Solresol is an a priori constructed language based on the solfège scale (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si), with each note being a syllable upon which words of 1-5 syllables are built. It was created by François Sudre in 1827, and Sudre published a major book about it, Langue musicale universelle, in 1866. Solresol reached a peak in popularity with the 1902 publication of the Grammaire du Solresol by Boleslas Gajewski. Since then, it has declined in popularity. The purpose of this blog is to raise awareness about this language and to increase its user-base.
For more details, visit Sidosi.org .
Learn Solresol!
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 solfège, 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.
![dolphinshark:
“Jean-François Sudre had a unique thought in 1817: If people of different cultures can appreciate the same music, why not develop music itself into an international language?
“The result, which he called Solresol, enlists the seven familiar notes of the solfeggio scale (do, re, mi …) as phonemes in a vocabulary of 2,600 roots. Related words share initial syllables; for example, doremi means ‘day,’ dorefa ’week,’ doreso ’month,’ and doredo the concept of time itself. Pleasingly, opposites are indicated simply by reversing a word — fala is ‘good,’ and lafa is ‘bad.’
“Sudre developed this in various media: In addition to a syllable, each note was also assigned a number and a color, so that words could be expressed by knocks, blinking lights, signal flags, or bell strikes as well as music.
“’Imagine for a moment a universal language, translatable to colour, melody, writing, touch, hand signals, and endless strings of numbers,’ writes author Paul Collins. ‘Imagine now that this language was taught from birth to be second nature to every speaker, no matter what their primary language. The world would become saturated with hidden meanings. Music would be transformed, with every instrument in the orchestra engaged in simultaneous dialogue. … [T]he beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth seems to talk about ‘Wednesday’ … Needless to say, obsessive fans who already hear secret messages in music would not do their mental stability any favors by learning Solresol.’
“Sudre was hailed as a genius in his lifetime, and he collected awards at world exhibitions in Paris and London, but he died before his first grammar was published. An international society promoted the language until about World War I, but in the end it lost adherents to Esperanto, which was considered easier to learn.”
- Greg Ross, from this post on his site Futility Closet](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsm87zL5vi1qcabyio1_r1_1280.jpg)
“Jean-François Sudre had a unique thought in 1817: If people of different cultures can appreciate the same music, why not develop music itself into an international language?
“The result, which he called Solresol, enlists the seven familiar notes of the solfeggio scale (do, re, mi …) as phonemes in a vocabulary of 2,600 roots. Related words share initial syllables; for example, doremi means ‘day,’ dorefa ’week,’ doreso ’month,’ and doredo the concept of time itself. Pleasingly, opposites are indicated simply by reversing a word — fala is ‘good,’ and lafa is ‘bad.’
“Sudre developed this in various media: In addition to a syllable, each note was also assigned a number and a color, so that words could be expressed by knocks, blinking lights, signal flags, or bell strikes as well as music.
“’Imagine for a moment a universal language, translatable to colour, melody, writing, touch, hand signals, and endless strings of numbers,’ writes author Paul Collins. ‘Imagine now that this language was taught from birth to be second nature to every speaker, no matter what their primary language. The world would become saturated with hidden meanings. Music would be transformed, with every instrument in the orchestra engaged in simultaneous dialogue. … [T]he beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth seems to talk about ‘Wednesday’ … Needless to say, obsessive fans who already hear secret messages in music would not do their mental stability any favors by learning Solresol.’
“Sudre was hailed as a genius in his lifetime, and he collected awards at world exhibitions in Paris and London, but he died before his first grammar was published. An international society promoted the language until about World War I, but in the end it lost adherents to Esperanto, which was considered easier to learn.”
- Greg Ross, from this post on his site Futility Closet
Solresol is an artifical language first developed by the French musician and author François Sudre beginning in 1827. Words in Solresol are composed of between one and five syllables, and the syllables used for constructing words are the seven diatonic solfège syllables which may be used in…
The second major book about Solresol, written by the other major contributor to Solresol, Boleslas Gajewski.
The second major book about Solresol, written by the other major contributor to Solresol, Boleslas Gajewski.
