The Symbolism of Long Vowels

jwr47

Introduction
In its current shape language is a torn down and worn out archaic monument. Most of its beauty
consists of blurred outlines which accidentally may have resisted the deterioration of ages. Words
may have been spared in the shadow of huge cavities or protected by the alpine mountains and
survived the harsh winds of destruction by ignorance and neglect.
One of these beautiful words, which have survived the process is the Dutch word schitterend
(English glistering) in which the scattered light may be caught and dissected by my ears to form
separated audible rays of sound. This process of imitating the visible impression in audible
sensations must have been built in the original linguistic concept.
The concept itself must have been a masterpiece to be accepted by the Master Designer(s). As
historians we may try to restore the original outlines and replace some of the fundamentals as if
they were limestone blocks in the ruins of an ancient Roman forum.
Misused words may have lost most of the original shapes, but the ancient Master Designer(s)
foresaw some of the deterioration effects and provided the endangered symbols with supporting
stabilizing struts. Some mechanisms may have been used from the beginning, others will have been
inserted and intended as a Mother of Reading to preserve original accents which without any help
were at risk to be lost entirely.
Not all of the demolitions have been saved, but in the alpine niches I found some remarkable
originals which may help to restore the other worn out items. It is like restoring a row of identical
sculptures from one preserved object which had been hidden in the sand.
Of course this restoration process had to be studied and analyzed for some years. I already had
found remarkable archaeological items such as the Provencal word Diu and the corresponding ego-
pronoun1 iu in the French Alpine regions of the Provence. I knew the iu belonged to Diu. Most
of this conviction had been certified by the acute accent. I also knew the corresponding French ego-
pronoun had been defined without an acute accent and abbreviated to je.
In the neighborhood of the ancient Swiss episcopal center Chur I had found similar couples iau
Diau, iou Diou, eau ( a missing Deau ?) which all had been buried in a very small region
concentrated around a river junction of the upper Rhine. These words did not carry an acute accent
and I wondered why the Provencal language had added this peculiar acute accent to enforce the
correct pronunciation.
Chur is one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland and became the seat of the first Christian
diocese north of the Alps. A Bishop of Chur is first mentioned in 451-452, but the diocese may have
existed a few decades earlier. The city is surrounded by a protective ring of high mountains. The
alpine region seemed to have protected the linguistic masterpieces from decay, but how could we
restore the unique variety of vowel-colored marbles?
Further to the north the English ego-pronoun Y, which had been used by John Wycliffe for his
Genesis translation matched to the divine name Tyr or Tiw, with a southern German equivalent
ranging from Tiw (Tiuu) or Tiu to Ziu. In the end the ego-pronoun Y transformed to I, but it
still matched the rule, that a divine name might be generated by a T-consonant by adding the ego-
pronoun and eventually a terminating consonant (r or s).

1 singular personal pronoun in the subjective case (I; Latin: ego)

Relations between the sky-god and the ego-pronoun
Dio = D & io (Italian)
Diu = D & iu (Provencal)
Dou = D & Yiou (Nmes)2
Deu = D & eu (Portuguese)
Tyr = T & y & r (English)
Ziu = D & i(h) (southern Germany)
This time I concentrated on the conjugation of the verbs for which I had discovered a fine database 3
full of circa 90 verbs. It turned out to an archaeological treasury of iu-suffices in the conditional
and imperfect conjugations. Some of the iu-suffices even spread into the present conjugations.
The lists clearly revealed the immense power of the ego-pronoun, which may eventually dominate
all other words including the divine names.
Morris Swadesh intuitively seemed to have been right in placing the ego-pronoun on the first
position of the most important words in all languages, although he may have suppressed the sky-
god's Name Dyaus, who also provides us with a genuine iu-core.
Unfortunately the available digitized version of Mireille turned out to provide us with a very bad
punctuation. The accents grave often looked like simple dots and sometimes the letters varied all
over the place between ------.
Mistral didn't care and allowed the accents to vary between Dieu, Diu and Diu. Het painted his
masterpiece in the raw sense of impressionism, in which the poetic rhyme dominated the coloring.
Provencal vowels seemed to me to behave like scattered fresh oil dyes on Vincent van Gogh's
Provencal's paintings.
Although the search procedures in the digitized texts turned out to be unreliable I profited from the
search capacity to find variants of words. This type of work would have cost years to be performed
from paper versions of the documents.
I hope to find some more sources for the genuine triphthongs, for the Provencal dialects also
provides us with some fine iou- and iau-variants, but first of all I need to complete the status quo as
it is now...

