a
Vocabulario de la lengua Aymara
). Aymara is a language still partially spoken by Indians living in Bolivia and Peru, and Bertonio discovered that it displayed an immense flexibility and capacity of accommodating neologisms, particularly adapted to the expression of abstract concepts, so much so as to raise a suspicion that it was an artificial invention. Two centuries later, Emeterio Villamil de Rada described it as the language of Adam, the expression of “an idea anterior to the formation of language”, founded upon “necessary and immutable ideas” and, therefore, a philosophic language if there ever were one (
La lengua de Adam, 1860
). 6 ’” Jabba looked at me triumphantly. “What do you say to that, huh?”
“But it doesn’t end there,” Proxy swiftly pointed out.
“No, no, not in the least! Eco then continues to explain the characteristics that could allow Aymara to be classified as a perfect language, although without completely committing himself to the idea that it’s an artificial language.”
“But what do you mean, an artificial language!” I exploded. “That’s ridiculous!”
“To help you understand,” Proxi said patiently, “there are a bunch of scholars around the world who all agree that Aymara is a language that seems designed according to the same rules that are followed today in the writing of computer programming languages. It’s a language with two basic elements, roots and suffixes which by themselves have no meaning, but which, joined together in long chains, create all meanings…. Just like a mathematical language! What’s more,” she added hurriedly, when she saw I was opening my mouth to object again, “the Bolivian Professor Iván Guzmán de Rojas, a systems engineer who’s spent many years working on this subject, claims that combinations of Aymara suffixes obey a regularity with properties of algebraic structure, a kind of ring of polynomials with such a quantity of mathematic abstraction that it’s impossible to believe it’s a product of natural evolution.”
“Remembering, of course,” added Jabba, “that Aymara hasn’t evolved. Incredibly, that damned language has stayed almost intact for centuries or millennia…. About thirteen millennia, if it’s really the Nostratic language.”
“It hasn’t varied at all, it hasn’t changed?” I asked, surprised.
“Apparently not. It’s taken some words from Quechua and Spanish in the last few centuries, but not very many. The Aymara believe that their language is sacred, a kind of gift from the gods that belongs equally to everyone, and that it shouldn’t be modified under any condition. What do you think?”
“Viracocha gave them their language?” I asked, without letting my guard down.
“Viracocha?” asked Proxi, surprised. “No, no. Viracocha doesn’t appear anywhere in Aymara legends. At least not that we’ve read, right Jabba? The Aymara religion is based on nature: fertility, livestock, the wind, storms…. Living in harmony with nature means being in harmony with the gods, of which they have one for each natural phenomenon, although Pachamama, Mother Earth, is above all of them, and if I remember correctly, in ancient times they also had one called Thunupa, god of…of what, Jabba?”
“Of the rain or something like that?” he suggested, uncertain.
“That’s it. Of the rain and lightning. It could be that because of the Inca’s influence, they believe in Viracocha, I don’t know,” Proxi continued. “What they do claim is that they’re the direct descendants of the builders of Tiwanaku, a very important city next to Lake Tititcaca, which was already in ruins when the Spanish discovered it. Apparently, Tiwanaku was some kind of religious monastery, the most important sacred center of the Andes, and its governors, the Capacas, were astronomer-priests.”
“The problem is, no one knows anything,” Jabba pointed out. “Everything’s more or less unfounded theories, imaginings,
Vocabulario de la lengua Aymara
). Aymara is a language still partially spoken by Indians living in Bolivia and Peru, and Bertonio discovered that it displayed an immense flexibility and capacity of accommodating neologisms, particularly adapted to the expression of abstract concepts, so much so as to raise a suspicion that it was an artificial invention. Two centuries later, Emeterio Villamil de Rada described it as the language of Adam, the expression of “an idea anterior to the formation of language”, founded upon “necessary and immutable ideas” and, therefore, a philosophic language if there ever were one (
La lengua de Adam, 1860
). 6 ’” Jabba looked at me triumphantly. “What do you say to that, huh?”
“But it doesn’t end there,” Proxy swiftly pointed out.
“No, no, not in the least! Eco then continues to explain the characteristics that could allow Aymara to be classified as a perfect language, although without completely committing himself to the idea that it’s an artificial language.”
“But what do you mean, an artificial language!” I exploded. “That’s ridiculous!”
“To help you understand,” Proxi said patiently, “there are a bunch of scholars around the world who all agree that Aymara is a language that seems designed according to the same rules that are followed today in the writing of computer programming languages. It’s a language with two basic elements, roots and suffixes which by themselves have no meaning, but which, joined together in long chains, create all meanings…. Just like a mathematical language! What’s more,” she added hurriedly, when she saw I was opening my mouth to object again, “the Bolivian Professor Iván Guzmán de Rojas, a systems engineer who’s spent many years working on this subject, claims that combinations of Aymara suffixes obey a regularity with properties of algebraic structure, a kind of ring of polynomials with such a quantity of mathematic abstraction that it’s impossible to believe it’s a product of natural evolution.”
“Remembering, of course,” added Jabba, “that Aymara hasn’t evolved. Incredibly, that damned language has stayed almost intact for centuries or millennia…. About thirteen millennia, if it’s really the Nostratic language.”
“It hasn’t varied at all, it hasn’t changed?” I asked, surprised.
“Apparently not. It’s taken some words from Quechua and Spanish in the last few centuries, but not very many. The Aymara believe that their language is sacred, a kind of gift from the gods that belongs equally to everyone, and that it shouldn’t be modified under any condition. What do you think?”
“Viracocha gave them their language?” I asked, without letting my guard down.
“Viracocha?” asked Proxi, surprised. “No, no. Viracocha doesn’t appear anywhere in Aymara legends. At least not that we’ve read, right Jabba? The Aymara religion is based on nature: fertility, livestock, the wind, storms…. Living in harmony with nature means being in harmony with the gods, of which they have one for each natural phenomenon, although Pachamama, Mother Earth, is above all of them, and if I remember correctly, in ancient times they also had one called Thunupa, god of…of what, Jabba?”
“Of the rain or something like that?” he suggested, uncertain.
“That’s it. Of the rain and lightning. It could be that because of the Inca’s influence, they believe in Viracocha, I don’t know,” Proxi continued. “What they do claim is that they’re the direct descendants of the builders of Tiwanaku, a very important city next to Lake Tititcaca, which was already in ruins when the Spanish discovered it. Apparently, Tiwanaku was some kind of religious monastery, the most important sacred center of the Andes, and its governors, the Capacas, were astronomer-priests.”
“The problem is, no one knows anything,” Jabba pointed out. “Everything’s more or less unfounded theories, imaginings,
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