Lingua Ignota
Lingua Ignota (Latin for unknown language ) is a constructed language from the 12th century. It was created by the abbess Hildegard von Bingen and is passed down through a dictionary in the Rupertsberg Giant Codex and incompletely in the Codex Vindobonensis and Codex Parisiensis . The explanation of the words is given in German and Latin. The vocabulary includes around 900 terms related to human life and nature. Several words suggest similarities to German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and pseudo-Hebrew, although completely made up words appear to be included. The accumulation of the ending -uz or -z is noticeable .
Due to certain abnormalities such as syllable extensions, the addition of sibilants, or that individual words of the lingua ignota begin with a phoneme similar to words from natural languages, but end with an invented syllable, researchers like Paul Alphandéry led researchers like Paul Alphandéry to assume that the words were due to physiological peculiarities of Hildegard designed by Bingen in this way. A conjecture by Jacob Grimm , according to which Hildegard von Bingen is supposed to have oriented himself on dialectal expressions from a glossary, does not seem tenable either.
The words of the Lingua Ignota were written in an alphabet that was also constructed, but which is reminiscent of the Latin letters.
The use of the lingua ignota seems to be limited to single expressions in hymns.
Examples
| Lingua Ignota | German |
|---|---|
| Aigouz | God |
| crizia | church |
| diveliz | devil |
| iminois | human |
| isparriz | ghost |
| luzeica | light |
| vaniz | woman |
literature
- Alessandro Bausani : Secret and Universal Languages . Development and typology. Stuttgart u. a. 1970, pp. 76-78.