Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site sjuvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!sjuvax!tmoody From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: aUI Message-ID: <2703@sjuvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 10:59:26 EST Article-I.D.: sjuvax.2703 Posted: Sun Jan 12 10:59:26 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jan-86 06:12:16 EST Distribution: net Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA. Lines: 207 Hello, constructed language buffs -- er, buffs of constructed languages. In a recent posting, Mike Urban made some interesting points about Loglan and Esperanto. One of the most interesting, in my opinion, was his claim that Esperanto has a certain beauty owing (perhaps) to its being the labor of love of a single individual: Zamenhof. Esperanto is indeed a work of art. I have discovered another constructed language that has this property. It is, in conception and realization, even more visionary than Esperanto. The language is aUI, and it is a very interesting piece of work. "aUI" (three syllables) means "the language of space". It was invented by W. John Weilgart, who held doctorates in philology and psychology from the Universities of Vienna and Heidelberg. He died in the late 1970s, I think, but aUI is being perpetuated by his widow, daughter, and a group of enthusiasts. Weilgart's goal was to develop a language in which every phoneme is a morpheme, so that one orthographical symbol corresponds to one sound, which corresponds to one concept. aUI features a basic vocabulary of 31 basic (better, "primeval") concepts, which are supposed to be adequate, in various combinations, to express whatever you need to say. The idea, frankly borrowed from Jungian depth psychology (and quite Platonistic in inspiration, I think) is to work with conceptual archetypes, and thus to avoid certain abuses of language. The basic symbols themselves can be written in two ways: roman letters or ideograms. The ideograms are preferred, but I obviously can't present them here. They are preferred because they are pictorial and thus less conventional than letters. But here are the 31 basic phoneme/morphemes: 1. a -- lower case 'a', pronounced as in "father", but shorter. Meaning: space. [ideogram is a circle] 2. A -- upper case 'A', the full-length "Ah" sound. Meaning: time. [ideogram is a horizontal oval] 3. e -- as in "jet". Meaning: movement. [ideogram is a little spiral, like the letter 'e', but not quite closed] 4. E -- as in "fey". Meaning: matter. [ideogram is a horizontal rectangle] 5. i -- as in "lit". Meaning: light. [ideogram is a decapitated '8', or a downward pointing Greek alpha] 6. I -- as in "shriek". Meaning: sound. [ideogram is like a large tilde] 7. u -- as in "push". Meaning: human. [ideogram is a baseless triangle] 8. U -- as in "true". Meaning: mind, or spirit. [ideogram is a triangle] 9. o -- short, as in "bought". Meaning: life. [ideogram looks something like a flattened 'P'] 10. O -- as in "emotion". Meaning: feeling. [ideogram is a rounded heart symbol] 11. Q -- pronounced as the German umlauted 'o', or the 'o' in "word". Meaning: condition. [ideogram is like a pair of parentheses, with one raised halfway above the other] 12. Y -- prounced like 'y'; before a consonant it sounds like the German umlauted 'u'. Meaning: negation. [ideogram is a horizontal line] 13. r -- a trilled 'r'. Meaning: positive, good. [ideogram is a plus sign] 14. L -- regular 'L'. Meaning: round. [ideogram is a circle within a circle, where the inner circle is tangent to the outer one at the bottom] 15. m -- regular 'm'. Meaning: quality. [ideogram is a horizontal oval with a piece cut out of the top] 16. n -- regular 'n'. Meaning: quantity. [ideogram is a topless horizontal rectangle] 17. w -- the English 'w'. Meaning: power. [ideogram is a horizontal thunderbolt] 18. v -- as in "vigor". Meaning: action, do, make. [ideogram is a vertical thunderbolt] 19. f -- regular 'f'. Meaning: this. [ideogram is an arrow pointing down, with the left tine of the arrowhead missing] 20. h -- the