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HIDDEN MEANINGS IN ENGLISH ^*
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Introduction

Discovering the hidden sentences in words and names is similar to doing a crossword puzzle in two very different languages. Almost all English words, and many English names, contain such hidden sentences, written in a form of shorthand and using a language similar to Basque and a vowel-interlocking formula (see Nyland (2001)

(V)CV1-V1CV2-V2CV3-V3CV4-V4C etc.

Note that each vowel after the first, optional vowel, the 'V' is repeated. This is emphasized by numbering each repeated vowel. That is to say that, if two 'Basque' roots/morphemes - ORE and ETO - were combined by this system they would appear in the interlocked form 'ORETO' . Since 'ORE' means balance, hour or mole, and 'ETO' means to come, origin or inborn, we might assign a tentative meaning to the new word e.g. 'inborn balance' or 'the hour has come'. (For comments re choice among possible meanings see below).

The same formulation reflects the construction of the Sanskrit vocabulary as well as all the Romance languages, including Latin. But there are differences in detail. In the formation of Latin words, as many vowels as possible were retained, most words generally adhering to the VCVCV structure. However, in English, many more of the vowels disappeared and the CVC structure was promoted as shown in names (Bonner, Duncan, Hudson, Robson, Somner etc.) and in words (cellar, doctor, hawser, master, pillow, tartan etc.). And, distinguishing the language from Latin, the pronunciation of the alphabet changed.

As a general rule, the more vowels disappeared, the more time consuming the job of restoring the hidden sentence becomes. In the following pages the process of bringing out the hidden sentence will be explained, starting with the simplest, in which no vowels were discarded. If the spelling of name or word was changed over time, it becomes more difficult, or it may not be possible to recover the hidden meaning. However, quite often the change in the word's spelling becomes obvious when decoding (e.g. 'recidivist' came from 'recidivist' below). Occasionally more than one possible meaning appears in which case both should be reported and/or earlier spellings researched.

The meaning of English words will usually help to guide the decoding process. However, most English names do not have an obvious meaning, which makes the decoding more time consuming. In general, every consonant represents a full word, and the more consonants in a word or name, the longer the hidden sentence is and the more likely it is that it can be recovered.

PROBLEMS IN DETERMINATION OF MEANINGS

Where the meaning of the word being translated from the VCV shorthand can be checked by context, it is important that it be checked again in completing the entire translation. Forced, unnatural or inappropriate results should be suspect. In this case, we may have a CV syllable which is never part of the VCV list and must be translated directly with the use of the dictionary.

Where we have one word only, we face a problem, which is common in handling language. Consider if one is given the task of finding a meaning for the letters D U C K. We could say the meaning was an aquatic bird, a quick downward movement, a score at Cricket, an avoidance of an issue etc.

So by its very nature, the meaning will often seem less than precise. Spoken language tends to rely on physical context e.g. Australian 'wagga' can mean a specific species of bird (a magpie) or birds (magpies), or in some context, 'birds' generally. Written language on the other hand is more exact but has been subject to spelling change through loss or change of letters e.g. the name 'couper' from French 'le cupera' is now spelt as 'cooper', ‘cowper’ and even 'coup'.

We have to be careful here, because some names and words look very much alike but translate very differently, e.g. Millar and Miller below. Nevertheless, with practice and context, meaning can usually be interpreted.

As is well known, in the Indo-European languages the vowels are generally unstable i.e. they change frequently within the root (e.g. sing, sang, sung), or with popular use, over time. In the Basque language on the other hand, the vowels are extremely stable with only few, mostly forced, exceptions (e.g. Euskera to Euskara, etor to ator) while the consonants are sometimes quite unstable, F = B, Y and J = I, Q and C = K, H is often omitted, D is sometimes T (e.g. in idi to itxi, udikan to utikan), S, Z and X (pronounced 'sh') are often confused in word development.

Basque has no C, Q, V, W and Y, although some have sneaked into the names and some words; the word Basque, should itself be spelled Bask.

