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Anthro 1165 Glyphs: Final Study Guide

Part I. IDs

1. Lacadena- Alfonso Lacadena

a. Spanish, works at a university in Madrid

b. recently revolutionized the study of Aztec writing with the discovery of

an Aztec syllabary (phonetic signs of V and CV values); each sign has

been documented making sounds in redundant context

c. there are currently in press 2 key studies which promise to revolutionize

the study of Aztec writing

2. Danzantes-

a. in the Zapotec lecture slides

b. The ‘Dancers’ (danzantes) of Monte Albán

i. Monte Alban was one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica, in the

southern Mexican state of Oaxaca

ii. Served as the Zapotec social, political, and economic center for

almost 1,000 years

c. Staff, Spearthrower, or Rattle? Sign

i. This sign often appears last in a short series of glyphs associated

with the danzantes.

ii. Whittaker (1980: 41-45) interprets it as a staff with the meaning

‘killed, died.’

iii. Marcus (1992: 41-42, 395) argues that it represents a

spearthrower (atlatl) and means ‘conquered, slain in battle.’

iv. Urcid (2000) sees it as a rattle referring to departed ancestors as

the source of music, poetry and beauty.

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3. phoneme-

a. the smallest linguistically distinctive unit of sound in a language; ie. the

smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language;

b. conventionally enclosed in back-slashes (ex: in English /e/ and /b/)

c. Phonemes can have different pronunciations in different environments

(this is called allophony) and are defined by distribution and contrast.

4. Parpola- Asko Parpola

a. A leading scholar of the Indus script.

b. professor of Indology at a University in Finland.

c. theory that the Indus script encodes a Dravidian language

d. since the 1970s, Parpola has documented many of the Indus inscriptions

in India and Pakistan

e. has compiled the most widely-accepted sign list (ca 400-450 signs)

f. Other leading scholars of the Indus script: S.R. Rao, Walter Fairservis

Jr, Iravatham Mahadevan

5. Anglo-Saxon Fuporc-

a. The runic alphabet employed by Tolkien in The Hobbit is essentially

that of Anglo-Sazon England: a modification of the Germanic rune-row

with a number of additional characters

i. Same used in early drafts of The Lord of the Rings

b. In a letter dated May 30, 1964, Tolkien writes, “The runes I used for

The Hobbit were genuine and historical; those in The Lord of the Rings I

myself invented”

c. From: Smith, A. R., 2000, “Certhas, Skirditaila, Futhark: A Feigned

History of Runic Origins”. In Tolkien's Legendarium

d. “Runes were old letters originally used for cutting or scratching on

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wood, stone, or metal, and so were thin and angular. At the time of this

tale only the Dwarves made regular use of them, especially for private or

secret records. Their runes are in this book represented by English runes,

which are known now to few people”- Passage from Tolkien on lecture

slide

6. cognate-

a. Cognates are words/morphemes in sister languages that descend from

the same word/morpheme in the mother language.

i. Examples: capra in Italian and cabra in Spanish

ii. Table of Cognates on Final Review Slide 4

b. Word or morpheme that is related to a word or morpheme in a sister

language because they have a common root language (etymological

origin)

c. The same can be found within the same language (like shirt and skirt in

English)

7. Fischer – Steven Rogers Fischer

a. Wrote Glyph-Breaker in 1988

b. Proposed Fischer’s “triplets” reflecting proposed mythological

procreations in the Rongorongo script

c. Helped decipher parts of the Phaistos Disk

d. Used Linear A as a comparison point for the signs

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e. Came up with a faulty “decipherment” of the disk- text on lecture slides

8. Tuxtla Statuette –

a. one of the few extant examples of very early Mesoamerican writing

systems

b. Inscribed with 75 glyphs of Isthmian script

c. Includes Mesoamerican Long Calendar

d. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duckbill_pendant_(Snite).jpg

Cleaner Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tuxtla_Statuette.svg

9. Mackay's formula-

a. Working with known syllabic scripts- particularly the Cypriotic, Linear

A and Linear B syllabaries, Mackay: (1965) derived a formula relating the

ratio of total/distinct sings in a text sample (L/M) to the number of distinct

sings in a script: (L2 / [L-M]) - L = S S

b. Result suggests that we are missing about 10-11 signs on the Phaistos

Disk

i. Assuming that the Phaistos Disk is a typical syllabary, and that it

is a representative text sample

ii. The Phaistos Disk inscription is 242 character long, with 45

distinct signs

10. Taharqa –

a. Reigned from 690-664 B

b. Last pharaoh of Egypt

c. Was referred to by Greek Historians as a great Military tactician

11. Lapita pottery –

a. Lapita is the common name of an ancient Pacific Ocean archaeological

culture which is believed by many archaeologists to be the common

ancestor of several cultures in Polynesia, Micronesia, and some areas of

Melanesia.

b. The word Lapita itself is not a place name.

c. A word in a local New Caledonian language, xaapeta, meaning 'dig a

hole', was misheard as, and became, lapita.

d. Classic Lapita pottery was produced between 1350 and 750 BC in the

Bismarck Archipelago, and local styles of Lapita pottery are found in

Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

e. However, pottery making did not persist in most of Polynesia, mainly

due to the lack of suitable clay on small islands.

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12. omnilingual –

a. a short sci-fi story by H. Beam Piper about the decipherment of the

Martian script.

b. The key comes in the form of a periodic table of the elements in

Martian, which functions as a “Rosetta stone” of sorts.

c. Also can mean a person with the ability to speak all languages.

13. Griffith – Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934)

a. British Egyptologist

b. deciphered in Meroitic script in 1909 based on the Meroitic spellings

of Egyptian names.

c. But, the Meroitic language itself has yet to be translated. The Meroitic

script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs,

used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush

(present day Egypt). It was developed sometime during the Napatan

Period (about 700–300 BCE), and first appears in the 2nd century BCE.

d. Meroitic was a type of alphabet called an abugida: The vowel /a/ was

not normally written; rather it was assumed whenever a consonant was

written alone. Griffith identified the essential abugida nature of Meroitic

when he deciphered the script in 1911. He noted in 1916 that certain

consonant letters were never followed by a vowel letter, and varied with

other consonant letters.

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14. khipu –

Khipu or Quipu: Also called talking knots, were recording devices used in the

Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region. Usually consisted of

colored spun and plied thread from llama or alpaca hair. Also consisted of cotton cords

with numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. May

have a few or up to 2000 cords. They were used primarily for math, it is believed, seem

to skip phonetic sound representations; still untranslated

khipu – word comes from Quechua language, means “knot”. Khipu are made of

spun and knotted cords arranged in a variable yet systematic way, sometimes with

varying colors, and were used by the Inkas of Peru to encode numbers. Khipu consist of

a primary cord which is usually the thickest, and then has pendant cords hanging from it.

Pendant cords may have subsidiary cords hanging from them.

15. picture biscript –

a. pictorial references or pictorially-derived signs retaining their original

meaning to aid in decipherment.

b. Examples include captions to pictures.

16. Motecuhzoma- Motecuhzoma II also known as Montezuma II

a. Who – Ruler of the Aztec Empire

b. When – Born 1480, reign 1502-1520 AD

c. Where – Yucatan Peninsula (Capital City Tenochtitlan)

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d. Significance – During his reign the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs takes

place

17. San José Mogote-

a. What – Archaeological site of the first Zapotec capital, however the city

fell in prominence and was overtaken by the neighboring city Monte

Alban.

b. When – 1500 – 500 BCE

c. Where – Oaxaca Valley

d. Significance – The earliest Zapotec writing was found here “Monument 3”

i. Glyphs present are believed represent the name of a day, “1

Earthquake” and a bloodletting ceremony

18. mnemonic device –

a. What – A method for recalling information

b. When – Used throughout history, although probably in our case the khipu

c. Where – The Inca Empire

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d. Significance – Method of storing and transmitting information that uses a

base ten system of knots. Not fully understood, most were destroyed by

the Spanish.

19. Pernier – Dr. Luigi Pernier

a. Who – Discoverer of the Phaistos Disk

b. When – 1908

c. Where – Crete

d. Significance – Discoverer of the Phaistos Disk

20. Phaistos Disk –

a. What – Disk with symbols running in spirals on both sides

b. When – Discovered 1908 AD, dated 1700 BCE.

c. Where – Crete

d. Significance – Oldest “type-set” document. Currently unsolved

decipherment, possible forgery?

