Could the Solresol language achieve anything of note?

So, there's this interesting tidbit about a constructed language in the nineteenth century.

The early 19th century, for instance, saw Jean-François Sudre's "Langue Musicale Universelle", or Solresol, which was based on the international names of the musical notes, with all words formed out of combinations of the syllables "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si [sic]". Statistically, these combinations yield seven one-syllable words, 49 of two syllables, 336 of three, 2,268 of four, 9,072 of five, for a total of 11,732 primary words, a respectable vocabulary in any language. Shifts of stress from one syllable to another yielded additional words and separate grammatical forms. The language could be sung, played, or hummed, as well as spoken. It could be written as music. It could be expressed in taps, or even colors. Solresol gained wide acceptance, and was sponsored by such figures as Victor Hugo, Lamartine, von Humboldt, and Napoleon III. But it became, so to speak, extinct in the early years of our century.

So, what are some benefits of this? For one, this language can be played by military percussion bands written as musical notes with little additional training, and orders can be transmitted at the speed of sound.

Could this system have achieved real use?
 
Oh, and interestingly, Stephen Spielberg used Solresol to construct the language spoken by the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
 
It runs into the normal brick-wall all constructed languages run into: without an existing body of speakers, there's no real reason for people to learn it, which means you don't develop an existing body of speakers, forming a vicious cycle. There's a reason most people around the world want to learn English as their first or second language, not Esperanto. It further runs into the problem of not being specifically constructed to be easy to learn (unlike most modern constructed languages), which further cuts against it even reaching Esperanto's level of being a niche language for a non-negligible number of hobbyists.

Your best case is probably to have a composer or two find it interesting and compose a few songs translating popular phrases/speeches/passages into Solresol as sort of a novelty tune; if any of them take off, it would be an interesting piece of music trivia.
 
IMHO tonal languages, Chinese being the most prominent example, can be quite difficult for non-native speakers to learn. Furthermore for those with speech or hearing deficits tonal speech is difficult or impossible. While most languages spoken in the monotone of early computer generated speech are understandable (if annoying), for a tonal language they are unintelligible. If you are going to "invent" a language you want to make it as simple and easy to learn as possible - regular grammar, regular spelling, and so forth. Making it tonal violates this rule.
 
It runs into the normal brick-wall all constructed languages run into: without an existing body of speakers, there's no real reason for people to learn it, which means you don't develop an existing body of speakers, forming a vicious cycle.

As I said, it could be used to transmit military commands using pre-existing band equipment.

Something comparable to naval flags, I guess.
 
Could the Solresol language achieve anything of note?
Ba dum tssss :p

Either way, i believe the most it could be used for would be art.
A tone-based communication code wouldn't be that useful as anything other than a supplement, as it'd need tonal machines. There's already Morse, which is universally easy to transmit, and the NATO phonetic alphabet.
 
There's already Morse, which is universally easy to transmit, and the NATO phonetic alphabet.

It depends what time it was made. Sudre began working on it in 1817, so if he had begun work it a few years before, Napoleon could be using it - well before Morse, or even telegraphy.
 
It depends what time it was made. Sudre began working on it in 1817, so if he had begun work it a few years before, Napoleon could be using it - well before Morse, or even telegraphy.
Well, the problem here is that, once Morse or an equivalent is developed, Solresol would most probably fall out of fashion.
In the case of a napoleonic-style musketeer/square-formation battle, i'd say that flags and pre-battle briefings are roughly better -- any distant sound of tonally ascending and descending trumpets, for example, would be drowned out by gunshot noises. And it's not like having a commander shout orders at you at close range is a limitation.
There's also the problem of learning a whole new language as Solresol -- conscripts probably wouldn't have enough spare time to be ordered to do such.
IMO, it'd be more practical for trumpet bugle calls to be created earlier, if we're going for the "military code" route.
 
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So, what are some benefits of this? For one, this language can be played by military percussion bands written as musical notes with little additional training, and orders can be transmitted at the speed of sound.

Could this system have achieved real use?
Depends what scale is used to measure success, but no matter how many enthusiasts keep banging the drum, constructed languages have never really struck a chord with the broader population.
 
In the case of a napoleonic-style musketeer/square-formation battle, i'd say that flags and pre-battle briefings are roughly better -- any distant sound of tonally ascending and descending trumpets, for example, would be drowned out by gunshot noises. And it's not like having a commander shout orders at you at close range is a limitation.

It depends when it's used. This system can be used at much further distances. Of course, semaphore towers are superior in every way, but in recently-conquered territories, such towers just don't exist. Then, you just need a few people to learn the language, and a few pre-existing trumpeteers to play the notes as if it were just music.
 
Your best case is probably to have a composer or two find it interesting and compose a few songs translating popular phrases/speeches/passages into Solresol as sort of a novelty tune; if any of them take off, it would be an interesting piece of music trivia.

This sorta happened IOTL I think. IIRC, there are a few tunes written to mean something in Solresol.
 
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