What Meaning Means
Meaning of identifying the meaning of the M-N sound - Most significant discovery in Indo-European linguistics since de Saussure?
Happy to announce that I have identified for the first time THE two fundamental Cryptotypes underpinning all extant Indo-European languages.
Thus accidentally moving Indo-European linguistics beyond de Saussure’s mere identification of the distinction of Sign and Signified1.
Now we can know memes featuring these two sounds are unbounded and are definitively grounded on the Moon-based metaphorical signalling semantic system.
Russian and Trump-Brexit Disinfolklore / propaganda mainly works by covertly altering our intentions, attitudes, and motivations.
Two sounds in particular are used to troll our emotions, hack our consent, and compromise us into mental and physical activities which are the opposite of how we would behave, if we had our senses within our own control.
These two sounds have recurred repeatedly in effective communications (including propaganda) in Indo-European languages for many millennia: Words with the M-N- and Rg / Rt / Reg / Rch / Rit / Rd sounds and connected meanings immanent inside them.
As far as I am aware having identified this phenomenon several years ago and researched it ever since, I am the first researcher (Cultural Archæologist) to have identified this common thread running through the languages commonly spoken between Ireland and India.
These two particular sounds seemed already to be portals into meaning systems that work subconsciously to alter our Mana (energy - the well from which all our intentions / motivations / attitudes / Mens Rea flows).
I discovered this power by accident.
Now a subscriber has contacted me - and suggested that immanent in the M-N- sound (I had unearthed as part of my Power of Mana project) is a phenomenon known to linguists as Cryptotypes.
Cryptotypes were first theorised in the 1930s.
One or two simple Cryptotypic systems and the portals into them have been identified.
But no-one before has identified either the fundamental M-N- Cryptotype in Indo-European languages, or the almost as important Rg / Rt / Reg / Rch / Rit / Rd Cryptotype.
Naturally, I was intrigued.
Finding Manuland and my Power of Mana project were generated from my observation about the recurrence of the fundamental M-N- sound in the monikers of the mythological monarchs in the founding myths of the main Indo-European peoples between Ireland and India - Manú (India’s first human), Érimón (Ireland’s first high king), Manannán (Ireland’s preeminent pre-Christian deity), Manawydan / Mandubracios (island of Britain / Wales), Mannus (founder of the Germanic people - according to the Roman Tacitus - and son of Tuisto (twin)), Aryamán (who gave their name to Iran), Menua (son of the founder of Armenia’s predecessor state Ararat / Bianili), and of course, Rhadamanthys and Minos born of Zeus Pater’s union with the goddess Europa.
M-N- is also immanent in the most important signifiers in Indo-European cultures’ sacred vocabulary:
Communion, Communicant, Dominion, Mantra, Sacrament, Matrimony, Ceremony, Patrimony, Hymn, Mahayana, Mañjuśrī (god of wisdom in the Dalai Lama’s tradition of Mahayana Buddhism), Mission, Seminary, Numen (ancient Rome’s ancient religion), Demon, Brahmanas, Brahmin, Mandala, oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, Temenos, omen, amen, Cédshamhain (early Irish name for religious celebration of summer), Samhain (early Irish name for 1st November and the celebration of winter), ecumenical, Mound / Mountain, Flamines (ancient Roman priestly caste), minister, Muni (sage or priest in Sanskrit as in Śākyamuni, an epithet for the Buddha (and cognate with the Irish word for teacher “múinteoir”)), Angra Mainyu (destructive mind/spirit) & Spəṇta Mainyu (holy/creative spirit/mentality), manifest, manna, commandments, Manuiscihr ("seed" or "son" of Manuš in ancient Iranian), Minos, Mantle (fire/cloak), Monk / Monastery, Vohu Manah (Ancient Iran - Magical aspect of sovereignty function), Bramaṇā (magic word formula), Karmān (“karma” is what linguists call an ‘inflection’ of Karmān, the law of cause and effect that governs all existence in Buddhism), "Dies Dominica" "Day of Our Lord" / Dimanche / Seventh Day, (from 300 CE in Rome), Mani (Manicheans), and many more (including “Many“ itself!)…
But, that is not all I have uncovered and been reporting here in Power of Mana, both as part of the book Finding Manuland that I am revealing in instalments and in ad hoc pieces like this.
