|
The
"Language
of Space"
By T. Peter Park (2000)
Edited, updated, and revised by Andrea
Weilgart Patten (2025)
Andrea Weilgart Patten is the daughter of
W. John Weilgart, creator of aUI, the Language of
Space. She, along with her sister, grew up helping their father in his life-long work on aUI. Says Andrea: "Beginning in about 1968 until my father's
retirement ten years later, we learned aUI
along with his college students at weekly classes,
at first in our home, then at an evening psychology of communication seminar at Luther College.
We would participate as other students, often being
called to write aUI formulations on the blackboard
or read aloud from the textbook. I also typed out
many of his manuscripts written in shorthand. I
greatly appreciate this opportunity to correct some common inaccuracies and misunderstandings in Peter
Park's original article. Though it is a long
time ago, the article still shows up on some
searches for aUI and is cited in other conlang
sources. I have been steadily working along with a
linguistic consultant to develop an authoritative
source and teaching information on aUI at our
website: https://aUIlanguage.space."
Probably the most bizarre artificial "universal"
language of recent times is aUI (pronounced
"aha-OO-ee"), the "Language of Space." aUI,
meaning "space—mind/spirit—sound" or
"space-language," and described as the "Pentecostal
Logos of Love and Peace," was launched on Planet Earth
in the 1960s by John W. Weilgart, PhD, an Austrian-born
psychology professor and psychotherapist[1]. aUI,
according to Weilgart, is a logical and
rational language, and learning aUI can
in some cases help a person become aware of
irrational thinking patterns.
I first heard of John W. Weilgart, aUI,
and how he allegedly received the language, in a
couple of articles on UFOs published in the late 1960s
by Brad Steiger, a prolific, rather sensationalistic
popular writer on UFOs and other weird,
para-scientific, and occult topics. Steiger apparently
took Weilgart's story of an extraterrestrial source quite seriously and discussed aUI as
a possibly valid, important, and worthwhile
revelation from our "space brothers" (Revelation: The
Divine Fire, 1973). However, his daughter "understood
it to be a childhood vision that he later acted upon
in 1952." A few years ago, just out of curiosity, I
decided to see for myself what aUI was
like, and ordered two of Weilgart's books: aUI: The
Language of Space: Pentecostal Logos of Love &
Peace, 4th ed. (Decorah, IA: Cosmic
Communication Co.,Company, 1962, 1979) and Cosmic
Elements of Meaning: Symbols of the Spirit's Life: A
Cosmology for Mankind's Survival in the Atomic Age
of Space (Decorah, IA: Cosmic
Communication Co., 1975).
The aUI language itself
strikes me as a rather interesting example of a constructed a priori "oligosynthetic"
language, rather in the tradition and spirit of the
17th century pasigraphic efforts of John Wilkins,
George Dalgarno, and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.
The possibility of sound-symbolism as discussed by linguists like Morris
Swadesh (The Origin and Diversification of
Language, 1971), Otto Jespersen (Language:
Its Nature, Development and Origin, 1922), and
Edward Sapir (Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in
Language, Culture and Personality, ed. David G.
Mandelbaum, 1949, 1963) is not part of Weilgart's design because aUI is not based on conventional languages. Rather, aUI represents a totally à priori attempt to create a logical language without dependence on 'natural' languages, except for the set of the most fundamental concepts of human thought and expression that Weilgart posited to be universal. aUI bases its sound symbolism on how these basic concepts are intuitively felt, as well as their placement and articulation in the oral cavity. For instance, a long held, back vowel 'O' /o:/ represents Feeling (O) O, which tends to be a sound expressed when we feel deeply; U /u:/ for Mind/Spirit (U) U is also a mysterious concept placed far back but higher than /o:/. Light (i) i is represented by the short, high, front vowel i /i/ which is the brightest vowel with the highest frequency. The 'b' for Together b is a bilabial stop as the lips are visibly pressed together.
A Short Course in aUI
In aUI, each element of the language consists not only of phonemes but also their meanings (sememes)
as fundamental concepts, as well as their symbolic morphemes. Unfortunately,
these are not easily reproduced here, but for instance, Space (a) a is represented by
a circle (space is all around us) and pronounced as a short /a/; Time (A) A is depicted
by an oval (measured in elliptical orbits) and is held longer /a:/, as time
lasts. So, there is an inbuilt relationship between sound, symbol, and meaning.
Each vowel and each consonant is a basic element signifying one basic concept,
and the meaning of every word is built out of these elements.
