Specific Symbols

[Rysade]

[Rysade]

I have a guess on what it looks like my best friend Rory was playing with my labeler I am obbessed with labeling things that belong to me and he put the thing in between the english letters and the Japanese characters that are on my labeler(I got it in Japan)and it looked really cool and the first thing that came to my mind was this is what the speech must look like.

*Nita*

http://www.geocities.com/booknightmoon

[Caledonian]

There are only three symbols that are explicitly descibed in the books (most of the written Speech is probably far too complex to describe verbally with any concision), and two are nearly identical.

One is indeed the figure-eight symbol used to complete a spell circle (called a wizards' knot), and the other two are mentioned in the description of the Lone Power's name. His name ended with a closed circle, indicating a spell or life bound into endless repetition. Nita altered it by adding an upward-pointing arrow from the circle, indicating that a way out of the cycle was possible.

Logic is a poor servant, but an excellent master.
-- The Book of Forgotten Things

[Rice]

In 'The Book of Night With Moon', Arhu writes the sign for a seer, two curved lines joined together like an eye with one straight one diagonally across. I'm not sure, though, if it's meant to be a cat pupil slit or an eyelid.

TBoNwM also mentions that the Speech shares some structural characteristics with demotic Egyptian (as opposed to the heiroglyphs).

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit."

Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.

[Bryce]

[Nathan]

As far as specific symbols used in the Speech, Nita mentions (in one of the earlier chapters of 'The Wizard's Dilemma' *) that the Speech shares symbols with calculus. This is not at all surprising to me, for mathematics is the language of precise description of the universe, and it is calculus (especially vector and tensor calculus) of all mathematics that is the primary tool of physics. A good feel for the sorts of symbols used in calculus (as well as related fields [no pun intended], for at higher levels calculus borrows from and intermingles with many other fields, including algebra and topology) can be obtained by browsing Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics. I would especially recommend (for interesting symbols) the following sections: The Christoffel Symbol of the Second Kind
Stokes' Theorem
The Wave Equation
The Gamma Function

However, there are many more interesting symbols used in mathematics, so, if you are interested, I highly encourage browsing around the site and following interesting-looking links (you will also find out about some really fascinating topics, if you are at all interested mathematics). I hope that this discussion has been helpful in satisfying the curiosity of those people interested in the visual appearance of the Speech and hasn't been too technical.

Nathan


* While I can't give an exact reference and some of the details may be incorrect, as I am relying on my memory of the scene (since I don't have access to the book at the moment --perhaps somebody who does have access would be so kind as to post the exact reference and/or any corrections to my description), this comment occurs while Nita is working on spell at the kitchen table (a subroutine for the Jones Inlet cleanup spell) and her mother mentions that it looks like she (Nita) is doing higher-level mathematics, to which Nita replies that the Speech shares symbols with calculus.

Non doctrinam, sed perspicuitatem quaero.

Dai Stiho!

okay...I'm just as interested in learning this language as you Rysade. Wouldnt that be awesome if we could all get together at a convention and speak the speech to eachother?

okay so ya.... i ask this question of Diane-
If someone was to come up with something that would fit as " the speech " verbal and/or writen, would you accept it?
I know that when the lord of the rings came out on book originaly that it was actually a fan that came out with the elven language and sent it to the auther and than he adapted it in to what he already had and put it out as his own...would you possibly do something like that?



Well thats all for now,
Dai Stiho cousines



With great power comes great responsibility.

Donn MacGreine

Donn~~Celtic God of the Dead.

MacGreine~Tuatha de Danann God symbolizing the fire element.

Dai Stiho!

okay...I'm just as interested in learning this language as you Rysade. Wouldnt that be awesome if we could all get together at a convention and speak the speech to eachother?

okay so ya.... i ask this question of Diane-
If someone was to come up with something that would fit as " the speech " verbal and/or writen, would you accept it?
I know that when the lord of the rings came out on book originaly that it was actually a fan that came out with the elven language and sent it to the auther and than he adapted it in to what he already had and put it out as his own...would you possibly do something like that?



Well thats all for now,
Dai Stiho cousines



With great power comes great responsibility.

Donn MacGreine

Donn~~Celtic God of the Dead.

MacGreine~Tuatha de Danann God symbolizing the fire element.

[Diane Duane]

Originally posted by MacGreine:
i ask this question of Diane-
If someone was to come up with something that would fit as " the speech " verbal and/or writen, would you accept it?

Uh, no.

First of all, if anyone's going to invent the Speech, it's going to be me. But I'm not going to do it. A number of reasons:

(a) No made-up language would ever "sound" right...like the real thing. The idea of the Speech is that when you hear it, you know what you're hearing, in your bones... and nothing you, or I, or anyone else makes up, is going to have quite that sound.

(b) The minute I start writing words in some made-up version of the Speech, people are going to try using them. You know they will. And they're going to be disappointed. I can't have that.

(c) There are also people out there who would take the appearance of "magic words" and "spells" in these books as evidence that the books were some kind of trap set by, uh, a figure with horns and a funny tail frequently mistaken for the Lone Power. I refuse to give them any ammunition to work with.

(d) And I think the Speech sounds better if you make up for yourself what it sounds like, in your own head. It's much more effective than anything I could make up.

I know that when the lord of the rings came out on book originaly that it was actually a fan that came out with the elven language and sent it to the auther and than he adapted it in to what he already had and put it out as his own...

Uh, no, that's not how it happened. You should check up on this a little more. Tolkien invented Elvish himself: and he invented it long before he started writing any of the books.

-- DD

[Caitlin]

i still think it would be cool to have an alphabet or somethn of the speech......just so you could AMAZE your friends who have read the young wizards books.. it would be great

erised straeh ruoy tub ecaf ruoy ton wohs i

[Diane Duane]

I'm not saying I wouldn't develop the alphabet, as an exercise in creative calligraphy. But I will not name the characters, or go any further.

It's not that I don't love the idea of invented languages. I dabble in that area (as those of you who read my Trek books and my adult fantasy work have probably noticed). But establish more than a few words, and suddenly you've got people translating Hamlet into Klingon, and e-mailing you at all hours of the day and night demanding more vocabulary. I have other things for my life to be about at the moment. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

-- DD

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Diane Duane:
It's not that I don't love the idea of invented languages. I dabble in that area (as those of you who read my Trek books and my adult fantasy work have probably noticed).

Oh, speaking of which, Diane, are your language notes for the Middle Kingdoms books restored in the Meisha Merlin editions, or are they permanently gone?

If they're gone, how much would it irritate you to have me transcribe them and put them up on my site? :-)

It's supposed to look kind of Arabic.

<center><a href="http://www.timeheart.2ya.com"><img src="http://shielda.net/timeheart.jpg" border="0"></a><br>-Shanilyric Of Timeheart