Portal:Constructed languages/Language of the month/June 2007

Zaum (Russian: заумь or заумный язык) is a word used to describe the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation of Russian Futurist poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh.

Coined by Kruchenykh in 1913, the word zaum is made up of the Russian prefix за "beyond, behind" and noun ум "the mind, nous" and has been translated as "transreason" or "beyonsense" (Paul Schmidt). According to scholar Gerald Janecek, zaum can be defined as experimental poetic language characterized by indeterminacy in meaning.

As Kruchenykh has it, zaum is a transrational language, "wild, flaming, explosive (wild paradise, fiery languages, blazing coal)," which awakens creative imagination from the manacles of everyday speech. Zaum "can provide a universal poetic language, born organically, and not artificially like Esperanto." Find out more...