The Utopian language is the language of the fictional land of Utopia, as described in Thomas More's Utopia. A brief sample of the constructed language is found in an addendum to More's book, written by his friend Peter Giles. Pretending to be factual, the book does not name the creator of the language; both More and Giles have been alternately credited, with Giles often thought to have designed the alphabet.
Grammar
Although some words in Utopian show different forms corresponding to different cases in the Latin translation, there is no evidence of a consistent relationship between form and meaning, as can be seen from the following comparison of the nominal, pronominal, and adjectival case forms:
There are only four verbs in the Utopian poem, and these also show no evidence of a correspondence between form and function:
1st person
3rd person
Present
barchin, dramme impartiō, accipiō
Perfect
labarembacha expressī
polta fēcit
Writing system
The Utopian quatrain and its Latin translation in the 1518 edition of Utopia
Utopian has its own 22-letter alphabet, with letters based on the shapes of the circle, square, and triangle.[2] These correspond almost exactly to the 23-letter Roman alphabet used in the 16th century, lacking only z. The letters f, k, q, and x, though assigned Utopian equivalents, do not occur in the given text. There are several errors in the text (for example, the first word is given as utopos in Latin script, but as similar-looking stoqos in Utopian script).
Examples
The only extant text in Utopian is a quatrain written by Peter Giles in an addendum to Utopia:
Vtopos ha Boccas peu la chama polta chamaan. Bargol he maglomi baccan ſoma gymno ſophaon. Agrama gymnoſophon labarembacha bodamilomin. Voluala barchin heman la lauoluola dramme pagloni.[3]
It is translated literally into Latin as:
Vtopus me dux ex non insula fecit insulam. Vna ego terrarum omnium absque philosophia Ciuitatem philosophicam expressi mortalibus Libenter impartio mea, non grauatim accipio meliora.[4]
This, in turn, is translated into English as follows:
The commander Utopus made me into an island out of a non-island. I alone of all nations, without philosophy, have portrayed for mortals the philosophical city. Freely I impart my benefits; not unwillingly I accept whatever is better.[5][6]
Armed with these translations, it is possible to deduce the following vocabulary:
In accordance with 16th-century typographical custom, the letters V and u are a casing pair, not distinct letters: V was the capital form and u the lower case. V~u represented a consonant or vowel depending on position, similar to y in modern English (e.g. nymph vs yellow). Analysis of the metre of the verse shows that the reader was expected to read Vtopos as 'Utopos', uoluala as 'volvala' and lauoluola as 'lavolvola'.
More's text also contains Utopian "native" terms for Utopian concepts.
^Word divisions are taken from the 1st edition of 1516.[1] The 2nd edition of 1518 merges peu and la together as well as gymno and sophaon (in the latter case certainly correctly); it also separates labarembacha into labarem and bacha. The text in Utopian letters in the 1516 edition writes cama, camaan, and pafloni in place of chama, chamaan, and pagloni. These discrepancies were corrected in the 1518 edition; however, new errors were introduced, e.g. utoqos for utopos and spma for soma.
^More, Thomas (2002). George M. Logan; Robert M. Adams; Raymond Geuss; Quentin Skinner (eds.). Utopia (Revised ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 119. ISBN0-521-81925-3.
^Ralph Robinson, a 16th-century translator, rendered the passage into English as follows (modernized spelling):
My king and conqueror Utopus by name
A prince of much renown and immortal fame
Hath made me an isle that erst no island was
Full fraught with worldly wealth, with pleasure, and solace.
I one of all other without philosophy
Have shaped for man a philosophical city.
As mine I am nothing dangerous to impart,
So better to receive I am ready with all my heart. [3]
^Gymnosophos (γυμνόσοφος) is an unattested Greek adjective meaning "naked (and) wise." Gymnosophist was the Greek name for Indian yogis.
![[1]](http://theopenutopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/utopian-alphabet.jpg){kind=link}