English 'h'. Meaning: question. [ideogram is a curvy undotted question mark] 21. X -- the guttural sound, as in the Scottish "loch". Meaning: relation. [ideogram is a horizontal two-headed arrow, with the bottom tine of the left arrowhead and the top tine of the right arrowhead missing] 22. j -- the French 'j', or the 's' in the English "pleasure". Meaning: equality. [ideogram is the '=' symbol with the two lines connected by a curve at the right end] 23. c -- pronounced as English 'sh'. Meaning: exist, be. [ideogram is a vertical line] 24. s -- regular unvoiced dental sibilant. Meaning: thing. [ideogram is a large solid dot] 25. z -- voiced dental sibilant. Meaning: part. [ideogram is a closed half-circle, or backwards 'D'] 26. 'g' -- regular hard 'g'. Meaning: inside. [ideogram is a dot in the center of a circle] 27. k -- regular palatal 'k'. Meaning: above. [ideogram is rather like an upside-down quarter note] 28. t -- regular 't'. Meaning: toward. [ideogram is a rightward arrow with the top tine missing] 29. d -- regular 'd'. Meaning: through. [ideogram is a vertical line with an intersecting line at a "one o'clock/seven o'clock" angle] 30. b -- regular 'b'. Meaning: together. [ideogram is two dots joined by a horizontal arc, upward convex] 31. p -- regular unvoiced plosive 'p'. Meaning: before, in front. [ideogram is a vertical line with a solid dot grafted to it in the middle on the left] As you see, "aUI" literally means "space-mind-sound". "Mind-sound" is "language", so "aUI" is the language of space. The pronoun "I" or "me" is "fu", meaning "this person." Weilgart has used aUI extensively in a form of "logotherapy". His idea is that it forces one to consider *exactly* what one means, by creating aUI words. He believed that the conventionality and arbitrariness of language is reduced to a minimum. The very phoneme/concept linkages were established for a reason. The 'g' for instance, means "inside"; it was chosen because it is sounded deep inside the throat. I do not know this language in detail, but it might be interesting to show you a few more aUI words, to give the feel of it. io = light-life = plant. iO = light-feeling = sight. iOm = light-feeling-quality = seeing. YiOm = negation-light-feeling-quality = blind. pAvU = before-time-act-mind = preparation. pev = before-move-action = begin. All verbs end in 'v', to represent action. ypOm = no-before-feeling-quality = sudden. pUm = front-mind-quality = principal (adj.). puMs = front-mind-quality-thing = principle. For obvious reasons, there are no homonyms or polysemes in aUI. Here is a short paragraph of roman letter aUI, and its English translation. It is an excerpt from Tolstoy's story "The Shark." -pIn fAoms, ag pe, yc IOpAv, xE unIpAyv at nu, Ib yc iOpAv nyrjEos. yUg, yfA, _a_ Ub nu tiOpAv al, Ib fnu can IOpAv dzem yrOI. Ib pIn ynvu jEgepAv ayt tag jym taz. "The youngsters, in the beginning, did not hear what was shouted to them, and did not see the shark. But then one of them looked around, and we all heard a piercing scream. And the boys swam off in different directions." I don't know if this sort of thing could ever work. It is certainly a much more radical proposal than Esperanto; I haven't learned enough to make any judgments. Nevertheless, it is one of the most fascinating things I have encountered in a long while. I am told that a small aUI organization exists. If you are interested, the address is: aUI Peace Language International 100 Elm Court Decorah, Iowa 52101 There is a newsletter called the "communicator", edited by Weilgart's daughter. Her address is: Mrs. Andrea Weilgart Patten 602 Richards St. Overton, Texas 75684 I think that Dr. Weilgart's book, _aUI_, _The_Language_of_Space_ is available from the organization, for $12.95. I have a couple of photocopied chapters, but I have not yet received the book. If there is any interest, I will present more aUI material in future postings. Todd Moody | {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody Philosophy Department | St. Joseph's U. | "I couldn't fail to Philadelphia, PA 19131 | disagree with you less."