An Introduction to the Language of the Rhennes

An Introduction to the Language of the Rhennes

Personal collection of David Kay.

Madrian Literature Circle

c. 1980

English

Text

An Introduction to the Language of the Rhennes

The Rhennes, the traditional matriarchal people of Britain, have been said to speak a different language from the "lost sheep", or non-Madrian inhabitants of these islands. In fact, the Rhennish dialect is recognisably the same tongue as that spoken by modern English or Americans. On the other hand, it is more different from modern standard English than any regional dialect. This is largely due to the fact that changes which have taken place in the English spoken from Mayfair to the depths of Yorkshire and Cornwall have often failed to affect the conservative matriarchal communities. Indeed, in some respects, the Rhennish may appear to be a mixture of several regional dialects; for most dialects retain certain conservative features; thus the Scots pronunciation of "house" and the Irish pronunciation of "meat" (which was current in the time of Swift) and the American inflexion of "gotten" (which could be heard in England in Shakespeare's time) are found side by side in Rhennish.

An unfamiliar eavesdropper on a Rhennish conversation would undoubtedly find it almost impossible to follow. Modern English sentences spoken with Rhennish pronunciation would prove a little difficult at first, but the many unfamiliar words and turns of phrase would make it much harder. For this reason, many Rhennes, in intercourse with outsiders, drop into a sort of imitation of Modern English which is jokingly called half-Rhennish; a fact which has led to adaptations of certain Scriptural and other traditional phrases in communities where the old speech has become all but incomprehensible. Mother Alethea, who has often (wrongly) been supposed to be an innovator, was greatly anxious for the preservation of the Rhennish speech and of all the Rhennish traditional narratives.

There are, in fact, considerable regional variations within Rhennish itself, but all of these have more in common with each other than with any other English dialect. Another variation within Rhennish is that between High Rhennish and Low Rhennish. The usual explanation given of this is that High Rhennish is that dialect spoken by the Kindred, by scholars, and by certain other groups (the Kindred were once the Raihira – princesses, nobles and warriors – Estate; but after centuries of living within a state not ordered on lawful matriarchal lines, they have become a group of old families defined only by a certain noblesse oblige, and the fact that they have been locally acknowledged as Kindred for many generations), while Low Rhennish is that spoken by the peasants and craftmaids (the word "peasant", of course, is never a term of contempt among Madrians, but rather the reverse. Only the bourgeoisie and the urban proletariat, who blong to no legitimate Estate, and are therefore "outcastes", belong to a social class which is per se contemptible. They are contemptible not because the individuals who comprise them are necessarily so, but because as social entities they have no legitimate existence). But it is not really quite so simple, for there is really no one dialect which can be called High Rhennish and another which can be called Low Rhennish. Both dialects vary greatly from region to region (Low Rhennish far more so than High), and there is considerable transference between them. There are also numerous stages in between the two, so much so, that it can be said that the ideal absolute High Rhennish and the ideal absolute Low Rhennish do not really occur at all. The homely pictorial colloquialisms of Low Rhennish salt the speech of most of the rural Kindred (and most of the Kindred have been rural these thousand years, at least), while the eloquent use of High Rhennish polysyllables in even the most mundane contexts has long been a notable foible of many Low Rhennish speakers, as in a sentence such as "They two cattis be indistinguishable one from t'other on a night so obscure as this."

Having said this, we must recognize that High Rhennish is a language of great elegance, beauty and subtlety in which the high matriarchal philosophical tradition has been perpetuated, and which has lent itself perfectly to that particular blend of wit, charm and self-effacing sophistication which is the hallmark of the English Kindred. Low Rhennish, on the other hand, is a vivid and colourful dialect, a language alive and in contact with the soil. Each language continually feeds the other, and in that respect, the two dialects are not only complementary, but mutually necessary.