2 Yiou & Dou in the dialect of Nimes - Antoine Hippolyte Bigot (1825 - 1897)
3 Source: the famous Excelsheet Conjugation Provencal Verbs
Strange patterns in the Provencal conjugation
Studying Mirio - a poem in Provencal language by French writer Frdric Mistral I found a
mysterious mechanism in handling the short and long vowels in the ancient spelling Provencal
language.
I also discovered remarkable pattern in the conjugation of the first person singular for most of the
verbs.
In Provencal the conjugation of verbs resulted in a iu-suffix for the conditional conjugation and
for a majority of the imperfect conjugations. Even a few of the present conjugations seemed to be
conjugated with a iu-suffix.
A few samples of these words may illustrate the mechanism4:

English Franais Verbe Marsiho Present Imparfait Conditionnel

to go Aller Ana vau anvi anariu
to have Avoir Ave ai aviu auriu
to say Dire Dire diu disiu diriu
to be Etre Estre siu ri sariu
to make Faire Faire fau fasiu fariu
to laugh Rire Rire riu risiu ririu
to see Voir Veire viu vesiu veiriu
1: First Person Singular Conjugations for Some Provencal Verbs
selected from Excelsheet Conjugation Provencal Verbs (approximately 90 verbs)

The words to say (dire), to be (estre), to laugh (rire) and to see (veire) reveal an ego-pronoun in the
first person singular conjugation: diu, siu, riu and viu.
The remarkable effect is the intact 3-vowel structure for the ego-pronoun iu, which in modern
languages has been deteriorated, in French to je or in English even to a singular vowel i.
The Provencal language seemed to have preserved its original linguistic concept for some
categories of words.
A remarkable word diu also matches the Provencal word Diu (God), which also includes
the 3-vowel ego-pronoun iu.
As a remarkable feature these words are using a letter e with an accent aigu, which enforces the
speakers to pronounce this 3-vowel structure as triphthong with long, isolated vowels ii-ee-uu, -
- or --.
The triphthong (representing "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a
monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the
articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. 5

4 Source: Excelsheet Conjugation Provencal Verbs

5 See wikipedia's entry triphthong
Triphthongs in Provencal
In Wikipedia no information is found for triphthongs in Provencal language although the Mireille,
pome provenal; avec la traduction littrale en regard describes the pronunciation which has been
mastered by the medieval troubadours6:
In Provencal the vowel u may be pronounced as in normal French, except in the case
it immediately follows another vowel. In this case it must be pronounced ou.

This way, in the diphthongs au, eu, ou, and in the triphthongs iau, iu, iu, you should
pronounce these as ou, ou, ou, respectively the triphthongs as iou, iou, iou.

These rules have been followed by the classic troubadours.

We may see how the sounds u, u, iu, iu are being accentuated: this is the way to
distinct the pronunciation of the sounds eu and ou, which also are being used in the
Oc-language (langue d'Oc)7.

Examples are the words Enfant Jeuse, enfant Jsus, tout, urous, mounde, etc.).

Jeuse and Jsus

In Provencal Jeuse is an alternative spelling for Jsus:
- Jeuse, moun Diu ! dono-te garde !8 Jsus, mon Dieu! prends garde!
- Jeuse! Maia ! touli faguron,9 Jsus ! Maria ! dirent-ils tous,
Tout cridavo en mournt : O, Jesu 's Fiu de Diu! tout criait en mourant : Oui, Jsus
est Fils de Dieu !

Fiu de Diu
The word fiu (son) also includes the ego-pronoun iu, which allows us to list a number of
words which are simply structured as a letter, which is followed by the suffix iu:

Miu in contrast to mieu (mieux)

The word Miu (mine) uses the same accent as the ego-pronoun iu, which is different from
mieu10 (better).

siucle sicle
The word siucle represents the French word sicle (century).

6 In French this section has been written for native French speakers and may be misunderstood in English
vocalization.
7 in contrast to the Oui-language
8 Pages 66 in Mireille - Jeuse, moun Diu ! dono-te garde !
9 Pages 216 in Mireille Jeuse! Maia ! touli faguron,
10 French: mieux
Vii vieux (old)
The word iu is related to eternity, stability, law, scripture (old-English: .
In French (aieux) the ancestors and aged (Provencal: vii) people are respected by
symbolizing age with a great number of vowels. (Old-French: aiol, aiuel ).

liu if (yew, taxus)

The poisonous yew may have symbolized death and (for its slow growth) eternal life. The tree
Yggdrasil may have been a yew tree11. Yggdrasil is an immense ash tree (or yew) that is center to
the cosmos and considered very holy

Eternity
The words i(ei) younger futhark: always, Greek: ,
iga, iga (younger futhark: property),
(ai n), genitiv: , aeuum (eternity); English: aeon, eon; Latin aeon,
aevum (age), Ancient Greek
ay Old English , , Middle Dutch ie, German je always Dutch eeuw (century) always
English aye.
ieu (centrury) West Frisian ; the Dutch word nieuw (new) may be a negation of ieu (?)

