Solresol

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Solresol

Created by Date created Setting and usage

Franois Sudre 1827 constructed languages

o

Category (purpose)

musical language Solresol

Category (sources) a priori Language codes ISO 639-3 This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2009) Solresol is an artificial language devised by Franois Sudre, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, was published after his death in 1866[citation needed], though he had already been publicizing it for some years. Solresol enjoyed a brief spell of popularity, reaching its pinnacle with Boleslas Gajewski's 1902 posthumous publication of Grammaire du Solresol.

Contents
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1 Phonology 2 Vocabulary 3 Grammar 4 Additional features

5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Phonology

The seven conventional notes, colors, syllables, numerals, and glyphs used to convey solresol phonemes. Solresol words are made up of from one to five syllables or notes. Each of these may be one of only seven basic phonemes, which may in turn be accented or lengthened. There is another phoneme, silence, which is used to separate words: words cannot be run together as they are in English. The phonemes can be represented in a number of different ways as the seven musical notes in an octave, as spoken syllables (based on solfge, a way of identifying musical notes), with the seven colours of the rainbow, symbols, hand gestures etc. Thus, theoretically Solresol communication can be done through speaking, singing, flags of different color even painting.

[edit] Vocabulary
As in Ro, the longer words are divided into categories of meaning, based on their first syllable, or note. Words beginning with 'sol' have meanings related to arts and sciences, or, if they begin with 'solsol', sickness and medicine (e.g., solresol, "language"; solsolredo, "migraine"). Like other constructed languages with a priori vocabulary, Solresol faces considerable problems in categorizing the real world around it sensibly. The last couple of syllables may be arbitrary, to capture distinctions such as "apple" vs "pear" which do not fit simple categories. Feminine words are formed by accenting the last syllable, and plurals by lengthening it.

A unique feature of Solresol is that meanings are negated by reversing the syllables in words. For instance fala means good or tasty, and lafa means bad. It is unclear how this interacts with the way words are categorized by their first note. The following table shows the words of up to two syllables: First (below) No and secon second d -do -re -mi -fa (right) syllab syllabl le es no, not, Do(past) I, me you [sg] he neithe r, nor and, as my, (pluperfe Reyour, yours [sg] his well mine ct) as who, for, in which or, or whose, of Miorder (rel pron), (future) even which to/that that (conj) Fato what? with, jointly this, that

-sol

-la

-si

self, oneself

one, other someone your, their yours [pl] good here/there evening/nig is, behold ht

our, ours

well (adv)

why, for (condition what al) reason

Sol- if

but

in, within wrong, ill (adv) because

good, much, very, tasty, extremely delectable perpetuall y, always, (imperativ without thank, e) end, thanks without ceasing (present never, at participle of no time ) young (passive man, participle) bachelor*

La- the

nothin g, no one, by nobod y

here, there

bad

Si-

yes, okay, the each, gladly same every , (thing) agreed

good little, morning/aftern scarcely oon

mister, sir*

* Feminine versions are formed by stressing the last syllable.

[edit] Grammar

Apart from stress and length, solresol words are not inflected. Word order is also rather strict. Solresol marks feminine gender and plural number, by stressing or lengthening the last syllable a word: resimire brother, resimir sister resimiree brothers, resimir sisters This only affects the first word in a noun phrase. That is, it only affects a noun when the noun is alone, as above; any determiner ('the', 'my', etc.) will take the gender or number marking instead: redo resimire my brother, red resimire my sister redoo resimire my brothers, red resimire my sisters Parts of speech are derived from verbs by lengthening (or stressing?)[1] one of the syllables: abstract noun (1st syllable), agent/doer (2nd syllable), adjective (penult), adverb (last syllable). For example, midofa to prefer, miidofa preference, midoofa preferable, midofaa preferably resolmila to continue, reesolmila continuation, resoolmila one who continues, resolmiila continual, resolmilaa continually Questions are formed by inverted subject and verb. The various tense-and-mood particles are the double syllables, as given in vocabulary above. In addition, passive verbs are formed with faremi between this particle and the verb. The subjunctive is formed with mire before the pronoun. The negative do only appears once in the clause, before the word it negates. The word fasi before a noun or adjective is augmentative; after it is superlative. Sifa is the opposite (diminutive): fala good, fasi fala very good, fala fasi excellent, the best; sifa fala okay, fala sifa not very good (and similarly with lafa bad) sisire wind, fasi sisire gale, sisire fasi cyclone; sifa sisire breeze, sisire sifa movement of air

[edit] Additional features

Additional features of Solresol include:

highly impartial (equally easy or difficult for everyone, like other a priori constructed languages)[dubious discuss][The semantics are still European] integrated systems (signs, colors, etc.) for most different handicapped people, immediately operative without special learning) gives fast learning success to illiterate people (only 7 syllables or signs or 10 letters to know and to recognize) it presents no pronunciation difficulties

very simple but effective system to differentiate the function of the words in the sentences

The teaching of sign languages to the deaf and mute was discouraged between 1880 and 1991 in France, contributing to Solresol's descent into obscurity. After a few years of popularity, it faded into obscurity in the face of more successful languages such as Volapk and Esperanto. Despite this, there is still a small community of Solresol enthusiasts scattered across the world, better able to communicate with one another now than before the advent of the Internet.

[edit]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solresol

Solmization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Solmisation) Jump to: navigation, search

Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world. In Europe and North America, solfge is the convention used most often. The seven syllables normally used for this practice in English-speaking countries are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti (with a chromatic scale of ascending di, ri, fi, si, li and descending te, le, se, me, ra). The syllables are derived from The Hymn of St. John written by Paulus Diaconus in the 8th century. An alternative theory on the origins of solfge proposes that it may have also had Arabic musical origins. It has been argued that the solfge syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic solmization system Durar Mufaalt ("Separated Pearls") (dl, r', mm, f', d, lm, t') during the Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe. This origin theory was first proposed by Meninski in his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum (1680) and then by Laborde in his Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (1780).[1][2]. In India, the origin of solmization was to be found in Vedic texts like the Upanishads, which discuss a musical system of seven notes, realized ultimately in what is known as sargam. In Indian classical music, the notes in order are: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni. Byzantine music uses syllables derived from the greek alphabet to name notes: starting with A, the notes are pa (alpha), vu' (beta), ga (gamma), di (delta), ke (epsilon), zo (zeta), ni (eta).

In South China, the words used to name notes are (from fa to mi): (siong or shang4), (cei or chi3), (gong), (huan or fan2), (liuo or liu4), (ngou or wu3), (yik or yi3). The system is used for teaching sight-singing. In Japanese music, the first line of Iroha, an ancient poem used as an "ABC" of traditional kana, is used for solmization. The syllables representing the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, G are i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to respectively. Shakuhachi musical notation uses another solmization system beginning "Fu Ho U". In Indonesia, Javanese musicians derive syllables from numbers; ji-ro-lu-[pi]-ma-nem (siji, loro, telu, [papat, normally skipped in pentatonic scales], lima, enem). In Scotland, Canntaireachd was used as a means of communicating bagpipe music verbally.

[edit]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solmisation