Both High and Low Rhennish are fundamentally intelligent languages, as opposed to the modern use of English by most speakers and writers. Each deals, for the most part in concrete images, pictures and stories, while underlying the thought of each are non-tangible spiritual Realities. This is true of any traditional speech. Modern English, like other degenerate styles of speech, reverses this, for while its thought is limited to the realm of matter, it habitually expresses itself in abstractions and in vague metaphors which are virtually abstractions, since their actual meaning is forgotten, if it was ever known. To take a single example, the term "feedback", which has become a modish word used in a variety of contexts, is a metaphor from audio electronics, yet it is used in a sense almost opposite to its original meaning, since it is used to refer to an articulate response to something or other, whereas an actual feedback in a sound recording system creates a high-pitched screech which cuts out all articulate sound until the feedback is stopped. This may seem a fairly minor matter, and certainly one could point to far more pernicious abuses of language – such as the use of the term "democratic" in politics as a vague synonym for "good", so that practices which are obviously not democratic according to any literal interpretation of the word are called "democratic" by anyone who wishes merely to state that they are good – but the point really is that one begins to use abstractions and vagaries of this sort only when one has ceased to think clearly. Only among a people whose minds are going soggy can anyone get away with declaring a work of art to be "significant" without being immediately challenged by the question "Significant of what?"; or with declaring anything to be relevant without the challenge "Relevant to what?"

This sort of loose thinking and loose speaking occurs inevitably when there is no concrete philosophical basis for thought. Meaningless value-words like significant, relevant, progressive, forward-looking, are simply substitutes for a real scale of values and an authentic intellectual basis for distinguishing what is good and valuable from what is bad or worthless (we may note that many modern good-words such as "progressive" and bad-words such as "reactionary" or "out-of-date" rest merely on the vague unspoken prejudice "past = bad, future = good"). On the other hand value-words used within Madrian thought – such as the word "legitimate", used earlier in this paper in connection with the Estates – are never mere carriers of vague prejudice, but always have a precise definition and meaning. The word "legitimate" derives from legis, law. To say that something is legitimate is to say that it is in accordance with the law, to say that it is illegitimate is to say that it contravenes the law. Nor is there any question about which law is being referred to, for there is only one authentic law, the Law of God; the themis [thamë] which She has established for the ordering of all human activities. Thus, things are judged not by considerations of their fashionability or their direction in time, nor by their "relevance" to some tenuous Zeitgeist, but only by their accordance or otherwise withthe unchanging and unchangeable canons of the Absolute.

This may seem to lead us a little away from the subject of Rhennish dialect, but in actuality it does not, for a conscious[ness] of supra-physical Reality and of absolute values underlies every word spoken both in High and in Low Rhennish, just as materialism and relativism underlie every word in the flaccid jargons spoken by the television pundit and the factory operative in the profane world. Nor is the lack of any concrete value-words in modern language unconnected with, for example, the high rate of adultery among all social classes in the profane world, and the utter lack of any real sense of wrongdoing with which it is carried out. Language, culture, morality and intelligence (or the lack of it) are all intimately bound up, and a people cannot remain degenerate for long without their language degenerating also; not can they for long speak a degenerate language without succumbing to its corrupting influence. Conversely, there can be no reform of life without a reform of language, nor any reform of language without a reform of life.

We have concentrated here upon words which have directly to do with values, since their implications are easier to analyze without digressing too far from the immediate purpose of this paper, but it must be understood that all the words of everyday speech, together with the particular ways in which they are used carry profound implications as to the world-view which underlies them, and inevitably act as powerful psychological agents for good or ill. In a healthy traditional language, the "essential" and "substantial" poles of its existence (represented in the present case by High and Low Rhennish respectively) are on the one hand its intellectual basis, preserved by its philosophical, ritual and courtly use, and on the other by its rootedness in the life of the soil and the crafts. As with Essence and substance on the cosmological level, it is the continual interplay of these two elements which maintains the vitality and the very existence of the language. The great epic narratives which arise at certain points in the development of a culture always represent a wedding of the two styles. The "High" forms may appear more directly intellectual, but in fact, the "Low" style, being rooted in the phenomena of nature and the crafts, which, in a traditional society can never be considered in separation from the informing Realities which they express, is no less so, although it may be less complex; and wherever "High" speech begins to abandon the simple, natural images which as a part of its heritage from the "Low", it is moving toward degeneracy.

Modern developments in English speech, like modern developments in many areas, represent a parody of the true development of language, with the place of "High" speech being taken by the jargon of sociology, psychology, pseudo-philosophy and the journalese of the mass-media, and that of the "Low" by the argot of the New York slums and the criminal underworld, together with items of adolescent pop-slang gleaned from all over Britain and North America, all of which is systematically taught and popularised by means of the television. We may note here that slang of all types is always associated with rootless urban populations whether proletarian or bourgeois, and is intimately related to the cult of change and progress, being motivated by a desire for novelty and for increasing intensity in language, and a wish to keep up with fashions. Traditional societies in undisturbed times have relatively settled speech patterns, and change takes place very slowly. We may see, then, that the "High" element in modern English speech development springs from the "intellectual" perversions of false philosophy, while the "Low" element springs from the emotional perversions and distorted way of life of those elements in modern urban society most vulnerable to its disruptive influence: the young, the dispossessed, the ethnic minorities and those drawn to the fringes of urban sub-culture. It is noteworthy that, as with musical fads and styles of dress, slang phrases which begin by being obviously crude and decadent are quickly established in common usage by continual media exposure which begins by being snickeringly shock-mongering and quickly becomes commonplace.