21. decipherment - The matching of signs to an encoded language

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22. Churchward - “Colonel” James Churchward:

- British author of “The Lost Continent of Mu” (1926)

- Describes the existence of a great continent in the Pacific that Polynesians

decended from

- Related to the Rongo-Rongo script

23. Epi-Olmec -

a. Developed in the area of Isthmus of Thuantepec around 150 BC

b. Of the Mixe-Zoquean language.

c. Most closely related to Mayan hieroglyphic writing than to other

Mesoamerican scripts.

d. Turned out to be structurally similar to Mayan and may be a true writing

system in ancient Mesoamerica.

e. Closely resembles Mayan writing and some signs are even shared

f. Logophonetic - most signs are syllabograms and represent consonant-

vowel syllables

g. All phonograms in the Epi-Olmec script are syllabary.

h. In fact, with the discovery of La Mojarra Stela 1 (A.D. 159) and the

Tuxtla Stauette (A.D. 162), much research and analysis has been done to

decipher the Epi-Olmec.

i. These texts were found in very different places, perhaps signifying that

Epi-Olmec was not associated with a specific place.

24. Bilingual -

- Inscriptions or texts where the same content is expressed in two different

languages, with at least one script and languages which is well understood

- Example - Rosetta Stone

25. Biscript- Is a document where the same inscription is repeated twice written in two

different languages. Biscripts are very important in the decipherment of a language

because it gives a comparison of two languages. If one language is known, many

clues can be gathered to decipher the same message is the other language. The most

popular example of a biscript is the rosetta stone. Although it is written in three

different writing systems, only two languages are used and gave a direct translation

from a greek Coptic dialect into the Egyptian demotic script. It is a key to the 4th

pillar of decipherment.

26. Marcus-

a. Found in Zapotec lecture and Robinson’s book

b. Argues that the “Staff, Spearthrower, or Rattle” symbol represents a

spearthrower (atlatl) and means ‘conquered, slain in battle’

c. Proposed equation between the Codex Mendoza place name Cuicatlan and

a conquest slab from Building J at Monte Alban

d. Proposed explanation of the Monte Alban state

27. Dravidian- Dravidian people speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language

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family. Most of the speakers are found mostly in southern India. They can also be

found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and

Iran. Some scholars widely hold that the Dravidian peoples were the originators of the

Indus Valley Civilization. Recent genetic studies revealed that the Dravidian people

are of Indian subcontinent origin.

28. Tolkien – (1892-1973) A professional philologist well-known for his studies of the

Old English epic poem Beowulf, Tolkien was also an inventor of languages and

alphabets. He was the professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and a professor of English

language and literature. In his popular novels ‘The Hobbit’ and the rest of the ‘Lord

of the Rings’ series he constructed complex dialects for the different peoples of his

creation. Many writings and extensive notes were published by his son Christopher

after his death including many more details of the imagined world of middle earth.

29. Mixe-Zoquean – Group of Middle-American peoples inhabiting territories in

southern Mexico. The Mixe-Zoquean peoples today comprise the Mixe, living in

northeastern Oaxaca; the Zoque, primarily inhabiting northwestern Chiapas; ad the

Popoluca, who live in eastern Veracruz and Oaxaca, about midway between the Mixe

and Zoque. The languages of these people are closely related, and their cultures share

a common origin. The Mixe-Zoquean religious tradition shows many parallels with

that of the Maya.

30. rebus principle- Using a word sign for its phonetic value. A precursor to the

development of the alphabet.

Ignace Gelb’s Unilinear View of the Development of Writing (Zender thinks

they are all, in fact, valid communication tactics and rejects this hierarchical view):

Pictures Pictographs Proto-Writing Rebus Logographic Writing

Logosyllabic Writing Syllabic Writing Alphabets. Phonetic Rebus example: Eye

Saw Ant Rose; I saw aunt Rose.

31. Englert- Father Sebastian Englert (1888-1969) Born in Bavaria of German parents,

Englert was a well traveled Capuchin Franciscan friar, missionary, and linguist who

lived on Easter Island from 1935 until his death. Englert wrote the justly famous La

tierra de Hotu Matu'a (1948) — an indepth study of the history, customs, and

language of Eater Island.

32. Indo-European- family of languages.

English is a member. So are languages such as romance languages.

Descended from a single prehistoric language, Proto-Indo-European. Cornerstone of

historical linguistics. Sound change over time governed by regular laws, such as

Grimm’s Law and Grassman’s Law. Can compare cognates in sister languages (they

constitute a correspondence set) to reconstruct the proto-Indo-European word, or at

least the word from the mother tongue (may not go all the way back to p-I-E). This

process of linguistic reconstruction is useful for decipherment; see Ventris for Linear

B, and Fisher’s failure for the Phaistos Disc.

