This was the perk poem for the August 7, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was originally hosted by DW user Dialecticdreamer. It came out of the July 3, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from DW user Zeeth_kyrah. It also fills the "Wise Men" ysquare in my 7-1-18 card for the Winterfest in July Bingo.




So that life might strive
toward the stars and
expand the mind,

a wise and potent spirit
created a language for
the purpose of uplift and
gave it to the universe.

Symbalan was easy for
most beings to learn and use,
with three layers of meanings.

The phonemes were written
as heiroglyphs, each one
representing a word in itself,
beginning with a certain sound.

The phonemes also spelled
words when the hieroglyphs
were strung together.

There were diacritical marks
to show whether a hieroglyph
was meant as a word or a letter,
and which mystical symbolism
applied to it. There were also
physical structure marks like
underlining and circling to show
emphasis and relationships.

It was a written language.
It was a spoken language.
It was a magical language.
It was a programming language.

It was a true language, made of
names more real than matter itself.

It could tell stories or recall histories,
pilot a starship or cast a spell.

Symbalan was the language
where symbols had the power
to define the things they named.

Tags: cyberfunded creativity, fantasy, fishbowl, poem, poetry, reading, science fiction, weblit, writing
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