So far we have confined ourselves to the relatively "exoteric" aspects of language, but we must understand that deeper issues are involved in the form and structure of language than merely the philosophy and assumptions which underly it. For every human language is, as the Scriptures tell us, a descendent from "the first, the mother language" [1 Teachings 1:4], which is itself the manifestation of the single Divine Word. The Word, which is pure Intelligence, corresponds to the Point from which all manifestation unfolds. Every created thing, in its highest essence, that is to say, every celestial Archetype is a word of God; the expression of an Idea in Her mind. Thus, the primordial language is the sum of all possible acts and entities conceived in perfection. Thus also, while from the earthly point of view it is natural to conceive of names as being the consequences of things, from the absolute standpoint, things are the consequences of names; for all things were known and denominated by God before (in the sense of being manifested) they were. And, indeed, it was "the naming of their names" by which their manifestations took place. Perfect human language is thus a microcosm of the primordial language; and we see the creation of this microcosm in Creation I, 11, where the naming of the things of creation by the first maid reflects her Mother's creation of them, even as her own being reflects her Mother's Being; and it is achieved by virtue of her knowing that same "cunning" which the Mother knew in verse 5.

From this it follows that the words of the perfect human language are very far from being mere arbitrary conventional "symbols" for concepts. On the contrary, each word is a perfect depiction or "imitation" of the thing which it represents in terms of sound, just as a painting is an "imitation" in terms of colour. But just as traditional sacred art, unlike modern "realistic" art represents not the physical "shadows" of things, but the supre-physical Realities which are their essential being, so the original human language is not an imitation of physical things and events in terms of sound (which is manifestly impossible) but rather the manifestation in sound of the unspoken Language, whose words are the essences of all things (even as sacred music is the manifestation in sound of the unheard music of the spheres).

Now, the breaking of this original language into different dialects was obviously a cardinal stage in the fragmentation and degeneration of language. The major families into which language split – i.e. those which use completely different root-words to express most concepts – may be likened to radically different styles of music or painting, which use fundamentally different formal conventions (for all sacred art is formal and stylistic) to express the same eternal verities. However, the groups divided by such radical differences are fewer in number and greater in extent than might at first be expected. The Indo-European group, for example, to which English belongs, contains Sanskrit and all its derivatives (Hindi, Bengali, etc.), Russian and all the Slavic languages, Latin, Greek, all the Teutonic languages, all the Celtic languages, together with the Iranian and Lithuanian families, and, of course, all modern European languages (with the exception of Basque) which are all descendants of one or more of these.

It is a notable feature of Rhennish that its pronunciation of words in many cases is far closer to the root-language than is modern English. For example, most question-words in the [L]atin languages begin with (qu) – quod, quis, quando, que, etc. as do such words as question, quiz, enquire, etc. These words have their equivalents in the Teutonic languages, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. In English, as in Icelandic and German, the (k) of the (kw) sound is represented by a hard h. Now in modern French the sound has been corrupted by dropping the (w), so that que and qui are pronounced (ke) and (ki), whereas in modern English it is the (k) that has been dropped, so that what, when and where are pronounce (wot), (wen) and (wer) by most speakers. Rhennish, on the other hand, retains the (h), and in many regional variants, retains it in a hard form (some Rhennish speakers write the word Rhen as Kren – though a pronunciation so hard is the exception). Who, on the other hand is pronounced (hou) in modern English, while Rhennish continues to pronounce it (hwo). Again, the retention of the rough-breathing in the middle of the word daughter leaves it much closer to the consonantal structure of the root-word which gave rise also to the Sanskrit duhitri. The pronunciation of "one" as (one) as opposed to (wun) leaves it closer to uno and its equivalents in all the Indo-European languages, and the retention of the old form tehen for modern ten, bearing in mind previous comments on the function of h, leaves it closer to Latin decem, Greek deka, Sanskrit dacan etc.