Essentially, this means that every letter stands for
one particular basic idea and always stands for that
idea. The aUI alphabet and sound-system
consists of the short vowels (lower-case) a a, e e, i i, o o, u u, the long vowels (upper-case) A A, E E, I I, U U, O O, Ø q, Y Y,
the nasalized vowels (long and short) â 1, ê 2, î 3, û 4, ô 5,
 6, Ê 7, Î 8, Û 9, Ô 10, Ŷ 0, and the consonants r r, L L, y y, m m,
n n, w w, v v, f f, h h, j j, c c, s s, z z, g g, k k, t t, d d, p p, b b.
The short and long vowels, aeiuo a e i u o and AEIUO A E I U O, are pronounced as in Spanish, Italian, and German; lower case y y is
pronounced as in yellow; Y Y is pronounced like German ü
in Brücke, fünf or French u in lutte,
duc or German über, kühl or the
French u, û in pur, mur, dur, Vaucluse, s'amuse,
sûr; Ŷ 0 is a nasalized version of Y Y; Ø q has the
sound of German ö or French eu; c c is like English sh
in ship, shoe, fish; j j has the zh sound of s in
pleasure, z in azure; x has the sound of German ch in
Buch, Nacht, machen, sprach, doch; g g is
always "hard" or velar as in English go, get; the
b,d,f,h,k,L,m,n,p,r,s,t,v,w,z have their usual English
values.
The short vowels a a, e e, i i, o o, u u stand
respectively for "Space/place (a) a, Movement (e) e, Light (i) i, Life (o) o, Human/person (u) u.
Negation (no, not, non-, un-, anti-), which is
expressed by nasal grunts in the "natural intuitive
language" posited by linguists Otto Jespersen and
Morris Swadesh, and by Esperanto ne, Loglan no, Lojban
na, is expressed in aUI instead by
y y, the sound of German ü or French u. (However, there is no relation here, these conlangs not being a priori, so it does not really make sense to judge aUI through the prism of other languages, conventional or constructed.) The long vowels A A, E E, I I, U U, O O, Ø q, Y Y respectively "Time (A) A, Matter (E) E, Sound (I) I, Mind/Spirit (U) U, Feeling (O) O, Condition (Ø) q, Negation (Y) Y." The name of the
language, aUI, thus, literally means
"Space (a) a-Mind (U) U-Sound (I) I," the "mind-sound of
space," thus "the language of space."
Of the consonant phonemes, w w signifies "Power, strong,
work." The v v represents "Action, do, make, active" and
as final -v serves as the aUI verb-ending.
The m m stands for "Quality," and -m serves as the aUI adjective
ending, corresponding to English -ful, -ish. The n n
signifies "Quantity, number, count, many," and final
n serves as the optional plural sign. Neither the m m
nor the n n bears any of the symbolic
associations of the nasals stressed by Swadesh, such
as "negation, first- or second-person pronoun, mother,
woman," but again, aUI was not based on other existing languages.
The r r means "Positive, Good," while L L
signifies "Round." Of the other aUI consonants:
f f means "This," h h means "Question, what?", j j stands
for "Equality, even, horizontal," c c means "Existence,
be, is," s s denotes "Thing," z z designates "Part,
divide," g g signifies "Inside, inner," and k k stands for
"Above, up, top, high, upper." Finally, t t denotes
"Toward, to, direction, tendency," d d means "through,
by means of," b b signifies "Together," and p p represents
"Before, front, in front, pre-, pro-, proto-."
From y y & Y Y, "negative, opposite, un-, anti-" and Ŷ 0 "zero," we get the derivatives Yr Yr "no!"
(Opposite-Positive), Yr- Yr- "mal-, ill-, bad-, dys-"
(Opposite-Good), Yc Yc "not, is not" (Not-Is), Yg Yg "out,
outside, outer" (Opposite-Inside), Yk Yk "under, below,"
(Opposite-Above), Ŷn 0n "no, none" (Zero-Quantity), Yn- Yn-
"little, micro, mini- " (Opposite-Quantity), and Yv Yv
"passive, conceptive" (Opposite-Active).
