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From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Quest for Fire
Message-ID: <librikDAAw6q.LKy@netcom.com>
Organization: Icy Waters Underground, Inc.
References: <DA6GL5.KqM@freenet.carleton.ca> <ragnaroek1995Jun15.071533.9221@news2.compulink.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 04:52:02 GMT
Lines: 36
Sender: librik@netcom20.netcom.com

reisende@cml.com (reisende) writes:

>Wallace J.McLean (ag737@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) wrote:
>: How did the creative people for this film come up with the language
>: spoken? I have heard it is based on some modern language, but I forget
>: which one.

>     Anthony Burgess was one of the inventors of the fictional language, 
>and you can find some of the details in the essay "Firetalk" in his 
>anthology "Homage to Qwertyuiop".  He worked from both IE and non-IE 
>roots; his main criterion seemed to be a common sound pertaining to a 
>certain concept throughout the world's languages.

In Omni (12/81), Mitch Tuchman writes:
    "Burgess, who had developed an argot for his London toughs in _A
Clockwork Orange_, worked in a manner analogous to [Desmond] Morris's:
by deductive rather than inductive leaps.  Ultimately he contributed about
150 words to the Ulam [caveman] vocabulary, but no grammar.  There were
to be no noteworthy Ulam orators.  Burgess selected Indo-European roots.
For example, because the most important Ulam concept is fire, Burgess
reckoned that its real name, like that of God among the Jews, would be
forbidden, unspoken.  He therefore named fire _atra_, from the French
word _atre_ ("hearth").  _Atramori_ (_atra_ plus the root of the English
word _moribund_) would mean "the fire dies": the most solemn proclamation
an Ulam can make.
    "We know in that period," [director Jean-Jacques] Annaud explained,
"that humans had small vocabularies." [!!!]  Burgess's vocabulary is for
articulating exclamations but not for dialogue.  He gave us _ri-mar-giom_
("come back") to shout, because "ugh, ugh, ugh" sounds absolutely
ridiculous.  Nevertheless, in _Quest for Fire_ we understand from situations,
not from learning words.  What could the Ulams possibly say?  They have
a cage containing embers.  It's smoking.  The smoke disappears.  Do they
have to say, "Oh, hell, the fire went out"?"

- David Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu
