Hnau
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In the fiction of C. S. Lewis, namely Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in his Space Trilogy, hnau is a word in the Old Solar language which refers to "sentients" such as Humans. In the book, the Old Solar speaker specifies that God is not hnau, and is unsure whether Eldili (immortal angelic beings) can be termed "hnau", deciding that if they are hnau, they are a different kind of hnau than Humans or Martians:
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- ...It became plain that Maleldil was a spirit without body, parts or passions.
- "He is not hnau," said the hrossa.
- "What is hnau?" asked Ransom.
- "You are hnau. I am hnau. The séroni are hnau. The pfifltriggi are hnau." ...
- "Which of the hnau rule?" [Ransom] asked.
- "Oyarsa rules," was the reply.
- "Is he hnau?"
- This puzzled them a little... Perhaps Oyarsa was a hnau, but a very different hnau. He had no death and no young.
It is implied that strictly speaking, hnau are physical beings with moral agency, as distinct from God (who is a spirit) and also from animals (which are not reasoning beings and are not morally responsible).
The term was adopted by some other people, including Lewis' friend J. R. R. Tolkien, who used the term in some of his essays on the nature of his fictional Elves and Men. Similarly, a character in James Blish's science fiction novel A Case of Conscience wonders whether a particular alien is a hnau, which he defines as having "a rational soul".
In recent times the term has been used by some philosophers, for example in Thomas I. White's "Is a Dolphin a Person?", where he asks if Dolphins are persons, and if such, if they can also be reckoned as hnau: that is sentient beings of the same level as humans.
Other uses of the term include the term as used by some Christians: here as with Tolkien's use of the term "hnau" refers to sentient beings possessing independent will, and thus by extension a soul.
