aesthetic and ritual values of (meaningless) speech

A research question I would like to explore concerns the value of speech that is meaningless (or the meaning is unknown to the receiver). Such a speech may still vehiculate an aesthetic (expressive) or ritualistic value; it may become even more powerful not in spite, but because of the fact that it has no precise meaning. Such is the case, just to give an example, of a curative formula or a spell. Certainly, such topic would belong to the area of studies of anthropology and ethnology. But what if it is considered as a form of literature? There are poems who are meaningless, and explore just the abstract qualities of speech, the "colours of the vowels". Does the colour of the vowel bring men closer to the sphere of the numinosum, when a Sufi brotherhood repeatedly chant their "hua"?

systems of writing and the empty sign

Another area of inquiry that I would like to explore is the value of decontextualized letters elements of a system of notation, while the system is no longer meaningful (for instance, because it became obsolete and forgotten). Why is an inscription so fascinating in itself, beyond any wish to decipher it in order to gain a new historical source or to obtain any piece of meaningful information whatsoever?  

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