“Meaning” as a signifier (word) and a meaning (semantic portal) gives us hypermodern Indo-European language speakers access to the Moon-based metaphorical signalling system that I am the first Indo-European language-speaking human to have identified.
There are currently around three- four- billion humans who speak an Indo-European language, so, bully for me!
It does not get any more fundamental a sound or semantic portal than meaning, and yet despite this, the M-N- sound signalling system lurked undetected, even by linguists who have been looking for it!
Without an idea that a signifier (word) can mean something other than it is we have no way to communicate what language is, or even to understand how language is simply a means of knitting different metaphorical networked systems of meaning together (“Metaphor” from “Metis” (device, means) and “phar” (light, illuminate)).
The simplest means of communicating the meaning of meaning is to revert to the sound for the Moon that was used by the first Indo-European language speakers before 2,500 BCE in eastern Ukraine.
These first Ancient Ukrainian (or Proto-Indo-European (P.I.E.)) language speakers used a sound modern linguists write as “Meh₁n-ṓt” to signify the Moon.
Just as the light illuminates (literally: *Hal (shine) and “Mina” (mana / energy…)) the Moon of a dark winter’s night, a meaning shines through a word / signifier.
This is why I call the M-N- sound the Moon-based metaphorical semantic signalling system immanent in practically every sentence we speak in any Indo-European language.
This is what meaning means!
Note how immanent in this explanation of Cryptotypes is the word meaning, and yet until my work the linguists and comparative mythologists hunting for Cryptotypes completely missed the M-N- Cryptotype (and the other which we’ll get back to in a moment):
“Meaning is pulled up (out of the subconscious) and transubstantiated into phenotypical strings [e.g. sentences] that allow for human communication. Meaning is formulated via cryptotypes that, through their connection with the phenotype, form word-meanings placed in overt categories [of grammar]. The hidden meanings in words come from the pool of cryptotypes that can be dragged into words or that insufflate phenotypes with more meaning than intended or that can be articulated. Whorf referred to this deeper pool of second degree meanings as cryptotypes (Whorf 1945, 1974; Lee 1996, 165). At this level of semiotics, meaning is generated in the interweaving of sound and 'soul', phenotype and cryptotype (Whorf 1956, 266).”2
Whorf, the Yale linguist who first theorised the existence of Cryptotypes, could not even express the idea of Cryptotypes without, unknowingly, dragging on up from the dark pool of meaning the Moon-based metaphorical semantic signalling system.
Now, awareness of this M-N- sound’s immanence in almost every sentence we speak enables us consciously to access this Cryptotype for the first time in human culture!
Aptly, the most fundamental cryptotype of them all - the M-N- sound which I have identified lurking inside practically every sentence we speak in an Indo-European language - is invoked whenever linguists (or any of us) speak about “meaning”.
If there is a deity of linguistics, then they definitely have a sense of humour3.
Here’s how close a contemporary expert on Homer that I quoted in “Should we call Ancient Ukrainians the first Aryans? Finding Manuland XI: The First Greeks Edition” got to uncovering the existence of the fundamental M-N- crytotypic signalling system (note again how immanent in all the words in bold M-N- is - again you can’t even talk about this without invoking the Moon-based metaphorical signalling system):
“Even a single word can be a gateway to inherited mythology. Examining the word mēnis, Muellner uncovers some of the fundamental springs of the Iliad’s action.
“Semantically, the closest parallel to mēnis is its Vedic cognate manyú, which, like mēnis, denotes a primordial cosmic force associated with the thunderbolt and the lord of the pantheon (Muellner 1996, 185-6). The meaning of this word contains myth within it (see Muellner, Homeric Poetics).”
My subscriber continued thus, very kindly:
My subscriber was referring to the warehouse in eastern France near Maing Village where I conceived of the idea, finally, to look for answers as to why this M-N- sound was immanent in, well, almost every space and sound that inhabits our minds in Indo-European cultures - see the first instalment of Finding Manuland, an account of the journey I’m on and recounting to you.
There is a second Cryptotype which I have discovered and written about before here and in Disinfolklore, as it is almost as fundamental as the M-N- sound: Rg / Rt / Reg / Rch / Rit / Rd.
The “Rect” sound in “Insurrectionist” for example arouses Writ Wing Authoritarian Followers - as does the “Reich” in “Right.”