Big, small, much, many, little, and few are
respectively nam nam (Quantity-Space-adj.), Ynam Ynam
(Opp.-Quantity-Space-Adj.), nEm nEm
(Quantity-Matter-Adj.), nEn nEn (Quantity-Matter-Plural),
YnEm YnEm (Opp.-much), and YnEn YnEn (Opp.-many). The color
names have what I find a super-logical quality:
"white" and "black" are bim bim (Together-Light-Quality)
and Ybim Ybim (Opp.-white), but the other colors are simply
numbered in spectral order – âim 1im "red"
(First-Light-Quality), êim 2im "yellow"
(Second-Light-Quality), îim 3im "green"
(Third-Light-Quality), ûim 4im "blue"
(Fourth-Light-Quality), and ôim 5im "violet"
(Fifth-Light-Quality), a name-scheme that presupposes
knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum. They do not
have the sort of resonance with natural human
languages found, for instance, in Loglan & Lojban
blanu "blue," Loglan & Lojban blabi "white,"
Loglan brona Lojban bunre "brown," or Loglan grisi
Lojban grusi "gray." (Again, not related, but there is a lot of similarity with SolResol in terms of how colors and days of the week, for instance, are represented.)
The demonstrative is f f, "this," from which we get fu fu "I, me" (literally This-Person), fnu fnu "we" (literally, This-Many-Persons), fa fa "here" (literally This-Place, from f f + a a "Space"), and Yfa Yfa "there" (literally, Opposite-here"). The demonstratives can also be expressed as fE fE "this" (literally, This-Matter) and pfE pfE "there" (literally, Before-This). The other personal pronouns are bu bu "you" (Together-Person), bnu bnu "you, plural" (Together-Many-Humans), and "he/she" cu cu (pronounced 'shu', literally Existing-Human).
As with personal pronouns, sex and gender terms in aUI all end in Human. Basic biological differences have been used to base sex terms on, but are, by necessity, generalizations since sexual identity is not necessarily based on biological characteristics and there exist genetic variations as well as other health conditions that affect fertility. Therefore, Weilgart's daughter has concluded that differentiating sex and gender is not necessarily where aUI's focus lies, but instead "on our essential common humanity and spirituality: umU umU (Human-Quality-Spirit)."
Still, these terms are possible in aUI (if taken with a bit of humor): LoYtmu LoYtmu for "female" ('egg-Quality-Human', referring to the ovum) and tonvu tonvu for "male" ('seed-Active/Make-Human', referring to active sperm). So, the gendered pronouns are vu vu "he" (Active-Person, male-person), and mu mu "she" (Quality*-Person, female-person). "Father" and "mother" then are respectively Ytvu Ytvu and mYtLu mYtLu, literally "from-male" and "from-female," that is, "originating-active-person" and "originating-quality-person," or "active progenitor" and "vessel progenitor."
*[Note from aUI Webonary: The open vessel shape of m m, Quality, is an ancient symbol for female; further biologically based characteristics are having the Quality of Rounded Life suggesting both the ovum as well as other curvaceous features! https://www.webonary.org/aUI/.*]
Compare aUI "LoYtmu LoYtmu" for female (and "Lomu Lomu" for woman) with Loglan "fumna," Lojban "ninmu," or aUI "nYtvu nYtvu" and "mYtLu mYtLu" for "father, mother" with Loglan "farfu, matma" or Lojban "patfu, mamta": the aUI "mother" contains the m m-sound in common with such human "mother"-words as English "mother, ma, mom, mommy," French "mère," Spanish "madre," German "Mutter," Russian "matj," Hindi "mâtâ," Estonian "ema," Hungarian "anya," Turkish "anne," Arabic "umm," Hebrew "em," Swahili "mama," Zulu "umame," Chinese "mû," Korean "mo," Thai "mää," Vietnamese "me," Tagalog "iná," Tamil "ammaa," Eskimo "anaanak," Lakota "ena," Nahuatl (Aztec) "naan, naantli," Yucatec (Mayan) "nan," Tarascan "naná," Cuna (San Blas) "nan," Mosetene "ñoño," etc., that have so impressed linguists like Otto Jespersen and Morris Swadesh with their strong suggestion of a probable natural psychological sound-symbolism linking the nasals "m m, n n" with "mother, breast, suck," etc.
On the other hand, aUI does strike me
as producing something inadvertently "Gemütlich,"
"homey," and "warm-fuzzy" in its word for "friend,"
bru bru, "Together-Good-Person," which suggests the
purring of a contented cat, as well as English
"brother" and German "Bruder"! The same is true for
the very similar aUI word for "peace," brU brU,
literally "Together-Good-Spirit" or
"Together-Positive-Mind." However, "beauty" and
"beautiful" are expressed as riO riO, "Good--Light-Feeling
(sight)" and riOm riOm, "Good-sight-Quality", i.e. "good-to
one's sight" which perhaps do not seem to sound quite
as "beautiful" by human natural-language standards as
Esperanto "bela," Loglan "bilti," Lojban "melbi", with
their echoes of French "belle," Spanish & Italian
"bella," and Chinese "mêili." Lojban "melbi nixli,"
Loglan "bilti nirli," and (despite the awkwardness and
sexism of "knabino" with its kn- beginning and
derivative feminine ending) Esperanto "bela knabino"
seem far more intuitively plausible as "beautiful
girl" to me than does aUI "riOm riOm Yn-mu Yn-mu" – or maybe that
simply proves that I myself happen to be more
accustomed to admiring pretty girls from Earth than
from Zeta Reticuli or Epsilon Eridani?