One could list countless other examples; but in any case, this approach is a little oversimplified, since it does not take into account certain laws of sound-change which have operated between the various groups of Indo-European dialects. The point is not so much that Rhennish approaches closer to the original human language (although in some respects it certainly does), for all English is very much an Iron Age tongue, but that Rhennish represents a legitimate development of the original language, whilst modern English language, like modern English society, has, since the "Renaissance" been formed by influences which are the very reverse of legitimate.

We have said that English is very much an Iron Age tongue; but we might go further and say that English is the ultimate Iron Age tongue; for the British Isles represent the far west of the old world (the Americas are for many reasons a case apart; and in any case, those parts of them which are having the most profound effect upon world history are English-speaking), and the modern aberration is specifically western in character (as befits its relation to the end of the present world-era; the west being the land of the setting sun). It is no coincidence, then, that these islands were prominent in the birth of both industrial capitalism and Marxist communism (although Marx was born in Germany, most of his theoretical work was done in the British Museum), the two ideologies (which at root are but two faces of the same coin) which dominate the modern world.

By the same token, it is no coincidence that English is the most specifically Iron Age of all the Indo-European dialects. The earliest Indo-European dialects are highly "synthetic"; that is to say that they have extremely complex inflectional structures which make it possible to convey a large amount of information in a single word. This can be seen by a cursory glance at a Latin/English or Greek/English parallel text, where a passage in the original language must always be rendered by a much longer passage in English; while a passage of Sanskrit must usually be rendered by an English passage twice or three times as long. This descent from the highly concise and synthetic original forms has taken place in all Indo-European languages. The Neo-Latin romance languages (primarily French, Italian and Spanish, all of which are dialectical variants of low Latin), for example, gradually rejected all case-endings and passive verbal forms. The Latin amabor, for instance, is expressed by three words in Italian and French: io sarò amato; je serai aimé. It would require four in English: I shall be loved; for English has travelled further along this path than any other Indo European [sic] language, having retained scarcely a dozen of the many hundred inflections characteristic of the original Indo-European speech. At the opposite pole stands Lithuanian, a language even more ancient than Sanskrit, and which, unlike Sanskrit, was still a living language up until the invasion of Lithuania by the Russians, and its cultural devastation by means of mass deportations and other disruptive measures.* Lithuanian retained more of the original inflectional system than any other language spoken in modern times. It is worth noting in this context that Lithuanian-language folk-culture contains material of the profoundest metaphysical significance which is undisguisedly matriarchal in character. See "Old Lithuanian Songs" by Martin Lings in The Sword of Gnosis (Penguin Metaphysical Library). The matriarchal character of the songs is unmistakable, despite the author's attempts to gloss over it.

It is no coincidence, then, that in these latter days English should have become the most widely disseminated and most rapidly spreading language of the world, and the lingua franca of international commerce and diplomacy; any more than the sudden destruction of Lithuanian as the world era enters its final phase is "accidental".

What is the significance of the descent of the Indo-European language group from synthetic to analytic, of which English represents the terminal point? From the most "outward" point of view, it is evidnt that with the continual intellectual decline which takes place from the beginning to the end of the world-era, people are striving for ever simpler and simpler language forms. Ancient Greek is to the modern mind a maze of case endings, while among classical Vedic scholars in India – people who are already speaking Sanskrit-based dialects – it normally takes ten years of intensive study to master Sanskrit grammar.

But while the drive to simplification necessitated by intellectual decline provides the outward cause and motive-force for this movement, far deeper and more significant issues are involved in the inner meaning of the change. The progressive "fragmentation" of the language is an image of the descent or unfolding of manifestation from the primordial Unity to the multiplicity of material nature. Specifically, it is related to the corresponding phenomenon in the human mind – of which, of course, human language is primarily the embodiment. In the first Age, maid was possessed of a unitive vision of Reality; a vision direct and immediate which required no rational formulation. She could "take in the universe at a single glance". The earliest philosophical treatises were terse to the point of being utterly enigmatic to later generations. The next generation could not understand them without commentaries expanding and elaborating their meaning. The generation after that required commentaries upon the commentaries, and so forth. The work of the Pallas Academy today is purely a matter of "translating" the one primordial Doctrine into a form yet more elaborate and explicit for the benefit of these last generations. Thus, the "translation" of a passage from one generation to the next requires progressively more words, even when it is expressed in the same dialect. It is fitting, therefore, that the same process should take place in the very structure of language itself.