This sound in Breitbart (x2), Brexit, and all signs in every Indo-European language related to Ṛta (‘truth. What is, What is not illusory’ in Sanskrit) or ‘Arta’ (‘truth’ in Ancient Iranian Avestan language)!
What is “Right” or correct is that which is true. And usurpers, as the Achmenæd empire’s founder Darius (522–486 BCE) had inscribed on rocks from Iran to Judea, from Greece to Armenia promote the opposite of Arta which is “drauga, the lie."
This is essentially the attitude of rebels, of usurpers or potential usurpers who deceive the people by pretending to be "Monarch" in place of Darius himself who established a right to rule and legislate (droit) the territory from Judea, Armenia, Greece, to Iran and other lands that lasted a third of a millennium.
It’s also immanent in the most ancient extant religious text in Indo-European culture: Ancient India’s Ṛgveda.
The Mana of Ṛta and Arta is also immanent in Sovereignty, Security, Fertility / Prosperity (the three functions in Indo-European culture discovered by Dumézil, who like most great linguists was sniffing around the M-N- sound for most of his career, but never quite nailed its importance or commonness)4
Rectitude, Foreigner, Tripartite, Rector, Director (an analogue to Manager), Sanskrit, Guardian, Secret, Correct, Party, Border, Report, Portal, Fort, Court, Right, Writ, Write, Rite, Regulation, -rch in Monarch, Rich, Rule, Rex, Raja, Rí, Regime, Droit, Territorial, Integrity,…
So, given the immanence in almost every sentence we speak certainly about community, municipal and communal governance of words with the Rg / Rt / Reg / Rch / Rit / Rd sound, this is another Cryptotypic portal through Indo-European languages to a deeper level of communication. Cryptotypic signifiers, just like the M-N- sound.
Get this, and we get how Ruschist Trump-Brexit Disinfolklore (e.g. broadcast through RT (Russia Today)) turns what isn’t (e.g. large crowd size) into what is (lies).
Incidentally, as with the M-N- sound reversing sometimes (e.g. in name, numa, anim, Amon Re, anima, phoneme, animal,…), yet being part of the same Cryptotypic signification system, Rt- reverses too into:
Troll, Trump, truth, trigger, trick, Trans- (when the Right- use Trans, they’re really triggering idea in the minds of those susceptible to this Cryptotypic signification system of Transgressor, Other, Scapegoat, Outsider,…), Tripartite, Trinity, Trito,…
Triggers and dog whistles, below the level of consciousness to affect our Mana- the well from which ALL our motion, momentum, motivations, attitudes, flows,…
I will finish today on this delicious note. Note how the discoverer of Cryptotypes Whorf stated that:
“Meaning is generated in the interweaving of sound and ‘soul’, phenotype and cryptotype.”
Well, again, the linguistic deity seems to be having a laugh at the expense of Whorf.
As we have seen in previous Power of Mana episodes (and especially in “The Sacred M-N- Sound”): the signifier “soul” and SO many other sacred signifiers with M-N- sounds immanent within them translate into M-N- sounding words in many Indo-European languages:
Amhain (‘soul’ in early Irish), Manes (‘soul’ in Latin), ātman (the self / soul / eternal, unchanging essence of a human / identical to brahman in the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages, as well as in Hinduism and Buddhism from earliest times), and of course Mania (mother of the dead souls in the Ancient Roman Empire).
So we see that even in the definition of Cryptotypes, Whorf needed to reference a signifier whose cognate translations in a variety of Indo-European languages (and religions!) grant us access to this fundamental M-N- cryptotypic semantic signalling system.
And, indeed, if this M-N- phoneme / sound / phenotype should prove to be the fundamental portal into humanity’s fundamental Cryptotypic semantic signalling system, this might explain the ubiquity of the phenomenon (in all the words in bold in this text, for example) which I term the “Reversion to the Moon[-based metaphor semantic signalling system]5” throughout Indo-European culture (in time, space, language, and religions).
And that, my friends, is why my kind correspondent subscriber who pointed me in the direction of Cryptotypes is definitely on to something.
Since as student Counter Disinfolklorists fighting to preserve the post-WWII legal order (note the Rd / Rt sound in there!) we need to look for the Mana in the meme, we understand the preeminent importance of determining the existence and quality of the layers of meaning in any particular meme.
And, therefore, understanding the most fundamental layer of meaning in any Disinfolklore involves understanding the existence of these two Cryptotypes.
So as we continue on these intertwining metaphorical mental and physical journeys together - Finding Manuland, Disinfolklore, and DecodingTrolls - let’s celebrate together what may be the most significant discovery in Indo-European linguistics since de Saussure6.
“The main aspects in which de Saussure’s Cours influenced subsequent linguistic thought can be summarized in the following dichotomies: signifier vs. signified, the two components of the linguistic sign, with the unavoidable prevalence of the former, which is the typical object of linguistic investigation, over the latter…”
Victor C. de Munck. “When Cryptotype Meets the Imaginary: ‘Adultery’ in a Sri Lankan Village.” Modern Folk Devils. Helsinki University Press, 2021. 245-. Web.
There is another arch joke being played on the manifold Indo-European linguists whose very names include the M-N- sound. This significant subset of researchers - I have been keeping stock of them: includes Muellner and de Munck quoted here (and Max Fomin, quoted in my Menua piece) - of Indo-Europeanists appear to be the butt of the deity of linguistics’ humour. They are driven perhaps by a nominative determinism they never consciously intuited. Moving towards discovering what I have of the ubiquity of the M-N- sound as each time someone says, they write, or they think of their own name (M-N- is reversed in “name”) / moniker. And yet, they never quite grasped it. True proof of the hidden ubiquity of Cryptotypes! Delicious.
Dumézil’s seminal work on Numen, early Roman religion was a key early influence in my work (see Dumézil, Georges, and Philip Krapp. Archaic Roman Religion; with an Appendix on the Religion of the Etruscans. Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Print). As indeed was Mauss, Marcel. The Gift : Expanded Edition. Trans. Jane I. Guyer. Expanded edition. Chicago, Illinois: HAU Books, 2016. Print. Both were so close to recognising the M-N- sound pattern. But they didn’t quite get it. Yet, without their grasping towards it, I should never have got to it either.
“Reversion to the Moon” is my arch Moniker for the phenomenon of the recurrence of this M-N- sound. Here, I’m riffing off the phenomenon in statistics known as Reversion to the Mean. Computational artificial neural network algorithms that power (energise - note the Rg in energy) so much of our communications and communities’ organisation (both off- and on-line) today are based on the discovery by Galton of this phenomenon in Data Analytics of Regression / Reversion to the Mean - in any dataset of more than 32 randomly gathered datapoints of the same character, there will be a clustering around the average (mean) of most of those datapoints (the normal distribution).
At the age of twenty, in the 1860s, Ferdinand de Saussure from studying extant Indo-European languages deduced a grammatical rule that must have applied in the first Indo-European language 4,500 years before his birth. “The first real confirmation that Saussure was on the right track came in 1927, well after his death, when Jerzy Kurylowicz recognised that the newly deciphered Hittite, the oldest attested IE language, had a consonantal phoneme (<h>) which was etymologically derived from Saussure’s … Conclusions reached largely on the basis of internal reconstruction were convalidated by newly found comparative data [from deciphered Hittite]…”
“Saussure also took an interest in anagrams, which he called “hypograms” or “paragrams,” that he thought he had identified in archaic Latin poetry and other poetic traditions. This device consisted in analyzing certain names and key terms into their syllables and phonemes, which were visible interspersed within the phonological structure of the line. Saussure devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to these studies, though without overcoming his own doubts. Until the end, he hoped to find proof that this anagrammatic technique was secretly codified into esoteric rules, handed down by poets through the generations.”
By identifying THE two fundamental Cryptotypes underpinning all extant Indo-European languages I have moved linguistics beyond de Saussure’s mere identification of the distinction of Sign and Signified. Indeed, I am also moving way beyond both de Saussure and Muellner’s intuition about Manyú and Homer’s mēnis, into a novel understanding that the meanings of memes featuring these M-N- sounds are definitively grounded on the Moon-based metaphorical signalling semantic system.
In addition, my work provides a separate and distinct way of determining whether or not any language, dialect, culture or religion is Indo-European. This complements work by linguists and comparative mythologists (like Dumézil), as well as archaeologists, archaeogeneticists, and those using isotope analysis to demonstrate our genetic, linguistic, and cultural origins among the Yamnaya in eastern Ukraine before 2,500 BCE. 🙇🏽.