50: Lovecraftian language and more on Uyulala
Written by Linden Alexander Pentecost. Written in honour of all good things, published in the UK on the 14th of December 2024, only published on this website, like the other articles on this website. Some edits were added on the 15th & 18th of December 2024. This article/page includes: Introduction; Language and the Mi-Go; Language and otherness; More on Uyulala, and the “Mountains of Madness”; references:. Article/page contains 2495 words. Article contains some spoilers with regard to creative works.
This article is dedicated to all the good, positive creative forces of the universe that help to inspire and protect humanity! :)
Introduction
I first came across the works of H.P. Lovecraft when seeing the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, Crouch End, which was adapted in a TV version in the mini-series titled: Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (1). This was the first time I heard some of the names created by H. P. Lovecraft, such as the name Nyarlahotep (a variant of Nyarlathotep given in (1)), which is mentioned in the episode of the series titled Crouch End. I was 16 at the time, and remembered thinking that Nyarlahotep (1) sounded vaguely Egyptian. But the name Yog-Soggoth given in (1) also given in the episode, certainly sounded a lot more linguistically unusual to me. Yog-Soggoth (1) is a variant of Yog-Sothoth as given in (1). In (1), Doris Frehman, played by Claire Forlani, runs between buildings, seeing various Lovecraftian names, including the aforementioned, on the sides of the buildings. I may have thought at the time, when I was 16, how I would have gladly tried to protect Doris Frehman, or rather Claire Forlani (who would have been in her mid 30s at the time), against the monster at Crouch End, and the monster in that episode was scary, I thought. Admittedly, I had a big crush on her at the time I watched it. But I was thereafter fascinated by the Lovecraftian names, even in a low-key way, and after watching that episode I almost wanted to explore Crouch End with the character Doris Frehman, and to learn about these mysterious words in a language from another dimension, provided that we would not be attacked by a monster whilst doing so.
It was two years later, when I was 18, when I started to read some of H. P. Lovecraft’s short stories, and not specifically from the perspective of learning about language. The book of his stories I had at the time, I nolonger have, but I remember the essence or feeling of reading its pages near the forested shores of Morecambe Bay in July or August 2011.
One of the primary ideas in the fictional stories of H. P. Lovecraft is the suggestion of other spaces, and beings that inhabit those spaces, which are not, at least fully observable to the human brain or within the dimensions of space-time. Note that this article (on the page you are looking at) only includes some of the references to ideas of language in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, I am not by any means discussing all of them in this article.
In a way, when we discuss language in terms of these themes, any fictional language hypothetically used by such beings might have to account for a dissociation from space-time and from the reality which our brain can comprehend. In this regard, the references to alien languages in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, are in my opinion, implying something wholly different from, and much more alien than other alien conlangs, such as Na’vi and Klingon.
There are no fully fledged conlangs that were created by H. P. Lovecraft himself. He did however create conlangs and discuss fictional alien languages to some extent. I will talk about this shortly.
First I want to say in a more general way, that there is, at first glance, a particular type of resonance when looking at the sounds occurring in some of Lovecraft’s fictional names. The names Cthulhu, Nyarlothotep, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth/Yog-Soggoth and show for example that H. P Lovecraft included a lot of voiceless dental fricatives, “th” sounds in these words, for whatever reason; but perhaps because he associated this sound with these “elder things” in some way, and it would seem to be implied that, whilst their language might be incomprehensible to us, when it is “rendered” into human speech, we get the sound “th” a lot; or at least, it implies that the sound “th” is a human attempt to produce a sound in the language of these “elder ones”.
Lovecraft did however expand somewhat on these human renditions of this language, which he collectively called R’lyehian, although here I have introduced it as the primary naming system used throughout his mythos. Most famous and complete of the examples in this language is the following incantation or piece of ritual language:
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
The sentence above appears in H. P Lovecraft’s story The Cult of Cthulhu. From what I understand it may translate to something like: “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”.Cthulhu is a name of one of the “old gods”, whilst R’lyeh is that of a city. Next I will go on to talk about the more specific topic of Language and the Mi-Go.
Language and the Mi-Go
The Mi-Go are a fictional race created by H. P. Lovecraft. They are intercosmic fungal beings who in some ways resemble crustaceans, and who have wings that enable them to ride on the aether of space. From what I understand, they are also made of a matter of another dimensional space, making it difficult for humans to fully comprehend what they look like; as is the case for many of the beings written about by H. P. Lovecraft.
Some interesting comments about language are made with the Mi-Go. One thing, alluded to in The Whisperer in the Darkness, is that they are able to mimic or copy human speech, but that when they do this, it becomes quite clear that no earthly organ of speech could be producing these mimicked human languages, especially considering that when the Mi-Go repeat human language, it is described as a sort of “buzzing” sound voice, in The Whisperer in the Darkness.
Reference is also made in the early part of The Whisperer in the Darkness to the idea that the Mi-Go communicate with colour, in a sense akin to how certain cephalopods do in the real world. Later in the story, this “colour-communication” is not mentioned, and instead reference is made to telepathy, but personally I believe that the two are distinct. The quote below is from The Whisperer in the Darkness and the part about communicating with colours is towards the end of the quote:
“It was not good, either, to listen to what they whispered at night in the forest with voices like a bee’s that tried to be like the voices of men. They knew the speech of all kinds of men—Pennacooks, Hurons, men of the Five Nations—but did not seem to have or need any speech of their own. They talked with their heads, which changed colour in different ways to mean different things.”
