Can you have a conversation with a trumpet? Could a simple melody played on a piano be a declaration of love, a warning, or a request for help? While it sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie, this very idea was the driving force behind one of history’s most creative and unusual constructed languages: Solresol.
For language lovers and linguistic adventurers, the world of constructed languages—or “conlangs”—is a treasure trove of human ingenuity. We have the logical grammar of Esperanto and the artistic depth of Tolkien’s Elvish. But Solresol stands alone, built not on new phonemes or borrowed roots, but on a foundation universally understood and beloved: the seven notes of the musical scale.
What is Solresol? A Language of Pure Melody
Solresol was invented in the early 19th century by François Sudre, a French music teacher and violinist. His goal was ambitious: to create a truly universal language that could transcend spoken and written barriers. He reasoned that while letters and sounds differ wildly across the globe, the musical scale is a mathematical constant. A ‘C’ note is a ‘C’ note, whether you hear it in Paris, Tokyo, or Cairo.
The language is built entirely upon the seven solfège syllables of the diatonic scale: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si. Every word in Solresol is a combination of these seven “letters”, ranging from one to five syllables in length. It’s an a priori language, meaning its vocabulary and grammar were created from scratch, without direct ties to any existing language family.
The Vocabulary: Building Meaning with Notes
The genius of Solresol lies in its simple yet elegant structure. Sudre organized the vocabulary by grouping words with related meanings under the same initial note, creating a rudimentary semantic categorization.
- Words beginning with Do often relate to humanity, food, and basic existence.
- Words beginning with Sol tend to involve arts and sciences.
- Words beginning with Sol-Sol are reserved for topics of religion and God.
The length of a word also helps determine its meaning. One and two-syllable words are reserved for the most common particles and pronouns.
- Sol = Yes
- Do = No
- Re = And
- Si = Yes (in agreement to a question)
- Do-re = I, me
- Do-mi = You
- Fa-la = Good, tasty
As words get longer, the concepts become more complex. For example:
Mi-sol-la means “language”, and Sol-re-sol-do means “to speak.”
Perhaps the most clever linguistic feature of Solresol is its system for antonyms. To create the opposite of a word, you simply reverse the order of its notes. This elegant symmetry is a linguist’s delight.
- Fa-la = Good
- La-fa = Bad
- Mi-sol = Good fortune, happiness
- Sol-mi = Misfortune, unhappiness
- Do-re-fa = To continue
- Fa-re-do = To stop
More Than Just Words: Solresol’s Grammar
A language needs more than a dictionary; it needs grammar. Sudre devised a simple system to handle parts of speech without adding new words. The function of a four-syllable word could be changed simply by altering which syllable was stressed or accented.
- Stressing the first syllable: Noun
- Stressing the second syllable: Adjective
- Stressing the third syllable: Adverb
- Stressing the fourth (or last) syllable: Verb
Let’s take the combination Mi-re-fa-sol, which relates to “desire.”
- MI-re-fa-sol = Desire (noun)
- Mi-RE-fa-sol = Desirable (adjective)
- Mi-re-FA-sol = With desire, desirably (adverb)
- Mi-re-fa-SOL = To desire (verb)
Plurals were just as easy: simply repeat the final note of the noun. So, do-re-mi (“day”) becomes do-re-mi-mi (“days”). This intuitive system made the language remarkably economical.
A Truly Multi-Modal Language
Sudre’s goal of universality went beyond just speaking. Solresol was designed from the ground up to be communicated in a huge variety of ways, making it arguably one of the most accessible conlangs ever conceived.
- Spoken: Using the solfège syllables “Do, Re, Mi…”
- Played: On any musical instrument capable of producing distinct notes. A sentence could be a bugle call from a military commander, a melody on a church organ, or a tune whistled across a field.
- Sung: The most obvious form of musical communication.
- Written: It could be written using standard musical notation, numbers 1-7, or the first letters of the syllables (D, R, M, F, S, L, S/B).
- Visual (Color): Each note was assigned one of the seven colors of the rainbow (Do=Red, Re=Orange, Mi=Yellow, etc.). One could communicate by waving colored flags or shining colored lights.
- Visual (Gestural): Signs and hand gestures could also represent the seven notes, allowing for silent communication.
This multi-modal nature meant Solresol could theoretically be used by deaf, blind, or mute individuals with equal facility—a remarkably forward-thinking concept for the 19th century.
The Dream’s Coda: Why Didn’t Solresol Succeed?
For a time, Solresol was a sensation. It won awards, was praised by luminaries like Victor Hugo, and was presented to academies and royalty across Europe. So why aren’t we all humming our conversations today?
Several factors contributed to its decline. After Sudre’s death in 1862, the language lost its most passionate champion. More significantly, it faced stiff competition from other international auxiliary languages like Volapük and, later, the titan that is Esperanto. These languages, based on root words from major European languages, were easier for many to learn and offered far more extensive vocabularies. With only a few thousand possible words, Solresol’s lexicon was too limited for the nuances of modern life, science, and philosophy.
Despite its practical failure, Solresol remains a monumental achievement in the history of linguistics. It reminds us that language is a technology, a tool that can be shaped in infinite ways. The idea of using musical patterns for complex communication resonates even today, famously echoed in the five-note theme used to contact aliens in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Solresol may be a historical curiosity, but its melody lingers. It stands as a beautiful testament to human creativity and the profound, unbreakable link between language and music.