Devachan Music - Community Room

Silly languages are one of my mild passions. Besides their being silly and fun I find them intriguing and even educational. I could now wax pontifical about the cogno - motoro - psychosocial neurotransmitter - annealing properties of silly languages in wiring the old linguistic brain firmly to the old brainstem, but I think I'd be better off just heading right into the menagerie itself...

How to Speak In Words of But One Beat

Two Word Language

"A" Language

Composing Languages

Dyslexic's Revenge (new 9/17/03!)

How to Speak In Words of But One Beat:

"This is a game that I learned from my quite good friend Ms. Lenk, the wife of Paul who plays the bass in a great band called Twang that plays round town these days. I wish that I could tell you Ms. Lenk's real first name, but sad to say if I did it would break the rules of the game "How to Speak in Words of But One Beat," the game in which I am now in the midst of play just as we speak (or, more to the point, as I write and as you read). I think by now it should be quite clear to you how to play this game. The wild thing is that you can go for quite a long time like this and not let on to your friends that there is a strange thing to be heard in the ways that the words get said."

Phew!

Enough!

(Actually the game is not from <Cecilia> Lenk but from Becky Stocking, Jim Reidy's wife. Jim also plays in Twang, so I'm not that far off.) I'm not sure where the game originally comes from, but I have found it is a great game for songwriters to hone their craft. It's very fun in casual conversation to see how long you can go withouth hesitating or groping for words of one beat to convey subtle, multi-faceted concepts like "propinquity" and "antediluvian"!

I have actually written a number of verses, usually inadvertently, that obey this rule. For example, in "Don't You Think It's Time to Go" (recorded recently by the Del McCoury Band on The Family) these words appear (lines that are all words of but one beat are bolded):

(Verse 1...)

When you told me you were <leavin'>

It <nearly> broke my heart

<Remember> how I begged you to stay on?

But I could see your mind was set

I knew you had to go

So I gave up your heart for lost and gone

(Verse 2...)

If I thought that there was half a chance

You'd <really> change your mind

I <wouldn't> breathe a word to force your hand

I'd let you take your own good time

'Cause who knows what we'd find

But we both know that's not what you've got planned

(©1998 Mark A. Simos/Devachan Music/BMI. All rights reserved)

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Two Word Language

Oh kay. Here goes. Another language. Even sillier. Well, arguably. Concept straightforward. Execution difficult. (Like others.) Complete sentences; two words. (Semi-colons marginal. This time. No more. 'Nuff said?)

Quite challenging. Complete thoughts. Not fragments. Verbs optional. Skip them; no harm. (Hey, wait. No sem-colons? You cheated. So what? Buzz off. Get life.)

Point obvious. Don't belabor. Next language. Thanks loads.
Don't call. We'll call.

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"A" Language

Thays ays gate tae bay thay saylayaste lanegwage ave ale. Cane yea ayndarestained wait Eh aim sayayng? Thays lanegwage cames frame Dayrk Paywhale, thay great ache-care-day-ain play air hay laves ayn Lay-Way-Zay-Eh-Nay. Ay layrned ayt frame Daynay NayVake thay great bayn-jay play air aynd nayw (thate's ay hared wane!) ays ayn aynthrape-aylaygaste.

Ayt ays ayvane hare-dare tay wrate thane tay spake.

Phayw!

Technically what makes A language so difficult is that it is a homomorphism. (Wow, I feel better already!) It is a mapping from language using all vowels to language using just one vowel sound (Long A). So, strictly speaking many different sentences in English would "map" to the same sentence in A language. Also mysterious are those few sentences in English that already are in A language:

For example, "You dumb fool!" and "Yay, dame—fail!" (Now why would we simultaneously cheer on that lady hockey player and ask her to miss the shot?)

I have actually written one line of one verse of one song that uses A language:

I been to the East, I been to the West
I been to the Alleghenies
Some like my zip, some like my zest
And zome just zay I'm zany(*)
But... I'll zing to the zisters that shine in the sky
Rainbow thread in the needle of the eye
Hope I'm not dead before I die
May jays nate wane bate manay

(*) Another silly language in the making?

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Composing Languages

When you get really good at silly languages you can "compose" them in series.

For example:

Wane Agsaympale. Tae wared. Eh LaneGwage. Bayth Camebaned. Vayray Hared. Nae Paint.

Further examples are left as an example to the reader who, by the way, if you have read this far, desperately needs to...

Gate Lafe!!!

(as we say in Two Word A language...)

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Dyslexic's Revenge (from Adam Rose)

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

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