Language and otherness
As humans we are used to thinking of language in terms of communication of language between individual human selves. Lovecraft’s stories, in my opinion, open the door to the idea that our individual consciousnesses are not separate or defined in the same way, when the characters in his stories meet beings of a totally contradictory nature. When the human characters in his stories meet these beings, they are often driven mad, not necessarily because those other beings are inherently evil, but rather because something totally alien has entered their consciousness, and it is their mind rejecting that alien thing as “other”, rather than accepting it as a part of them, which causes their madness. However, whilst I like H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction for a lot of reasons, I do not believe that the universe is truly as depressing as he might imply, nor that humans were created by accident for example, nor do I like the racist attitudes in his works. Nor do I think that a merging or alchemical merging with the divine should ever have to imply losing one’s humanity, reason and true self.
More on Uyulala, and the “Mountains of Madness”
Earlier this year I wrote an article in which I discussed the character Uyulala from Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. In the book, Uyulala is a kind of discarnate voice that speaks (2), and is associated with the extreme south, presumably, considering she is also known as the Southern Oracle (2), which can in a sense be compared with the South Pole of our world. In a film adaption of The Neverending Story released in 1984, co-written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Uyulala is referred to only as The Southern Oracle (3), and is depicted as two sphinxes (3), essentially very similar looking to how the earlier, golden or sphinx gate is described in the film, but blue, and emitting a subdued but bright blue hazy light (3). In terms of language, a curious thing here is that in the film adaptation, The Southern Oracle is two sphinxes, but they speak as one (3). The two voices can be heard distinctly but they speak as though simultaneously a discarnate entity and also existing in two distinct bodily forms it would seem. In the film adaption, the Southern Oracle refers to itself as we (3), implying again a form of mind or soul that is both one and more than one.
An incredibly curious thing here in addition is that in H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness, there are frequent reference to strange sounds in the wind, and to the implication that the alien species in the story called the “Elder things” communicated with forms of organic, musical pipes. Sometimes in At The Mountains of Madness it seems sometimes more implied that something within the mountains or aether is creating these sounds. This does not describe a discarnate voice exactly like Uyulala, but I do feel that the energy and idea of the thing being described is quite similar. And I quote the lines from At the Mountains of Madness:
“Through the desolate summits swept raging intermittent gusts of the terrible antarctic wind; whose cadences sometimes held vague suggestions of a wild and half-sentient musical piping, with notes extending over a wide range, and which for some subconscious mnemonic reason seemed to me disquieting and even dimly terrible”
Although with a less communicative and sentient sense implied to the wind as a whole, the wind is a major theme in this story by Lovecraft. And note the following lines for their curiosity, which occur later in the story:
“As we drew close to the jutting peaks the wind’s strange piping again became manifest, and I could see Danforth’s hands trembling at the controls.”
There are also implications in this story of ancient symbols carved, symbols belonging to a primordial language.
Although Lovecraft describes this sentient wind voice in a more ominous way, Michael Ende in the Neverending Story, whilst perhaps implying Uyulala as powerful and perhaps even slightly foreboding in a sense (in my opinion), does not seem to imply that Uyulala is terrifying in any way (2).
It is specifically implied in the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, that Uyulala only understands/can speak in poetry (2) (exact quotations not used). Could this be a reference to a sort of sacred, cosmic language of vibration which incorporates semantic meaning more akin to music or poetry with an inherent sound symmetry?
By coincidence perhaps, or not, a few days before publishing this article, I met a lady and her boyfriend, and it worked out that she is a fan of H. P. Lovecraft too, and that her favourite story is At the Mountains of Madness. Like me, she expressed a fascination towards the themes in Lovecraft’s stories regarding forms of cosmic transformation and the conjoining of the human and the “other”, the “alien”, although in reality, I truly doubt that H. P. Lovecraft really understood this in an enlightened way. His stories do sometimes come across as quite depressing, and whilst he clearly had visionary access to the spiritual realms, I do not believe that his interpretation of them is accurate, despite that there are fascinating, ancient and accurate points of the more positive nature in some of his works. As mentioned, I also do not like his racism, but as an author, spirit and with his brilliant mind, I truly appreciate his enormous contributions to the world of literature and sci-fi, and even science.
Whist I myself do not believe in aliens or in the “outer gods” in the same way that Lovecraft’s stories imply, I believe in the “other” and in the spiritual realms, which our ancestors have interacted with since time immemorial. In this regard, many of the themes in Lovecraft’s work are in a sense a continuation of real-world folklore.
Note: I previously discussed Uyulala and the name Uyulala in another article published on this website, titled: 45: Part two of miscellaneous etymological and pre-IE discussions, available at this link: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-30-45/45-part-two-of-miscellaneous-etymological-and-pre-ie-discussions
A brief comment on Uyulala is also made in another article too, titled: 47: The root “häme” - “Suomi” - “samay” and polygonal masonry in Finland, the link to which is here: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-46-55/47-the-root-haeme-suomi-samay-and-polygonal-masonry-in-finland
References:
The works of H. P. Lovecraft (including quotes thereof) are referenced throughout the text and are not given reference numbers. Other references are:
.(1) (refers not to direct quotations but from inferred/learned information): the few bits of information about the episode Crouch End I learned from watching that episode in the televised series Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (1)
.(2) (refers not to direct quotations but from inferred/learned information): the bits of information about the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (originally published in German as Die Unendliche Geschichte) are given a (2) after them. The term “Southern Oracle” is included in the English translation, as is the name Uyulala, but as these are well-known names from the story and not direct quotes.
.Information included in this article about the 1984 film adaptation of The Neverending Story, released in 1984, co-written and directed by Wolfgang Petersencomes from watching that film. Again I give no direct quotations, only observations from the film, which are noted by the number (3) after those relevant sections. Although you could say my mention that the Southern Oracle referring to itself as “we” is a form of quotation, although in this article it is not given as such and is only given as an observation made by myself about the dialogue.