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33. Aztec year signs- Cycled through Rabbit, Reed, Flint and House like such: 3

Rabbit (1482) 4 Reed (1483) 5 Flint (1484) 6 House (1485) 7 Rabbit (1486). Each

year the number went up by 1 and the name cycled. This is because names of years

were named after the first day of the year, and a 365-day year is divisible with

remainder 1 by the 13 numbers, and divisible with remainder 1 by the 20 year signs

(such that it lands on 1, 6, 11, and 16 and then 1 again, in order, so there are always

four names to choose from and they cycle in order).

Aztec Year sign for Flint

34. Indus Seals- Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols have been found on seals, small

tablets, or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials. Typical Indus inscriptions

are no more than four or five characters in length, most of which (aside from the

Dholavira "signboard") are exquisitely tiny. The longest on any object (found on

three different faces of a mass-produced object) has a length of 26 symbols. While the

Indus Valley Civilization is often characterized as a literate society on the evidence of

these inscriptions, this description has been challenged on linguistic and

archaeological grounds: it has been pointed out that the brevity of the inscriptions is

unparalleled in any known pre-modern literate society.

35. Proto-Polynesian- we studied Rongorongo, the script from the Easter Islands,

which was one of the languages on the islands during the Polynesian Expansion. We

have 29 examples of the script around the world, totaling over 14,000 glyphs. Dating

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is unsure, it may have been brought from another country, or invented after

Europeans landed (1770). The one inaccurate bilingual text was created in the 1870s.

It’s a developed form of proto-writing with phonetic and logographic elements.

Stephen Roger Fischer argued that the glyphs were recreations of mythological tales.

He also proposed the penis glyph. Additionally, the languages across the Polynesian

islands can be studied because they should how the proto-language evolved into

daughter languages and cognate sets can be observed.

36. 260-day calendar- this refers to the Mayan calendar. The Mayans combined

numbers 1-13 with their 20 named days, as evidenced by the Dresden Codex.

Deciphered in the 19th century. In order to expand this to 365, they had to add a third

“wheel” to their calendar that had 18 months on it. The calendar allows us to date

their leaders, because often their inscriptions and pictographs had a date written by

them as well. The 260-day calendar was also used as evidence that the Zapotec script

was a writing system – or that at the very least, it encoded numbers, because none of

the numbers discovered added up to more than 13.

37. Etruscan numbers- The Etruscan script is known but the language is not. We

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discovered two dice in a tomb with the names of the numbers written on them. We

know each side has to add up to seven, and we had deciphered 3 from a bilingual text

(the gold plaques), so 4 was then decipherable. Then, other bilingual/Roman texts

were used to figure out numbers 1-6. From there, other words were discovered that

were numerical. Suffixes were guessed and matched to the root number, and thus

higher numbers were deciphered. However, the veracity of these decipherments is

questionable since the language is unknown. But! The first 6 are known, as well as

10, 16-20, 27-30, 40, 50, 60…

38. Nahuatl- the writing of the Aztec Empire, 1500s AD, in the Central American

regions. In 1555, Fray Bernardino de Las Casas observed this writing system,

compiled the Florentine Codex (history) and founded a college where many historians

and linguists were trained. This allowed friars to “preach” to the natives with the

assistance of their own pictographs. He even attempted a transcription of the Lord’s

Prayer in the indigenous writing. Recently, the study of the system has been

revolutionized as Alfonso Lacadena (in 2004!) treats the script as a logosyllabic

system. There are only logographs and pictographs. There is lots of evidence for

phonetic complementation. There are also encoded numbers

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39. Writing- visible speech. All known writing systems (ancient or modern) involve

direct links to spoken language through phonetic signs (including alphabetic,

consonantal, and syllabic signs.) Numerals are often embedded within writing

systems. So, decipherment is the matching of signs in a script to the encoded

language. Writing is NOT necessarily equivalent to the script, because a scripts could

theoretically exist that doesn’t encode a language.

Part II. Essay Questions

Essay 1) Cross-culturally and through time, scholars have found a surprising number of

structural similarities in the world’s scripts, despite the fact that most of these groups had

no historical contact? What are these similarities? How would you account for them?

