Divine language, the language of the gods, or, in monotheism, the language of God (or angels) is the concept of a mystical or divine proto-language, which predates and supersedes human speech.
Abrahamic traditions[edit]
Further information: Adamic language
In Judaism and Christianity, it is unclear whether the language used by God to address Adam was the language of Adam, who as name-giver, (Genesis 2:19) used it to name all living things, or if it was a different divine language. But since God is portrayed as using speech during creation, and as addressing Adam before Gen 2:19, some authorities assumed that the language of God was different from the language of Paradise invented by Adam, while most medieval Jewish authorities maintained that the Hebrew language was the language of God, which was accepted in Western Europe since at least the 16th century and until the early 20th century.[1]
The sacred language in Islam is Classical Arabic, which is a descendant of the Proto-Semitic language. Arabic, along with Hebrew and Aramaic, is a Semitic language. It is considered to be sacred, as, in the Muslim view, it is the language by which Allah revealed the final revealed book, the Koran, to Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, through the angelJibril.
Indic traditions[edit]
In Vedic religion, "speech" Vāc, i.e. the language of liturgy, now known as Vedic Sanskrit, was considered the language of the gods.
Later Hindu scholarship, in particular the Mīmāṃsā school of Vedic hermeneutics, distinguished Vāc from Śábda, a distinction comparable to the Saussurian langue and parole. The concept of Sphoṭa was introduced as a kind of transcendent aspect of Śábda.
Occultism[edit]
In 1510, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa published Book I of his De Occulta Philosophia (translated to English in 1651 as Three Books of Occult Philosophy). Chapter 23 of the book is entitled "Of the tongue of Angels, and of their speaking amongst themselves, and with us" - wherein he states:
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- We might doubt whether Angels, or Demons, since they are of pure spirits, use any vocal speech, or tongue amongst themselves, or to us; but that Paul in some place saith, If I speak with the tongue of men, or angels: but what their speech or tongue is, is much doubted by many. For many think that if they use any Idiome, it is Hebrew, because that was the first of all, and came from heaven, and was before the confusion of languages in Babylon, in which the Law was given by God the Father, and the Gospell was preached by Christ the Son, and so many Oracles were given to the Prophets by the Holy Ghost: and seeing all tongues have, and do undergo various mutations, and corruptions, this alone doth alwaies continue inviolated.
Later, in chapter 27, Agrippa mentions the Divine Language again:
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- But because the letters of every tongue, as we shewed in the first book, have in their number, order, and figure a Celestiall and Divine originall, I shall easily grant this calculation concerning the names of spirits to be made not only by Hebrew letters, but also by Chaldean, and Arabick, Ægyptian, Greek, Latine, and any other...
In the late 16th century, the Elizabethan mathematician and scholar John Dee and the medium and alchemist Edward Kelley (both of whom were familiar with Agrippa's writings) claimed that during scrying sessions, a "Celestial Speech" was received directly from Angels. They recorded large portions of the language in their journals (published today as "The Five Books of the Mysteries" and "A True and Faithful Relation..."), along with a complete text in the language called the "Book of Loagaeth" (or "Speech From God"). Dee's language, called "Angelical" in his journals, often known today by the misnomer "Enochian", follows the basic Judeo-Christian mythology about the Divine Language. According to "A True and Faithful Relation..." Angelical was supposed to have been the language God used to create the world, and then used by Adam to speak with God and Angels and to name all things in existence. He then lost the language upon his Fall from Paradise, and constructed a form of proto-Hebrew based upon his vague memory of Angelical. This proto-Hebrew, then, was the universal human language until the time of the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. After this, all the various human languages were developed, including an even more modified Hebrew (which we know as "Biblical Hebrew"). From the time of Adam to the time of Dee and Kelley, Angelical was hidden from humans with the single exception of the patriarch Enoch - who recorded the "Book of Loagaeth" for humanity, but the book was lost in the Deluge of Noah.
George William Russell in The Candle of Vision (1918) argued that (p. 120) "The mind of man is made in the image of Deity, and the elements of speech are related to the powers in his mind and through it to the being of the Oversoul. These true roots of language are few, alphabet and roots being identical."
| Enochian | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Created by | John Dee, Edward Kelley |
| Setting and usage | occult journals |
| Purpose | constructed languages
|
| Enochian script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
Enochian is a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleagueEdward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a spirit medium who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The men claimed that the language was revealed to them by angels. The language is integral to the practice of Enochian magic.
The language found in Dee and Kelley's journals encompasses a limited textual corpus, only some of it with English translations. Several linguists, notably Donald Laycock, have studied Enochian, and argue against any extraordinary features in the language.
Dee's journals did not describe the language as "Enochian", instead preferring descriptors like "Angelical", the "Celestial Speech", the "Language of Angels", the "First Language of God-Christ", the "Holy Language" or "Adamical" because, according to Dee's Angels, it was used by Adam in Paradise to name all things. The term "Enochian" comes from Dee's assertion that the Biblical Patriarch Enochhad been the last human (before Dee and Kelley) to know the language.
