Don Quixote and the Hieroglyphs - 251 LexiLine Journal

In advance of my presentations on the Egyptian Hieroglyphs, we might
call the material below "A Literary Lesson for Mainstream
Scholarship".

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra wrote The Ingenious Gentleman Don
Quixote (translation by Samuel Putnam, Viking Press, New York,
1949), which is regarded by numerous literary critics to be the
first "modern" novel. Don Quixote is also ranked by many as the
world's greatest novel and we quote from it as follows:

"[S]aid Don Quixote: 'He is a wise enchanter, a great enemy of mine,
who has a grudge against me because he knows by his arts and
learning that in the course of time I am to fight in single combat
with a knight whom he favors, and that I am to be the victor and he
can do nothing to prevent it. For this reason he seeks to cause me
all the trouble that he can, but I am warning him that it will be
hard to gainsay or shun that which Heaven has ordained.'

'Who could doubt that it is so?' said the niece. 'But tell me,
uncle, who is responsible for your being involved in these quarrels?
Would it not be better to remain peacefully here at home and not go
roaming through the world in search of better bread than is made
from wheat, without taking into consideration that many who go for
wool come back shorn?'

'My dear niece,' replied Don Quixote, 'how little you understand of
these matters! Before they shear me, I will have plucked and
stripped the beards of any who dare to touch the tip of a single
hair of mine.'" p. 60

[somewhat later, fighting the windmills, p. 63]
'Do not seek to flee, cowards and vile creatures that you are, for
it is but a single knight with whom you have to deal!'...
'Though you flourish as many arms as did the giant Briareus...you
still shall have to answer to me.'

I shall shortly begin publishing - very slowly and deliberately - by
individual signs and words - my analysis of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs
from my standpoint that Old Kingdom Pharaonic Egyptian language was
Indo-European in foundation.

In doing so, I will make liberal use of Latvian comparables because
Latvian is a very archaic language - indeed, together with
Lithuanian, these Baltic tongues are the most archaic still spoken
Indo-European languages, thus reflecting Indo-European as it was
spoken throughout Europe and parts of Eurasia many thousands of
years ago.

Other ancient Indo-European languages could and can be used for this
comparison, e.g. Lu(t)wian [Latvian] Hittite. Of course, language
comparisons to ancient Pharaonic Egyptian language in other more
modern Indo-European languages will also be found - which will only
serve to prove that Pharaonic Egyptian has an Indo-European stratum,
especially in the Old Kingdom.

We use Latvian because we know the language well and because it is a
very good language tool for this kind of work. Most Egyptologists
are hampered by the fact that their basis of language is Western -
hence, when they find a language such as Pharaonic Egyptian, which,
for example has no definite or indefinite articles, they find this
unusual, without recognizing that Latvian, for example, an archaic
but still nevertheless Indo-European language, also has no definite
or indefinite articles.

This analysis will be published to the LexiLine List in text form -
indeed, the first publication will always be made to the LexiLine
group at Yahoo....

..........

Tauta is a Latvian word meaning "folk, people" (whence
Egypt's Pharaonic Thoth - the inventor of writing and god of
knowledge - i.e. "the people" invented writing and knowledge, not a
particular person) . Thoth was originally depicted in Egyptian
hieroglyphs as the IBIS which in Latvian as the exact same bird is
called TITILBIS i.e. TITH-ILBIS. This bird was used as the symbol
for THOTH and IBIS because its name TIT-ILBIS was homophonic - the
same sounding - as the words being hieroglyphed.

I posted on this subject to sci.archaeology
on January 31, 1997 as follows:

The Pharaonic Egyptian word for bird IBIS (from the Greek IBIS) is
transcribed by the Egyptologists as IB-. So, fine and good.

But why is the Egyptian God THOTH (both the moon as well as the
inventor of writing and the arts) represented by the bird IBIS on
hieroglyphs, a usage which is as phonologically mysterious as it is illogical. Why
this?

The Latvian gives us a very clear explanation as to why this is so.

The Latvian word for an IBIS-like bird is T I T I L B I S. TITILBIS
is a term which applies to a bird having long legs, and especially
those which wade in waters and on shores (it is even used to apply
to people with long legs).

If we presume that the Pharaonic Egyptians had a similar a term
which they originally applied to Thoth, then the mystery is
explained.

When we thus want to know why the God THOTH as inventor of writing
and the arts was represented by the bird IBIS then we see that this
is because the original term is the Latvian T I T - I L B I S. I
think it was used as the nearest concrete word to Latvian TAUTIBA or
TAUTIBAS "nation, folk, people", who according to Pharaonic legend,
as THOTH, Latvian TAUTA "folk, people" were the inventors of writing
and the arts.

If we want to know why the T I T I L B I S was applied to the moon
THOTH, then we must know that the Latvians also called the moon
TETIS or TETITIS in the ancient Latvian Dainas (a three-T variation
is also found in the hieroglyphs), a term also set equivalent
to "father" - but also applied to male birds.

Hence, T I T I L B I S was the closest term having a representable
concrete object similar in sound phonology to the concepts to be
represented by hieroglyphs (i.e. TAUT- "folk" and TET- "father".)
Essentially, we can regard the problem as the same as representing
the English word DAD for father with a hieroglyph of a similar
sound - what concrete object would you use in English? Very tough.

At some time the initial T I T - of I L B I S was dropped and the
bird came to be known as the I(L)BIS.