What is their significance (if any) for a comparative understanding of human

communication?

** Note: This essay question is ambiguous and certainly not easy to answer. Since we

really only have to memorize 2 of 3, I would strongly not recommend using this one

(question 1). I feel that it is the most difficult out of the three. However, here is the best

outline I could come up with (below).

Thesis: Structural similarities that exist across all writing systems are apparent and

provide evidence for the origin of writing as a “natural”, and later almost necessary, event

in human history.

Background…

- writing was invented in 3100bc by the Egyptians and the Sumerians (in

Mesopotamia) almost simultaneously. After these original two, more and more systems

were invented without contact with the original two. Though it is impossible to say how

many completely “original” systems were created over time, we know that there were

several separate “inventions” of writing. (arguably, four separate times… in

Mesopotamia (Sumer), China, Egypt, and Mesoamerica)

I. Structural Similarities

- all writing is speech put in visible form

- all known writing systems express the sounds of a particular language

- all known systems are partially or wholly phonetic

- if you can think of examples of specific similarities between these 4 scripts (the

scripts that had no contact), then this would be the place to include them.

II. Theories of these Similarities

- Some people suggest crazy things, like that all writing is an offshoot of the original

script in Mesopotamia. We now know this not to be true.

- some also think there was an ancient prehistoric language through which all other

writing systems and languages descended. We don’t accept this as true either

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- in actuality, writing was invented usually for the purpose of recording, and the

different scripts are present because they represent the different spoken languages

III. Why writing began in the first place

- people often attributed writing to divine origin, using ancient intricate myths to

describe how writing was “given” to them – it was often considered a medium through

which to communicate with the gods, “magical” and revered

- really, writing seems like it was a natural progression. Pictures and pictography had

been going on in these civilizations for years as a way to record things, pray to the gods,

draw images of events, etc. There came a certain point where pictures could only

represent so much. And the phonetic principle was discovered (that each sound in speech

could be linked to a written character). The discovery of this principle led to the creation

of writing.

- structural similarties between systems do exist, but unless these can be related to a

sister language they are usually apparent just because they are the most logical way of

adapting the spoken language to a writing system

IV. Writing / Human Communication

- In many cultures, writing became essential to rulership

- it enabled the spread of knowledge, but also imposed certain ways of recording (and

therefore certain ways of thinking) on cultures.

- though writing is a double-edged sword (both a blessing to make things easier but also

a curse that streamlines thinking, squashes creativity), it is necessary in many interactions

today.

- similarities in ancient writing systems that had no contact can tell us that writing was

a sort of natural invention in places where spoken language already existed. Is the

invention of writing a natural progression of human communication? Be careful in using

the word “progress” and applying it to writing, but overall, it is possible that writing

could be considered a natural progression in the need and desire for human

communication.

Essay 2) Neither the isthmian nor zapotec writing systems are deciphered even though

they share features with several well-known scripts in the region. Briefly (but critically)

review what is known about these two systems. Are the prospects good for a

decipherment any time in the near future? Why or why not?

Thesis along the lines of: Deciphering Isthmian is incomplete and extremely difficult, but

given its apparent connection to Mayan, perhaps might be more feasible than deciphering

Zapotec

Isthmian:

• Scripts from 36BC to 162AD

• Main time fram is 150-450 AD

• Corpus is very small

o Essentially 2, long and well-preserved inscriptions

• No bilingual

• Only one real picture

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• Poorly understood cultural context

• Haven’t ruled out that that Isthmian may have encoded a language other than

Mixe-Zoquean—but that is most likely the language

• Justeson and Kaufman dismiss the claim of Mayanist influence on their research

• But make frequent use of iconic resemblances to Mayan signs

• Barring the discovery of biscripts or related, coorobative imagery, any

decipherment of Isthmian lies beyond reach

• Might be able to compare Isthmian to other texts—i.e. Mayan ‘star’

• General comparison to Mayan: “Nonetheless, several epi-Olmec phonetic signs

may share values as well as forms with Mayan signs, which would indicate a

more intimate historical connection” “These results confirm earlier suggestions

that epi-Olmec writing was closely related to Mayan …” (1710)

Zapotec

• First use of Zapotec script is 600-400BC

• Predates Isthmian script by several centuries

• 1200 inscribed objects, half of which include glyphs

• many are fragmentary or very short

• many glyphs are related to calendrical system

• incredible diversity

• aesthetically quite distinct from Mixtec, Aztec, and Mayan writing

• not very developed phonetic/syllabic side of system

• decipherment is hard because there is not enough information:

o not big corpus

o no bilinguals

Essay 3) We have studied several ‘artificial’ writing systems in this class (i.e., systems

invented by a single individual or a small group over a short period). Briefly (but

critically) review at least three such systems. Do they bear any structural hallmarks that

set them, as a group, apart from ‘natural’ writing systems (i.e., systems developed by

many contributors over a longer period)?

