Lingua ignota

Lingua ignota
St. Hildegard's 23 litterae ignotae.
Pronunciation[ˈlinɡʷa iŋˈnoːta]
Created byHildegard of Bingen
Purpose
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
GlottologNone
IETFart-x-ignota
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Litterae ignotae
Script type
Alphabet
CreatorHildegard von Bingen
Time period
12th century
DirectionLeft-to-right
LanguageLingua ignota
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

A lingua ignota (Latin for "unknown language") was described by the 12th-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen, who apparently used it for mystical purposes. It consists of vocabulary with no known grammar; the only known text is individual words embedded in Latin. To write it, Hildegard used an alphabet of 23 letters denominated litterae ignotae (Latin for "unknown letters").[1]

  1. ^ Bingensis, Hildegardis (1175–1190). Riesencodex. pp. 934, 464v. Archived from the original on 2014-12-20. Retrieved 2014-08-26.