ANCR-601 Lessons

Professor Wessex is absent from the front of the classroom this morning, though no one is surprised by her return to this behavior. The chill of the castle is felt very strongly here, and students cast Warming Charms on each other as they wait for the clock to toll the hour and their professor’s assumed arrival.

As expected, the slow click of polished heels on stone is heard down the halls prior to the clock striking eleven. As it finishes its last chime, the professor enters the room, closing the doors behind her with a sharp motion of her wand. She pauses only to check the notes scratched onto parchment from her trusted quill before bringing the class to order.

Introduction
In our lesson today, we will finally be getting to the meat of Rongorongo: the meanings. As mentioned before, the meanings of Rongorongo, magical or otherwise, are truly only theories -- though with varying degrees of verifiability. To be completely sure of even one glyph, we would need to certain of the others around it; which leads researchers to a paradox. We cannot be certain of even one glyph until one can be confirmed. Essentially, we are in need of a Rapanui “Rosetta Stone” equivalent.

However, just because we cannot be certain, does not mean that we cannot -- and do not -- try. The assembled meanings here have come from centuries of documentation, testing, anthropological work, and extensive consideration, and are quite useful despite a lack of verifiability. They have been challenged by many different, competing theories, and have ultimately weathered the storm to attain varying levels of acceptance. Still, it is useful to keep it in mind that these are no “Schreiber's Corrections,” nor even field-tested meanings with as much credence as the Baldric brothers’ guide.

Barthel
Before we get into the meanings themselves, we will take a look at the various authors who have contributed to the accepted corpus of meanings. Perhaps the “father” of Rongorongo meanings, first we have the German-born Muggle,Thomas Barthel. We will be referring to him more in the next few weeks due to his widely accepted naming system of the surviving Rongorongo texts. However, among the Muggle academic population, he is known for his categorization and numbering of the glyphs themselves. In the magical world, we rarely use his numbering system, as we are most often concerned with the magical meanings of the script, which have been generally agreed upon as corresponding with a “working script” of 52 glyphs, rather than Barthel’s 600 or so. However, when magical folk have need to refer to the glyphs outside of these 52, we use his numbering system as we have not invested the time in developing a separate one.

More important to our discussion today, he has also contributed some insights into ideographical meanings of the glyphs, which is of much more interest to the wizarding world. While all ideographic meanings are not inherently or automatically magical, they do have the possibility to be used magically, as, over time and given the right circumstances, they can come to embody intent and help direct concentration when imbuing runes with magic.

Hellgren
Many of the meanings assembled that you will see today come, oddly enough, not from a scholar in the field of history, magiarchaeology, linguistics, magianthropology, or even ancient magic, but from eccentric ramblings. Despite his insufficient background in the area, complete ignorance of the culture’s history, and abject lack of any professional studies, Ulf Hellgren has nonetheless turned out a surprising number of meanings that have been subjected to further study (by others) and found plausible. The eccentric, retired astrologer is famed in his Swedish hometown for his madcap theories and is often fondly accused of spending one too many nights gazing up at the stars. However, in his very long ramblings, there have been a few valuable nuggets that other researchers have latched onto and posed theories about. Hellgren remains content to have his work occasionally acknowledged and, as he has recently learned to access the internet, shares his wilder suggestions via that medium with anyone who is interested, both Muggle and magical.

Pozdniakov
Lastly, we have the many Pozdniakovs. This family’s foray into the mysteries of Rongorongo was originally lead by Konstantin Pozdniakov, an extraordinarily curious and bright man. After years of study, his brother, Igor, joined him in his search of answers as they continued to compile more information in the hopes of publishing a working dictionary of meanings.

This was put on hold when Konstantin, his wife Celeste, and young child moved from his native Russia to his wife’s homeland, France. With the change in lifestyle, he discontinued his studies in the area slightly, until his daughter, Ekaterina -- a halfblood witch -- came of age and began to show interest in the script. Even before her graduation from Beauxbatons, the father-daughter research team renewed old efforts and were rewarded with excellent progress, particularly in two areas. The pair were able to compile the 52 glyph “working script” that I have frequently mentioned and also compiled a list of ideographic meanings for many of the glyphs in the group. Ekaterina was able to convince her father to withhold the glyphs’ meanings from the general Muggle public and instead publish them in magiarchaeological journals, with the concession that they would at least reveal the working script they had spent so long compiling.

It is from this pair’s research that it was established that Rongorongo existed as a magical text primarily, though Hellgren and others posited that the language and script were very chant-like. While the Pozdniakovs’ research on meanings has never been published in the Muggle world, large amounts of the meanings we will learn this year are based on their painstaking research and testing.

The Magic of Rongorongo
We will be going over the 52 signs that make up the working script today before looking at the non-magical side of things and wrapping up. This will only be the barest of glimpses, though. You are N.E.W.T. students, and do not need me to hold your hand. We cannot take the time to go over every meaning of each glyph and you have plenty of time to read before next week. We will go over general themes and traits of the script, as well as details you need to know to properly study it, but you will need to research the meanings on your own time. You can find more detail and more signs in the Anthropological-based Journal of Ancient Discoveries, a wizarding journal of which we have a copy in our library. It covers various topics in its publications including writing systems, history and culture, artefacts, dig sites, magical meanings of runes, and more. You will need to read Kyteler’s “Inventory of Rongorongo’s Magical Meanings” which combines essentially all published studies on the topic from researchers interested in the ancient herbology of the island culture, the extensive research done by the Pozdniakovs, and even some meanings originally mentioned by Hellgren (though later expanded upon by others).