The first syllable in most English words originates from a Basque-like VCV with the first vowel removed. This appears to have been the basic rule. Only if the desired VCV was not available would a Basque word starting with CV be recruited; common in Greek and the Germanic languages, but uncommon in English.

In creation of English words it is fortunately infrequent to find many consonants clustered together, such as appears in Sanskrit (Samskrta, with 5 contiguous C's) or Dutch (angstschreeuw, with 8 contiguous C's). In English three consonants together are common e.g. conclude, country, destroy, irksome, naughty, puzzle etc. but four C's is rarer, e.g. instruct, minstrel etc. In decoding such words, the vowel-interlocking rule can be applied as usual, but the number of letter combinations that need to be tried increases considerably.

It is interesting to note that, although almost one quarter of all VCV's have no meanings attached, these unused syllables are only rarely found in the English vocabulary unless the word is misspelled or was altered over time.

PROCEDURE

1) The vowel interlocking formula (shown above).

This formula was worked out by the author during his research into translating the Ogam inscriptions of Scotland and Ireland. He discovered that the language of Ogam was Basque. The Basques are a people genetically closely related to the Irish and Scots, especially as shown in their high frequency of Rh-negative blood, 25 - 32%, the only peoples in the world with those high percentages. The formula's accuracy was then tested and confirmed on a large number of Indo-European languages from Sanskrit to Greek, Latin and Spanish, and Germanic languages such as Dutch, German, and Yiddish, which see. In the majority of English words, the first vowel was removed. This in contrast to Basque, this has about half of its vocabulary starting with a vowel.

2) The VCV word list.

This list was created by the author by listing all 400 VCVs (ABA, ABE, ABI, ABO, ABU, EBA etc) and then listing the meanings associated with these VCVs as shown in the VCV list. Some 100 of these 400 VCV's have no meanings attached and are believed to have been reserved for future expansion of the language. Many of these word groups are related, such as for instance ABA which is used for words connected to the 'manger scene'. Some VCVs have only one meaning such as IHO (thunder) but some, like R and RR collect a very large variety of meanings. The RR is treated as single R for decoding, but not for translating. The VCV wordlist is only an aid and the Basque dictionary must be consulted for words that more accurately describe the situation.

3) The Basque Dictionary.

The excellent Basque-English dictionary by Gorka Aulestia (University of Nevada Press) is used as the standard source. To speed up the work it is often desirable to have his companion English-Basque dictionary also. (Do not buy the one volume B-E and E-B dictionary, which is for school use only and inadequate for decoding.)

STEPS IN THE DECODING PROCESS

The simplest way to explain the decoding process appears to be through a combination of basic rules and the use of examples. The least complicated English words for decoding are the ones in which the full VCVs are intact, as in the first examples that follow. From there the examples will get more complicated as more vowels are removed. Occasionally, non-interlocking words have been combined into one, e.g. 'inoculate' (see below) which is one little problem of many that must be watched out for. Make sure that matching words only be taken from interlocking pairs. In the case of a double vowel (diphthong), an 'h' has often been eliminated. This is quite common in Basque also e.g. the word 'custom' is both oitura and ohitura.

The steps are:

1) Arrange the letters of the word to be analyzed as VCVCVCV, placing dots where vowels or an 'h' were eliminated. Then replace C and Q with K, V with B or F, W is ignored and Y with I or J.

2) Break up the sequence so obtained into VCV-VCV-VCV-VCV etc. in which the vowels of either side of the hyphen are the same.

3) Using the VCV word list (or the dictionary), arrange the appropriate words under each VCV. (There is usually no need to list words that are obviously unrelated to the meaning at hand.) The result of this can be that a list of possible words for e.g. ONE, representing several different meanings, may be quite different from another list with the same VCV, depending on the words to be decoded. For name decoding, all or most words supplied in the VCV word list are used, although character traits are often involved.

4) Select those words which make a sentence most closely describing the words to be decoded.

