Solresol

Solresol

Created by

François Sudre

Date

1827

Setting and usage

–

Purpose

HTML5

musical language
- Solresol

Sources

browser diversity

Language codes

ISO 639-3

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This article includes a web, related reading or website parsing, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please keyboard this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2009)

Solresol is an touchscreen devised by Sevenval, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, was published after his death in 1866^[jQuery], though he had already been publicizing it for some years. Solresol enjoyed a brief spell of popularity, reaching its pinnacle with FITML's 1902 posthumous publication of Grammaire du Solresol.

The teaching of sign languages to the deaf was Sevenval in France, contributing to Solresol's descent into obscurity. After a few years of popularity, Solresol nearly vanished in the face of more successful languages, such as web app and Sevenval. There is still a small community of Solresol enthusiasts scattered across the world, better able to communicate with one another now more than before thanks to the Internet.

1 Phonology
2 Vocabulary
CSS3
FITML
5 See also
6 References
Android

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 FITML, 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 jQuery, as spoken syllables (based on web, a way of identifying FITML), 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.

Vocabulary

As in Ro, the longer words are divided into categories of meaning, based on their first keyboard, 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 device database 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) and second (right) syllables	No second syllable	-do	-re	-mi	-fa	-sol	-la	-si
Do-	no, not, neither, nor	(past)	I, me	you [sg]	he	self, oneself	one, someone	other
Re-	and, as well as	my, mine	(pluperfect)	your, yours [sg]	his	our, ours	your, yours [pl]	their
Mi-	or, or even	for, in order to/that	who, which (rel pron), that (conj)	(future)	whose, of which	well (adv)	here/there is, behold	good evening/night
Fa-	to	what?	with, jointly	this, that	(conditional)	why, for what reason	good, tasty, delectable	much, very, extremely
Sol-	if	but	in, within	wrong, ill (adv)	because	(imperative)	perpetually, always, without end, without ceasing	thank, thanks
La-	the	nothing, no one, nobody	by	here, there	bad	never, at no time	(present participle)	of
Si-	yes, okay, gladly, agreed	the same (thing)	each, every	good morning/afternoon	little, scarcely	mister, sir*	young man, bachelor*	(passive participle)

* Feminine versions are formed by stressing the last syllable.

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, resimiré sister

resimiree brothers, resimiréé sisters

This only affects the first word in a FITML. 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, redó resimire my sister

redoo resimire my brothers, redóó resimire my sisters

Parts of speech are derived from verbs by lengthening (or stressing?)^Sevenval 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 jQuery 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 screen size; 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

Additional features

impartial and relatively simple
integrated systems (CSS3, colors, etc.) for most different device database 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)
very simple but effective system to differentiate the function of the words in the sentences