Re: Hildegard von Bingen

Susan&BJ wrote:

> Does anyone know anything about Hildegard's alphabet?

Sorry, don't know much about psychiatry. :-)

> Have searched the Net but there is very little mention
> of it and know chart at all. Also not long ago there
> was a discussion about color writing. Just the other
> day I found this site:
> http://www.ccelian.com/chromalpha.html.

Eh, eh... I can imagine what color-blind people would think about that.

> Another question that I have is did anyone ever come
> across a kind of a sign writing from the middle ages
> that looks like an elongated reversed S with a
> vertical line at both ends? This goes back about 40
> years or so when I was much younger and reading
> anything I could lay my hands on about different
> alphabets etc. What I can remember is that the article
> in my uncle's magazine was about the history of
> universal languages. Unfortunately I cannot remember
> the name or the inventor of the system. The "S" was
> filled with different symbols (dots, cirles, lines,
> crosses etc.) within and without the "S". The premise
> was that once someone learns the meanings they can
> read it in their own tongue.

Could that be the "Ars Magna" of Ramon Lull? (aka "Llull", "Lullus",
"Lullo")

Have you read Umberto Eco's "Alla ricerca della lingua perfetta"? (English
translation: "The Search for the Perfect Language", Blackwell Publishers)

Eco's book deals with all kinds of "philosophical" languages or alphabets
invented from antiquity to modern age: there are chances that it might have
the answers to at least some of your questions.

_ Marco