The fragmentation of language accompanies also the fragmentation of ideas. In the first Age, maid sees only the First Principles;  she requires no other science, for the knowledge of all things is contained within these; it is only when she ceases to see them sufficiently clearly that the secondary sciences – applications of the Principles to the things of nature and to human uses – become necessary. Here again, we may see that the fragmentation of ideas in the human microcosm mirrors the macrocosmic process of manifestation, in which things descend, or unfold from the level of principial, unmanifest Divine Ideas, or Archetypes into all the ramifications of manifestation on the various levels of matter. At its lowest levels, the fragmentation of ideas reaches a state at which the Principle is wholly lost to sight, and only the appearances of multiplicity are seen; this is the standpoint of modern materialism or scientism, as described in the first paper of the Pallas Academy's Foundational Diploma Course:

"The unitive nature of metaphysical knowledge stands in sharp distinction to the fragmentary and ever more "specialistic" tendency of profane studies, and (since the outward characteristics of a phenomenon are never merely 'accidental') symbolises the antithetical spiritual 'directions' of the two systems of knowledge: the one directed ultimately toward the central unifying Principle 'from whence all comes, whereto all must return' [1 Teachings 2:26]; the other toward the chaos and indistinction of brute matter."

The pyramid and the wheel are both traditional symbols of manifestation. In the first case, we see the descent from the single point of the apex toward the square base (representing the fourfold nature of matter) large enough to contain countless points. In the second we see the spokes raiating out from the unity of the hub, becoming ever more widely separated until they reach the rim. In either case, the descent is from unity to multiplicity and separativity. This is precisely the process mirrored in the descent of language from synthetic to analytic; and indeed, this is what the very words mean: syn-thesis, a putting-together; ana-lysis, an unloosing or separating.

In the realm of ideas, there is no reason why the process of analysis or breaking-down should not continue indefinitely without aberrating from the Truth (although it is metaphysically necessary on other grounds that the cycle should realise its most inferior possibilities). The "descent" of metaphysical exposition into ever lower and more fragmented domains is an act of Grace precisely analogous to our Lady's descent into the nether regions; and indeed, it is by Her Sacrifice that it is rendered possible, for She is the Mayaranya: the primordial Teacher, by Whom, through Whom and in Whom all earthly teachers teach (which is the reason for the traditional reverence and devotion accorded to the Ranya). For just as our return to God is a paradox wrought by Her sacrifice, so the exposition of the Truth which can be known only through the unitive Vision in the absence of that Vision is a paradox, and therefore a miracle. And it is a miracle wrought fundamentally through the medium of language. Out Lady's declaration "I have forged thy words into a crystal mirror that they may reflect the Truth" [1 Teachings 1:6], which follow upon Her explanation of the degenerate state of human language, refer primarily to the revelation of the Scriptures, but they also refer in a secondary sense to the rendering of human language to be a fit vehicle for the exposition of Truth; and indeed the two senses of the passage are inextricably linked.

Now just as the descent of our Lady into the nether regions is for the purpose of raising up the souls fallen into those regions that they may return to God; so the descent of metaphysics – and therefore of the language which is its substantial support – into the realms of ever greater fragmentation takes place solely in order to make some part of the Truth intelligible to the minds of the age in which it finds itself, and to lead them out of the fragmentary state in which they are and back to the unitive Vision, which is the goal of all metaphysical endeavour. So long as this is the end in view, the process of fragmentation, or analysis, can continue indefinitely and still remain legitimate. It is only when the purpose is lost, and analysis is pursued as an end in itself; the fragmentary nature of things in manifestation is mistaken for reality – as happens in the materialist or scientific world-view – that analytical thought becomes aberrant.

Now it is precisely in this that Rhennish differs from modern English. It is no less analytical in structure (except for the retention of a handful of extra inflexions, such as "gotten", which are of no practical significance); but the analytical function in Rhennish has never deviated from its true and legitimate purpose. It remains a language rooted in metaphysical Reality, both in the underlying assumptions of its idiomatic form and "style", and in its legitimacy, in pronunciation and other matters, as an authentic – though very distant – development of the original human language; and therefore a microcosmic reflection of the unheard Language which contains the inner essences of all things in the form of divine Words or Names.

*In the '40s and '50s of the present century.

loose leaf, typewritten (13pp.)