What's this, an artificial language? What's that doing here, where did it come from? Well, it's another one of my crazy ideas, and I'm glad you asked.
Back around 1983/1984, I volunteered to work at a Haunted House one Halloween. In volunteering to work at this Haunted House, I was tasked to come up with a room theme that would scare the bejeezus out of your typical teen patron. Well, I came up with a Demon Summoning. Not just any old Demon Summoning mind you. This Demon Summoning was going to include some rather original props, and a bit of audience participation. This language was one of those props. It was created for the person playing the Demon Summoner. Rather than using English to summon a Demon, it seemed to me that the Summoner ought to speak some arcane language. Thus, Hallowese (For Halloween) was born. The characters were used as props throughout the room, and each character had a phonetic pronunciation used during the incantation of summoning. I came up with a rather humorous summoning text and converted it to Hallowese. Summoning the great Demon Mary Poppins, to bring me a Ham on Rye, became the inside joke for myself and all those who worked our room.
The room was a hit. The actors placed into the crowd scarred the crap out of the patrons, and the summoning seemed so much more real with the Hallowese incantation. Not only were hundreds of teenage girls scared into the arms of their boyfriends, we won the award for best room. We (myself and everyone who worked the 'Summoning Room') had a fantastic time, and earned a bunch of money for the non-profit sponsors of the Haunted House.
I had such a good time, I worked there the year after. But that's a different story altogether. In either case, now you know what Hallowese is, and where it came from. I'm not sure why I saved it, but I liked it so much I've used it on occasion as a prop in my D&D campaign. Perhaps you'll find some use for it as well. In either case, I hope you enjoy Hallowese.
Mathematical language. Feel free to use standardized Arabic,
Roman, and or Greek notations as necessary. There is no
Hallowese number set.
Some technical details: As far as artificial languages go, Hallowese is something of an oddity. It wasn't created as a communications method so much as it was meant to add flavor to a theatrical presentation (see above for more details on the origin of Hallowese). Because of it's nature, Hallowese in practice is a transliterative language. One would write a phrase in his/her native language, and then convert that into Hallowese. The result could be spoken and/or written (in Hallowese). English to Hallowese transliterations would of course differ from a German to Hallowese conversion. The written and spoken results would be completely different.
Keep in mind that Hallowese was created as a pronounceable transliterative language. In other words; The translation process should be based on pronunciation of the words in question. Translation could be performed intuitively, or by formalized pronunciation methodology. I use the intuitive method myself. It's far quicker, less complicated, and doesn't require a degree in linguistics.
Transliteration from pronounced english words into Hallowese doesn't have to be complicated. Simply sound out the words in their native language (provided it's not something consistsing of clicks, hisses, and other gutteral utterings), and select the hallowese characters that correspond to the appropriate sounds. The result will be a Hallowese character string. That character string can then be pronounced by grouping together the accumulated sounds of the formed words.
Since I originally posted this web page, I've noticed a marked interest by universities and students of linguistics. I've even noticed that Hallowese has been included in the curriculum of some university linguistic programs. While it wasn't my intention to create a true artificial language with technically formalized rules, I am surprised by the level of interest. I will provide feedback and update this web page as necessary, in order to help those who are 'studying' this 'language'.
If you've written anything about Hallowese, I'd really like to read it. Please send me a copy.
Feel free to email me with your questions/comments regarding Hallowese.
Author: Robert L. Vaessen e-mail: 
Last updated:
This page has been accessed times since Fri, Sep 13, 2002.