Dee's Angelic language[edit]
In 1581, Dee mentioned in his personal journals that God had sent "good angels" to communicate directly with prophets. In 1582, Dee teamed up with the seer Edward Kelley, although Dee had used several other seers previously.[2] With Kelley's help as a scryer, Dee set out to establish lasting contact with the angels. Their work resulted, among other things, in the reception of the Enochian or Angelical language.
According to Dee's journals,[3] Angelical was supposed to have been the language God used to create the world, and which was later used by Adam to speak with God and the angels, and to name all things in existence. After his Fall from Paradise, Adam lost the language and constructed a form of proto-Hebrew based upon his vague memory of Angelical. This proto-Hebrew, then, was the universal human language until the time of the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. After this, all the various human languages were developed, including an even more modified Hebrew (which we know as "Biblical Hebrew"). From the time of Adam to the time of Dee and Kelley, Angelical was hidden from humans with the single exception of the patriarch Enoch who, according to the angels, recorded the "Book of Loagaeth" (Speech from God) for humanity. The book was then lost again in the Deluge of Noah.
The reception of Enochian started on March 26, 1583, when Kelley reported visions in the crystal of the twenty-one lettered alphabet characteristic of the language. A few days later, Kelley started receiving what became the first corpus of texts in the purported Angelic language. This resulted in the book Liber Loagaeth ("Book [of] Speech from God"). The book consists of 49 great letter tables, or squares made of 49 by 49 letters (however, each table has a front and back side — making 98 49x49 tables in all).[4] Dee and Kelley said the angels never translated the texts in this book.
The other set of Enochian texts was received through Kelley about a year later, in Kraków. These are more important since they come with English translations, thus providing the basis for the Enochian vocabulary. The texts comprise 48 poetic verses, which in Dee's manuscripts are called "Claves Angelicae", or "Angelic Keys". The Keys are assigned certain functions within the magical system. Dee was apparently intending to use these Keys to "open the 49 Gates of Wisdom/Understanding" represented by the 49 magic squares inLiber Loagaeth:
- I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your Doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables. In 49 voices, or callings: which are the Natural Keys to open those, not 49 but 48 (for one is not to be opened) Gates of Understanding, whereby you shall have knowledge to move every Gate…[5]
- But you shall understand that these 19 Calls are the Calls, or entrances into the knowledge of the mystical Tables. Every Table containing one whole leaf, whereunto you need no other circumstances.[6]
While these texts contain most of the vocabulary, dozens of further words are found hidden throughout Dee's journals, and thousands of undefined words are contained in the Liber Loagaeth.
Alphabet[edit]
The Enochian script is written from right to left, and may include accents. Different documents have slightly different forms of the script. Some of the letter names are pronounced as they would be in English, but many are pronounced differently. The Enochian letters have English letter equivalents.[7] A number of different fonts for the Enochian alphabet are available, which use the English letter equivalents to access the Enochian glyphs.[8][9][10][11]
Skeptical and linguistic evaluations[edit]
Skeptics have pointed to this discrepancy[clarification needed] between the two revealed sets of Enochian texts as an indication that Enochian is not a consistent language.[14] For instance, it has been noted, especially by the Australian linguist Donald Laycock, that the texts in the Loagaeth material show phonetic features that do not generally appear in natural languages.[15] Rather, the features shown are commonly found in instances of glossolalia, suggesting that Kelley actually produced at least this set of writings via "speaking in tongues."[citation needed][clarification needed]
Building on Laycock's linguistic analysis, skeptics also point out that there are even problems with holding that the texts of the Enochian keys represent a genuine natural language. It is observed that the syntax of the Enochian calls is almost identical with that of English.[16] Also, the very scant evidence of Enochian verb conjugation seems quite reminiscent of English, more so than with Semitic languages as Hebrew or Arabic, which Dee claimed were debased versions of the original Angelic language.[16] There are only two known verbs with conjugations, one of which, "to be," is highly irregular.[17] While some phonetic features of Enochian show a connection to glossolalia, others show similarities to the English language. Both languages have soft and hard consonants such as c and g, and combine s and h to make the sh sound.
As for the semantics of Enochian, additional similarities to English have been found. For example, luciftias, a term meaning brightness, may very possibly have a connection toLucifer, whose name means "light bringer." Londoh, a word meaning kingdom, may have come from Dee's admiration for the Queen of England. These and other examples have led skeptics to believe that many of these terms are derived from notions that would have been contemporary in Dee and Kelley's time.
See also[edit]
See also[edit]
- Asemic writing
- Confusion of tongues
- Dialogues of the Gods - 25 miniature dialogues published by Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century BCE
- Enochian
- Glossolalia
- Language of the birds
- Lingua Ignota
- Sacred language
- The Twilight Language
- Universal grammar
- Valarin
- Zaum