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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: