The Riddle of the Labyrinth (17 page)

We have now made our first major discovery. We already knew we were looking for three verbs: In the three symbols topped with carets, we may have found them. Let us tentatively designate these symbols as verbs. We still don't know which symbol corresponds to which verb, but for the time being that doesn't matter. The ground we have gained so far can be summarized thus:

Now we seem to get stuck. We are left with four symbols topped with the V-shaped mark, and four plain symbols. There is no way to tell which group contains the nouns and which contains the adjectives. Or is there? Once again, we must scour the symbols for internal clues.

If we turn back to the English translations, we notice something tantalizing. Two words in the list are clearly related to each other: the noun “activity” and the corresponding adjective “active.” They differ in
only a single parameter
: part of speech. It would help enormously if we could find two Bliss symbols that are alike except for one parameter.

Scanning the symbols, we find just such a pair: 4 and 10,
and
. One has the V-sign; the other doesn't. One is the adjective “active,” the other the noun “activity.” The V-sign either turns a noun into the corresponding adjective, or an adjective into the corresponding noun. But which? To answer the question, we must now start to make educated guesses about the meanings of individual signs, much as Champollion guessed that the hieroglyphic was meant to invoke the Coptic word “sun.”

Let's begin by examining the four characters with V-shaped tops, Nos. 3, 4, 7, and 11:
and
. If they are nouns, then they mean (in random order) “waist,” “lips,” “activity,” and “saliva.” If they are adjectives, then they mean (also in random order) “active,” “sick,” “western,” and “merry.”

To the layman's eye, one sign in this group leaps out: No. 11, the heart with a V-shaped top and an upward-pointing arrow. We know that Blissymbolics is an ideographic system, meant to be understood universally. In many cultures, the heart is considered the seat of emotion. Does any of the remaining English words suggest emotion?

One does: the adjective “merry.” If we assume that symbol No. 11 means “merry,” we can then forge the following deductive chain:

       • If
= “merry,” then the V-sign turns nouns into adjectives.

       • Therefore,
= “activity,” and
= “active.”

       • The three remaining nouns
and
, are (order unknown) “waist,” “lips,” and “saliva.”

       • The two remaining adjectives,
and
, are (order unknown) “sick” and “western.”