Overview of 3 artificial writing systems

- Tolkien (Script: Tengwar; Languages: Quenya, Telerin, Sindarin)

o Tengwar:

36 consonantal characters (alphabet/syllabary)

5 different signs over the top of letters to signify vowels (a, e, i, o,

u) before them

Letters w/related sounds have related signs

Read L-to-R

o Underlying language: Elvish

Develops like a real family of languages

• 3 major sister languages – Quenya, Telerin, Sindarin

• Cultural context and history attached (eg map of where

each language developed/traveled to)

• Cognates & borrowed words in all three

- Dancing men

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o What it is: stick figures in different positions, some holding flags.

o Underlying language: English.

o Read L-to-R

o Small number of symbols – alphabet

- Martian

o Letters w/related sounds have related signs

o Read L-to-R

o 30 signs in total, so almost certainly an alphabet

o 10 signs are long, vertical symbols (vowels?)

o 20 are short, horizontal letters (consonants?)

o Over-and-underlining may indicate capitalization

o Underlying language: completely unknown, died out ’50,000 years ago’

Appears that it was something like German in that the Martians

just pasted a couple of existing words together when they needed a

new word

Structural hallmarks of these systems:

- Related symbols for related sounds

o In both Tengwar and Martian, sounds that are pronounced in similar ways

(eg ‘p’ and ‘b’) are represented by symbols that are similar in appearance

- Invitation to decipherment

o In the case of Dancing Men and Martian, the story itself is about the

process of decipherment

o But Tolkien also leaves enough clues to enable decipherment

- Read L-to-R like English is (authors don’t switch this up)

Bonus Question- vocab words from ancient, now-extinct languages (e.g., Etruscan and

Meroïtic) and fictional languages (e.g., Khuzdul, Martian, Sindarin, Quenya).

Bonus- 5 foreign words

o Get 1 pt for identifying language

o 1 extra pt for meanings

o All words are from second half of words, since midterm

o All on slides

o Short Etruscan words list, short Meroitic word list- from lectures, black speech,

elvish, Martian (don’t worry about Nauhuat)

INDUS SCRIPT:

pir: a chief of ordinary

talpir: head chief

acci-pir: elder

maru-pir: chief priest

miin: fish/star

elu miin: Ursa Major

ETRUSCAN:

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Suthina: “of/for the burial”

Herkle: Heracles

Kukne: Cycnus, son of Ares

Taitle: Daedalus

Easun: Jason

Akhle: Akhilleus

Tin: Jupiter

Uni: Juno

catha: a sun god

cel: a mother goddess

selvan: Silvanus

fufluns: Bacchus

hercle: Hercules

athre: atrium

cathna, catni: chain

histrio: histrionic

zatlath: satellite

autamene: autumn

Pupli (place): people

Phersu (god): person

MEROIITIC

abr: man

kdi: woman

s: person

sem: wife

se: mother

wi: brother

kdis, kdite: sister

qore: ruler

kdke, ktke, kdwe: king’s sister

mk: deity

st, stqo: foot/feet

tnyi: lion

adb: province/land

yirewke: east

tenke: west

hr: north

yireke: south

at: bread

ato: water

edhe, tedhe, dhe: born (by)

erike, terike, yerike: begotten of

l, el, yel: give

lh: great, big

mte: small, little

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mlo: good

tbo: two

AZTEC

coatl: snake

cocoa: snakes

nocoauh: my snake

tepetl: mountain

tetepe: mountains

notepeuh: my mountain

kowa: girl

kowo: boy

pakana: sword

kako: bronze

tiripo: tripod

ijereja: priestess

pome: shepherd

tukate: daughter

TOLKIEN:

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ANYONE AT THIS LECTUIRE KNOW WHAT THIS

WORD MEANS?!?!

MARTIAN: