Since my daughter is taking a university course on constructed languages (conlangs), I mentioned my quest to make a knotted language. There has been some activity in this area, although some of it is Celtic (graphic and not tye-able) knots.
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She might be interested in reading, Quipus and Witches’ Knots by Cyrus Lawrence Day.
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I’m pretty interested in this! At first glace, I believe there is no insurmountable problem to developing this. Following Saussure, the physical form of ropes and knots easily can be *strung* together to make meaning and a language.
Is your quest to invent an entirely new language as such out of whole cloth?
I believe a much more accurate and attainable quest would be to merely invent a knot/rope friendly way of encoding an already live language. Like how stenographer, writing in short-hand or Morse code encode in various ways the chosen language (English) into some different text.
If that is the quest then I believe the first question would be if this rope-based system of encoding should be constructed around spelling and alphabets (like Morse code) or phonetics and pronunciations (like Gregg or Pitman) or a combination of both (like Teeline).
I would suggest that creating a system of encoding is much more useful inasmuch as a language is only useful if people actually use it. Being able to encode an already widely used language seems much more useful than reinventing the wheel when we don’t have to.
The Þlaéhl system is interesting and heavily influenced by the Quipus systems, but from a practical view I would hate to have so many tail-pulls and little strings of different colour falling about. Something much more smooth and analogous to the act of writing could be constructed based on platting/sinnet system (macrame, too?).
I’m tempted to steal a shorthand and directly transpose it. It gets messy quickly because while you can move your pen any which way and declare it an abbreviation and explain it’s meaning elsewhere, we’re much more constrained by the medium we chose.
After all, we are not trying to record with speed like much of the shorthand was invented to aid with. If we wanted to write with speed we wouldn’t do it with ropes.
I would like to take advantage of the IPA. It would avoid some of the ‘clunkiness’ of Morse code. The IPA is more appealing to me on an aesthetic and style choice.
The easiest and simplest way might be to transpose a sort strictly alphabetical spelling based system into a knot-form like Morse’s.
I’m probably gonna fool around with this for the next few days.
Now, there is no such thing as a private language! What do you all think?
I have already developed a system for encoding Braille (I don’t remember which issue of Knotting Matters the write up is in) which allows one to knot up any language for which there is Braille. I used modified friendship bracelet knots for accessibility, easy access to materials, and ability to teach a wide audience.
While less practical for substantial amounts of text, I’d love to to develop an encoding system that includes both the ability to spell out messages and a symbolic component/shorthand for common words and numbers. That or perhaps trying to figure out knots for a smaller set of words and going from there. There are many Chinese knots and if you add in some practical ones too… you would still be hard pressed to come up with 1000 visually distinct knots. 8).
Do you think you could track the article down? I’d love to read it!
I’m currently brainstorming a way of encoding data into a macrame chain- and it’s looking pretty neat!
I’m unlikely to be able to gather it all together coherently tonight, but when I do, I’ll definitely post it up here.
KM161. If you’re a member, you can read the issues online on the IGKT site.
Nice article!
I’ve been playing around with some knot based encoding systems and I’ve found a pretty efficient satisfying one.
It will incorporate the alphabet, as well as short hand for words, like the 1000 most popular words (an up goer knot language), numbers and so on.
I’ll make put it all together and post it. I’ve got a couple days off so I’ll see to it soon!
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