{"id":2006,"date":"2015-10-01T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/?p=2006"},"modified":"2017-10-11T10:00:27","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:00:27","slug":"letter-i-ardly-know-er-the-unknown-language-and-letters-of-hildegard-von-bingen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/2015\/10\/01\/letter-i-ardly-know-er-the-unknown-language-and-letters-of-hildegard-von-bingen\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter? I ‘ardly know ‘er: The unknown language (and letters) of Hildegard von Bingen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although\u00a0inventing a language might seem like a purely modern phenomenon,\u00a0<\/em>nearly a thousand years ago, the Benedictine Abbess, lecturer, composer, and visionary, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) created her own language, the\u00a0Lingua Ignota<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Lingua Ignota<\/em>\u00a0can be found about halfway through\u00a0the Riesen Codex (Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Hs. 2, ff 461v-464v<\/a>), also called the Giant or Chain Codex, a compilation of Hildegard’s theological writings that were collected near Hildegard’s death. The Lingua Ignota<\/em>\u00a0can also be found in the manuscript formerly known as the Codex Cheltenhamensis (Berlin, MS Lat. Quart. 674, ff. 57r-62r) (Higley, 145).<\/p>\n

Apart from a sentence long\u00a0introduction, the\u00a0Lingua<\/em> consists of a glossary of around 1000\u00a0words arranged hierarchically. Hildegard begins with the words for God and the angels, then proceeds to human beings, other animals, plants, and so on.<\/p>\n

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First page of the “Lingua Ignota”. For each word, the Latin gloss sits above Hildegard’s word. Click on the image to blow it up. (Used with the permission of the Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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An inner page of the glossary. For each word, the Latin gloss sits above Hildegard’s word. Click on the image to blow it up. (Used with the permission of the Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A sample of some of Hildegard’s words:<\/p>\n