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Konstantin Pozdniakov, INALCO, IUF, LLACAN Looking for proper names in the Rapanui script.

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Presentation on theme: "Konstantin Pozdniakov, INALCO, IUF, LLACAN Looking for proper names in the Rapanui script."— Presentation transcript:

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2 Konstantin Pozdniakov, INALCO, IUF, LLACAN Looking for proper names in the Rapanui script

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4 Peter the Great Museum (Kunstkamera), St. Petersburg

5 Boris Kudriavtsev: a discovery of parallel texts

6 Dmitrij Olderogge

7 Yuri Knorozov

8 Irina Fedorova

9 Hunting for personal names

10 « Genealogy » by Knorozov Gv6 In the history of the Rongorongo studies, the most known attempt to find proper names was that by Yurij Knorozov and Nicolai Butinov, who suggested that a short fragment of the text Gv is a genealogy. This fragment has a very unusual structure: it consists of short groups where the second sign of every group is repeated as the first sign of the next group: AB – BC – CD – DE – EF.

11 « Genealogy » by Knorozov

12 When he successfully deciphered the Rongorongo script of Easter Island Steven Roger Fischer gained a unique place in the pantheon of glyphbreakers. He is the only person who has ever deciphered not one but two ancient scripts. Fischer's previous decipherment, of a Cretan artifact called the Phaistos Disk, provided the key to the ancient Minoan language and showed it to be closely related to Mycenaean Greek.

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14 Atua Mata Riri A creation chant collected by Thomson in 1886 is supposed to give a list of gods.This chant was obtained from old Ure-vai-ko, who recited it as the text of a tablet. A translation made by Salmon is equally free., as he assumed that the procreators were all gods whose names were meaningless, and thus misunderstood the true nature of the chant. The text given here is based on Thomson's and corrected by natives, but many verses are not intelligible. 1.God-of-the-angry-look by copulating with Roundness (?) produced the poporo (Solanum nigrum). 2.Himahima-marao by copulating with Lichen-growing-on-the-soil produced the lichen. 3.Oevai (?) by copulating with Fern produced the fern. 4.The Parent-mother by copulating with Pipiri-hai-tau produced wood. 5.Dryness by copulating with Humu-toti (Tattooing-of-the-leg) produced the paper mulberry. 6.Ti by copulating with Ta [Tattooing] produced the ti. 7.Elevation (?) by copulating with Highness produced the inland- grass.

15 We cannot accept the deciphering of the “genealogical myth” suggested by S. Fischer, but everybody agrees that the famous Santiago staff analysed by Fischer does have a very special structure being divided into groups of three graphemes each.

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17 4 + 2: 2 + 4: 2 + 2 + 2:

18 X and Y produced many twins:

19 Important common feature – the sign76 Text Gv: sign 76 in the last grapheme « rising » direction: son > father Text I: sign 76 in the first grapheme « Descending » direction: father > son

20 More than 550 generations ??? More than 11000 years ???

21 Igor Pozdniakov (1.06.1927 – 16.1.2010)

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33 NNNN INTERVAL LanguageL NamesWriting W Names 1 ro-ro 45 109131154 2 ro-ngo-ro-ngo 125 264253252 20 ro (19 syllables) ro 94 140152 176 TOTAL 264513536582

34 norm = 33%%% INTERVALLanguageL NamesWriting W Names 1 17212426 2 47514743 20 36272830 TOTAL100

35 POZDNIAKOV, K. and G. SEGERER. Similar Place Avoidance: A Statistical Universal. Linguistic Typology. 2007. Vol. 11(2), p. 307- 348.

36 norm = 33%%% INTERVALLanguageL NamesWriting W Names 1 17212426 2 47514743 20 36272830 TOTAL100

37 Fermin Moscoso del Prado. The universal “shape” of human languages: spectral analysis beyond speech // Nature Precedings http://precedings.nature.com/documents/6097/version/1 http://precedings.nature.com/documents/6097/version/1

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39 Another candidats for proper naming

40 one of the most perspective strategies of deciphering is looking for all unusual signs that seem to have no phonetic reading.

41 Many fragments of the Rapanui script have a very special structure: the text is divided into short segments separated by delimiters. A delimiter is a regularly occurring sign (like sign 76 in the Santiago Staff) or a combination of two or three signs

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47 1234567 Ev Na Gr Kr Kv Ca Cb Aa Ab

48 = = = Ca3 Ab4 Aa8

49 = = = = = = Ca3 Ab4 Aa8 Pr7 Hr8 Qr7

50 « Calendar » - text C

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52 Sign 380, captured by Paul Horley

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55 Tracing of Paul Horley

56 Text C Sign turning as comlexification Text C

57 «Decipherement» from S. Fischer

58 Pv7 Qv8 Hv5

59 FR38 Pv7 Qv8 Hv5 Db4 Db6 xx Sb6

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61 FR38 Pv7 Barthel Pv7 Horley Hv5 Db4 Db6 xx Sb6 Barthel Sb6 Horley

62 Un signe Catalog I.Pozdniakov – K.Pozdniakov

63 It is quite probable that the scribe created the elaborated block in line Na3 being motivated by a necessity (functional or aesthetic) to extend some basic structure to a mirror-like one: the bird sign is set in the center of the composition, surrounded by three pairs of mirrored graphemes according to the pattern: A B C D C B A. Such «graphical polindroms», most possibly, do not have any phonetic base. C B A? C B A B C D C B A

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