asa’pili

SPOKEN BY

The asa’pili language is spoken by the peoples of bolo’bolo.

DOCUMENTED BY

The anonymous Swiss author p.m. used asa’pili in bolo’bolo (1983).

BEHIND THE WORDS

The language represents the author’s interpretation of a utopian agricultural world.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE

Repeating a noun changes the noun from specific to general. For example, while suvu refers to a particular body of water, suvu’suvu refers to water in general.

A TASTE OF THE LANGUAGE

asa (noun)—earth, world

bete (noun)—medicine, health

bolo (noun)—community, village, tribe

buni (noun)—gift, present

dala (noun)—council, assembly

dudi (noun)—foreigner, observer

gano (noun)—house, building, dwelling

kana (noun)—household, hunting party, family, gang

kene (noun)—communal work

kodu (noun)—agriculture, nature, sustenance

munu (noun)—reputation

nugo (noun)—death, suicide pill

pali (noun)—energy, fuel

sadi (noun)—market, stock market, fair

sibi (noun)—craft, art, industry

sila (noun)—hospitality, tolerance, mutual aid

suvu (noun)—water, water supply, well, baths

taku (noun)—personal property, secret

yaka (noun)—disagreement, war, duel

yalu (noun)—food, cuisine

PHILOLOGICAL FACTS

The anonymous author chose the initials p. and m. because they represented the biggest sections of the Zurich telephone book.

While many constructed languages are developed in part to create a language free of ambiguity, many of the words in asa’pili have multiple meanings. This may be related to bolo’bolo being an anarchist society. A bolo is the creator’s term for an autonomous social unit—something like a tribe, in this case composed of several hundred people.

The terms anarchy and anarchist are often used to revile an action or person, but they have a very precise political meaning and philosophy. An anarchist seeks a society in which the state does not exist and in which people are organized in as decentralized a structure as is possible. The term has been around since the seventeenth century and has found modern supporters in many of the libertarians of today’s political movements.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Review the work listed above, the resources listed in the bibliography, and the web page: “P.M. (author)” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.M._(author)).

SPEAKING OF LANGUAGES

At some point in the next century the number of invented languages will probably overtake the number of surviving natural languages.

—Cullen Murphy