (and possible) entity.

Finally, the last limitation of the Austral language is—as occurred with many a priori philosophical languages—the absolute casualness with which the primitives are chosen. We will not speak of the so-called Anonymous Spaniard (Pedro Bermudo), who in his 1654
Arithmeticus nomenclator
classified the primitives, subdividing them into:

(1) Elements (fire, wind, smoke, ash, hell, purgatory, and center of the earth). (2) Celestial entities (stars, lightning, rainbow). (3) Intellectual entities (God, Jesus, discourse, opinion, suspicion, soul, stratagem or specter). (4) Secular states (emperor, barons, plebs). (5) Ecclesiastical states. (6) Artificers (painter or sailor). (7) Instruments. (8) Affects (love, justice, lust). (9) Religion. (10) Sacramental confession. (11) Tribunal. (12) Army. (13) Medicine (doctor, hunger, enema). (14) Brute animals. (15) Birds. (16) Reptiles and fish. (17) Parts of animals. (18) Furnishings. (19) Foods. (20) Beverages and liquids (wine, beer, water, butter, wax, resin). (21) Clothing. (22) Silken stuffs. (23) Woolens. (24) Canvas and other textiles. (25) Navigation and spices (ship, cinnamon, anchor, chocolate). (26) Metals and coins. (27) Various artifacts. (28) Stones. (29) Jewels. (30) Trees and fruits. (31) Public places. (32) Weights and measures. (33) Numerals. (34–42) Various grammatical categories. (43) Persons (pronouns, forms of address such as His Eminence). (44) Travel (hay, road, robber) …

But Wilkins himself, though he discussed his list with students of botany, mineralogy, and zoology, put under the heading of Economic Relations not only cases of kinship, in which distinctions appear distorted by criteria such as Progenitor/Descendant, Brother/Half-brother, or
Coelebs
/Virgin (
Coelebs,
however, comprises both the bachelor and the spinster, whereas Virgin seems to refer only to a female condition), but also acts that refer to intersubjective relationships, such as Direct/Seduce or Defense/Desertion. Among the Private Relations appear also Provisions, where we find Butter/Cheese but also Butchering/Cooking and Box/Basket.

Note the sly way that Foigny breaks the homogeneity of the list of the four classic elements by adding salt, which, if anything, would belong to another chemical-alchemistic taxonomy, including also mercury and sulfur. But the slyness is not gratuitous precisely because Wilkins added to the four elements a fifth, evident one: the Meteor.