The Script of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Is Logosyllabic, The Language Is East Polynesian: Evidence from Cross-Readings

Authors

Keywords:

Kohau Rongorongo, logosyllabic writing systems, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), pictorial scripts, decipherment, cross-reading method, Polynesian languages

Abstract

Successful decipherment of forgotten scripts can be demonstrated by cross-readings, in which the same phonetic value for the same sign is independently obtained in at least three different contexts. The Kohau Rongorongo script is a pictorial writing system developed on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) before the arrival of Europeans. The knowledge of the script was lost. Provisional reading values for 20 signs are suggested on the basis of their combinatorial properties, contexts of use and sign imagery. Interpretations for 11 of the signs are confirmed by cross-readings, which reveal that seven of them are logographic and four are syllabic. The implications are that (i) the system is logosyllabic, (ii) the language is East Polynesian and (iii) some phonetic signs are of acrophonic origin.

Author Biography

Albert Davletshin, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa-Enríquez, Veracruz

Albert Davletshin completed his PhD thesis on the palaeography of Maya hieroglyphic writing at Knorozov Centre for Mesoamerican Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, in 2003. He has been with the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies at the same university since 2003. He has been a research fellow at the Institute for Anthropology, Veracruz University, Xalapa, Mexico, since 2021. Albert works on logosyllabic writing systems, methods of decipherment, iconography and historical linguistics of Mesoamerica and Polynesia. He has published on the Epi-Olmec, Harrapan, Kohau Rongorongo, Maya, Nahuatl, Teotihuacan and Zapotec scripts. He has led research projects on Proto-Totonacan (University of Mexico) and on Nahuatl script (Bonn University). In addition to his studies on the Rapanui (Easter Island), Albert has carried out field work on the Polynesian Outlier language of Nukeria (Papua New Guinea) and the languages Pisaflores Tepehua (Mexico) and Sym Evenki and Kellog Ket (Siberia).

Cover of JPS June 2022

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Published

2022-09-04

Issue

Vol. 131 No. 2 (2022): June 2022

Section

Articles

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