It is important for you to note that the magical numbering system does not neatly overlap with Barthel’s numbering system, which you will see in an extra credit assignment if you so choose. In the chart below, these symbols have simply been assigned a number value from one to fifty-two by order of appearance in the Rongorongo texts. Barthel’s, on the other hand, is much more complicated. As a comparison, rune m51 would be 730 by his standard, whereas rune m52 which directly follows it, would be 901. Yes, suffice it to say that there is a reason we use our own system for referring to the magical symbols.

You can likely see a number of trends in the chart already. There are many shapes reminiscent of animals — much like with Egyptian hieroglyphics — as well as some plants. However, there are others that do not immediately appear to look like anything. This is because these symbols (and magical runes in general) are just as often ideographs rather than pictographs. Both of these indicate symbols or runes which encompass a word or larger meaning than simply a sound or group of sounds.

The difference is that, like we have discussed, ideograms stem from an idea or concept, which is often more abstract. Pictographs, on the other hand, take their meaning from the thing they represent pictorially. Therefore, a group of wavy lines may symbolize the ocean or some other large body of water if it were a pictograph, and the subconscious and unknown were it to be an ideogram. Other times, however, ideograms have nothing to do with their “pictured” meaning, and three wavy lines may mean an entirely different concept.

You will notice a mix of all of these in the working script of Rongorongo. For example, glyph m49 both represents a fish as well as prisoners or even casualties of war.

Non-Magical Meanings
If you think there was too much uncertainty surrounding the magical meanings of these glyphs, you will not want to discuss the non-magical meanings. Based on the researcher and the era of research, Rongorongo has been cited to be phonetic, syllabic, logographic, pictographic, and more. Fortunately for you, we will not be taking an in-depth look at all of these potential meanings. Because we are mostly concerned with the meanings of the spell tablets which have been identified as nearly or completely magical, we will only briefly be skimming the surface of this area of study.

You may condense it down to these basics: non-magical meanings on these tablets are much more likely to be pictograms, though some could still be ideograms. This would mean that rather than m44 taking more abstract meanings like slowness, lethargy, persistence, or being thick-skinned, it would indicate what it is a picture of -- in this case, a turtle. It is also possible for a magical glyph to take the meaning of turtle, but it is usually not the first assumption. Of course, as no one has successfully decoded Rongorongo, scholars may find just the opposite some day along the line.

A Note on Translations
Now, before we close for the day, we must discuss your assignments. Normally this is a simple thing to do, but as the assignments that follow this lesson contain your first translation exercise of N.E.W.T. level Ancient Runes, there are a few important points to note. I have been very upfront with you that the presented meanings of Rongorongo are merely theories. While doing these exercises, many of you may be tempted to substitute meanings that are not included in the lessons or provide your own interpretations of the sign.

While I have not discouraged loose interpretations of runes in the past, please note something for the future, particularly for Rongorongo. Just because the current meanings of Rongorongo are based on theories does not mean your theories are equally viable unless you have conducted your own in-depth studies. These theories are the combined result of hundreds of years of work, have been drawn by experts in the field, and have stood up to the battering of many other scholarly minds. Should you wish to pose an alternate, unrelated meaning for a glyph, be prepared to offer a dragon’s weight in proof. More, prepare for the potential rejection of your theory, particularly if it does not match up with magiarchealogical, magianthropological, or historical resources.

I do not expect you to be experts on a script you are only studying for half of a year, but I do expect you to know your limits, as going beyond them without extensive knowledge can be incredibly dangerous when dealing with enchanted ancient runes. If you would like to hypothesize as to additional meanings, include them separately in your assignment (after doing the best with what current meanings are available) or else include your extensive justification for the changes you have made in the same manner. Be warned, though, that just because you provide justification does not mean that you will be right, nor that you will not be marked off.¹

Magical scripts do not care how excellent your thought process is, nor how many paragraphs of justification you can write on your theory. If you guess wrong, you will still end up accidentally transfigured, speaking in sonnets, turned to stone, or hopping on one foot for the rest of your life. While I will not be turning anyone to stone for incorrect guesses, I would be doing you a disservice by letting incorrect hypotheses slide by without consequences. If you feel unsure and would like to discuss the potential relevance of an additional meaning before you submit an assignment — or even if you are simply curious — you may contact me via owl.

Closing
Now, the assignments. Unless you have gone temporarily deaf, you know we will be completing a translation exercise. In addition, there will be the usual quiz on general information, as well as an extra credit assignment to encourage you to file these glyphs away in your memory. Rongorongo is one of the most foreign writing systems we have studied thus far, and the meaning of the glyphs is not always the first thing that springs to mind. With this knowledge under your belt, you will be well-prepared to begin unraveling the secrets of the surviving texts, which is our task for the next two weeks.

Footnotes:

1. If you feel this is unfair and stifling, tough. This is for your own well-being and my protection. It looks rather dismal to have half of my N.E.W.T.s students killed in a freak flood in the Ravenclaw Tower because they thought themselves equally qualified as the experts. Additionally, if you are so inclined, you may yet have the opportunity to safely explore additional rune meanings for this script and more before the year is out.

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   Original lesson written by Professor Venita Wessex
   Image credits here or to Venita Wessex