EXAMPLES:

In the following examples, only a few of the possible meanings of each VCV are shown. For a more complete list, see VCV dictionary.

Words with the VCVs intact (i.e., no vowel removal)

adore, ado – ore

ado	ore
to dress, food	to grab
courage	always
to cheer up	dog
to worship	hour

ado ado adoratu to worship
ore ore oren hour

"The hour of worship".

ebony, ebo – oni

ebo	oni
develop	acceptable
create	useful, luck
evolution	consent

eb.  ebo  eboluzionatu to develop, create
        .ni  oni  onizan        something useful
               "Create something useful".

evade, eba – ade

eba	ade
thief, fraud, swindler	to prepare
hide-out, to cut	rude
remnant	temple

eba eba ebasle swindler
ade ade adeigabeko rude
"Rude swindler".

enumerate, enu - ume - era – ate

enu	ume	era	ate
useless	child	education	protection
inertia	offspring	sample	door to door
sedentary	give birth	patience	main entrance
stay at home	to adopt	exercise	member

enu    enu    enulkeria       sedentary/stay at home
ume    ume    ume             offspring/birth
era    era    erakuskari      sample
ate    ate    atez-ate        door to door

"Go door to door to sample the offspring at home".

obese, obe – ese

obe	ese
to improve	to sit
well-meaning	chair
guilty	to object
to prefer	to argue

obe obe obetsi to prefer
ese obe eseri to sit

"(He/she) prefers to sit".

inanity, ina - ani – iti

ina	ani	iti
hail	animal	to allow
agitation	many	to denounce
to open	to increase	to stop
to shake	often	faithful

ina    ina    inarrospen      agitation
ani    ani    aniztu         to increase
iti    iti    itxi            to denounce

"Denounce the increase in agitation".

inoculate, ino - oku - ula – ate

ino	oku	ula	ate
somehow	fertile field, N.A.	to receive	to get
any place	'ku	to welcome	protection
time to time	immunity		result
sometimes			calm

ino    ino    inoiz edobehin      from time to time
    oku    'ku    kutsagaiztasun      immunity
    ula    ula    ulatu               to receive
    ate    ate    aterpe              shelter/protection

"From time to time receive immunity for protection".

(This word should really be two words because the vowel interlocking is interrupted: ino'kulate).

WORDS MISSING ONE VOWEL

cupola, .ku - upo - ola, first vowel is missing.

try: aku	upo	ola
to rent	stave	cabin
acoustics	barrel shaped	canopy
try: eku		plank
equator, worried		just like this
try: iku
watchful, to visit
scenic
try: oku
fertile field
try: uku
falsify, smelly

.ku    iku    ikusgarri     scenic
upo    upo    upohol        barrel shaped
ola    ola    olana         canopy

"Scenic barrel-shaped canopy".

delegate, .de - ele - ega – ate

try: ade	ele	ega	ate
temple, announce	story	escape	outside
courteous, prepare	gossip	anxiety	knock at the door
try: ede	flattering	to make thirsty	remark
esteem, history		to favor	to get
to be pleased			consequence
exaggerate, mislead
try: ide
companion
to open
to compare, swap
try: ode
cloud, horizon
try: ude
summer house

.de    ide    idetu        to compare, to swap
ele    ele    ele          story
ega    ega    egarritu     to make someone thirsty
ate    ate    aterapen    consequence

"The consequence of swapping stories is that one gets thirsty".

energy, ene - er. - .gi

ene	try: era	try: agi
my	profit, available	I wish, I hope
attract me	method, sample	powerful
always	suffer, storm	to order
before	to motivate	promise
in me	attack, to scatter	threat
	try: ere	try: egi
	scatter, wasteland	to create, action
	occasion	possible, undone
	try: eri	try: igi
	sickness, recovery	harvest
	compare, fight	sickle
	strong, skillful
	try: ero	try: ogi
	risky, transport	bread, crust, maid
	insanity, comfort	baker, easygoing
	try: eru	try: ugi
	mistake. producing	N.A.
	abundant