Weilgart's daughter marks the aUI nasalized
vowels with carets though he
himself had used underlining in his books for the
nasal vowels, but underlining is not easily supported
on the net. However, the change is really not
important, because Weilgart also gave the
hieroglyphics (ideographs) in which our "Space Brothers"
themselves write aUI and used his Romanized
transliteration mainly as a pedagogic aid for beginning
learners.
To give you all a few more examples of how aUI words
are constructed out of the one-letter aUI primitives:
God: kU kU [high-spirit]
angel: kna-umU kna-umU [above-great-space–Human-Quality-Spirit] (heaven-humanoid-spirit)
Satan: Yr-YkU Yr-YkU [evil-low-spirit]
animal: os os [life-thing] (living-thing)
domestic animal: bos bos [together-animal]
dog: waubos waubos [power-space-human-together-animal] (dogs protecting or bringing power to a space)
cast: bôzvos b5zvos [together-five-part-make-animal] (5-clawed animal)
horse: ukbos ukbos [human-above-together-animal] (domestic animal that is ridden)
lion: kôzvos k5zvos [high-5-clawed-life-thing] (as in 'king' of cats)
bird: kEos kEos [above-matter-life-thing] or (air-animal)
fish: jEos jEos [even-matter-animal] or (water-life-thing)
tree: tok tok [toward-life-above] or kio kio [high-plant]
fruit: ot ot [life-toward] (life-direction)
apple: nakot nakot [much-space-high-fruit] (wide-spread, common)
liquid: jE jE [equal/even-matter], (horizontal-matter)
water: jEn jEn [even-matter-much] [horizontal-matter-much)
air: kE kE [above-matter] (that always rises)
fire: iE iE [light-matter]
burn: iEv iEv [light-matter-verb]
stone: wE wE [power-matter] (strong-matter)
star: ki ki [high-light]
sun: âki 1ki [first-high-light]
moon: êki 2ki [second-high-light]
boat: jEged jEged [liquid--inside-movement-through/means (vehicle)]
car: (da)ged (da)ged [through-space-vehicle]
airplane: kEged kEged [air-vehicle]
house: uga uga [human-inside-space]
gold: êi-krE 2i-krE [yellow-above-positive-matter] (metal having a positive valence)
iron: wrE wrE [strong-positive-matter]
hydrogen: Ez-â Ez-1 [matter-part-first]
oxygen: okEz okEz [life-above-matter-part] (breath-element)
see: iOv iOv [light-feeling/sense-verb]
hear: IOv IOv [sound-feeling/sense-verb]
eye: iOz iOz [light-feeling/sense-part] (see/vision-part)
ear: IOz IOz [sound-feeling/sense-part] (hearing-part)
hand: bô b5 [together-five]
foot: Yk-bô Yk-b5 [not-above-together-five] (lower-hand)
head: kUg kUg [above-mind-inside]
neck: kogz kogz [above-life-inside-part]
mouth: ogta ogta [life-inside-toward-space]
nose: kEmOz kEmOz [above-matter-quality-feeling/sense-part]
tongue: gOz gOz [inside-feeling/sense-part]
tooth: odzEvz odzEvz [life-through-part-matter-do-part]
eat: dov dov [through-life-act]
drink: jEv jEv [liquid-action/verb]
go: av av [space-action/verb]
come: tev tev [toward-movement-act/verb]
big: nam nam [much-space-quality]
small: Ynam Ynam [opposite-much]
long: ânam 1nam [first-quantity-space-adj.] (length-dimension-quality)
wide: dam dam [through-space-quality]
good: rUm rUm [positive-spirit-quality]
And so it goes!
(For further reference: https://www.webonary.org/aUI/ )
Copyright 2000, 2025
[1] He was a trained psychoanalyst, University of Innsbruck, Austria, 1955 (though also revered Meister Eckhart and Carl Jung); PhD in philosophy, University of Vienna, 1939 and had extensively studied about a dozen languages.
|