Awe, Matrimony
Awe (respct)
aiwisks (awful)
aiwaggli (Latin: Evangelium)
, Dutch matrimony eega ; German: Ehe
wart12 (-guard: the guardian of law in The Song of Roland)

Justice
ius (law)
justice (Latin: iustitia)
just (Latin: iustus)

Jeudi dijou
From Latin Jovis dis or Iovis dis, variant of dis Iovis. Old French jusdi, juesdi
Walloon: djudi ; French: jeudi

jeune joueino
Joueino obviously is a 5-fold vowel string - is this really a tetra- or pentathong?. I am not
sure how the word may have sounded in the Middle Age eras. Up to now this seems to be
the longest vowel string I found. In English it lost a few vowels and reduced its impressive
length to the three vowels y, o, u. Somehow it is related to the evergreen yew.

11 Es of taxus? The taxus is an evergreen tree.

12 ein wart hiez Jaddus
Overview of some vowel words
Clearly the vowel strings iu, jou, iou, ju, eo, dominate the symbolism of the most important
words in languages, culminating in the ego-pronoun.
The most important relevance seems to be eternity, law, custom, which is concentrated in the single
vowel words , , . English provides us with short words such as the ego-pronoun I and seems
to be deteriorated and worn out compared to the long iu in the Provencal equivalent. Any threefold
vowel string in Provencal seemed to be reduced to 1-vowel strings in English.

English Old-English French Provencal Dutch

I, Y (Wyclif) ic je iu ik
I say je dis diu ik zeg
I am je suis siu ik ben
I laugh je ris riu ik lach
I see je vois viu ik zie
mine mien miu mijn
better mieux mieu beter
lively vif (vivant) viu levendig
young geong jeune joueino jong
old vieux vii oud
century sicle siucle eeuw
new nouveau nouvu nieuw
ancestors aieux taioun
grandfather & grandmother aeuls
grandfather or grandmother aeul
god dieu diu god
Thursday (Thor's day) jeudi dijou donderdag
yew (taxus) w, ow if liu ijf
free libre liure vrij
law, custom , , (w), wa droiture drechuro wet
drita
to judge juger judica berechten
awe (aue) eie, ee, egan effroi espavenso ontzag
son fils fiu zoon
thread fil fiu draad
1: Linguistic basics of Provencal vowel strings

roots and conjugations from Excelsheet Conjugation Provencal Verbs (approximately 90 verbs)
Sample patterns of the Provencal conjugation
I extended my search and found some more exceptions for the avi-suffixes in the imperfect
conjugation.
English Franais Verbe Marsiho Present Imparfait Conditionnel
to go Aller Ana vau anvi anariu
to have Avoir Ave ai aviu auriu
to cook Cuire Coueire cose couiu couiriu
to have to Devoir Dure dvi deviu devriu
to say Dire Dire diu disiu diriu
to listen Ecouter Ausi Auvi uvi auviu auviriu
to be Etre Estre siu ri sariu
to make Faire Faire fau fasiu fariu
to join Joindre Jougne jugni jougniu jougneiriu
to play Jouer Juga jugui jugvi jougariu
to read Lire Liegi ( Legi ) ligi, legssi ligiu ligeriu
to restore Rendre Rndre rndi ( rende ) rendiu rendriu
to remain Rester Ista sti istvi istariu
to laugh Rire Rire riu risiu ririu
to know Savoir Saupre sbi sabiu saurriu saupriu
to silence Taire Teisa tisi teisvi teisariu
to fall Tomber Caire csi casiu cairiu
to go Venir Veni vni veniu vendriu
to see Voir Veire viu vesiu veiriu

2: First Person Singular Conjugations for Some Provencal Verbs

selected from Excelsheet Conjugation Provencal Verbs (approximately 90 verbs)
The Mustard Seed
I knew the smallest symbol in language may have been introduced to move the heaviest loads.
And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if
you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from
here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.13

It was the smallest seed the designers introduced to help interpreting the most impressive
monuments. The mustard seeds always seem to be helping in the sacred region, where nothing is
allowed to be unveiled to the barbaric views of unwise and uncivilized barbaric tribes.
First of all the barbaric tribes will have to reach Chur, then they will have to intrude to the
church and open the books to find the words. They may read the letters, but they probably do
not understand the accents.
The acute accent was the mustard seed the Master Designer(s) added to the Provencal Name of God
Diu and the corresponding ego-pronoun iu.
At first I found the couple Diu iu in Mireille 1859 by Frdric Mistral. In Provencal there are
lots of triphthongs14 such as aeul (Grandfather), fiu15, aviu16, tiuno17, aciuno18, reviure19,
Later I found even Dante Alighieri (1265 1321) had used the ego-pronoun ieu in Purgatorio,
Canto 26, lines 141 & 142. referring to an Occitan troubadour Arnaut Danil (11801200)20,
However Dante and Arnaut Danil did not apply the acute accent in their poems
Io mi fei al mostrato innanzi un poco, 136 I edged forward a little toward the other
e dissi ch'al suo nome il mio disire 137 who had been pointed out and said that my desire
apparecchiava grazoso loco. 138 prepared a place of welcome for his name,
El cominci liberamente a dire: 139 to which he readily made answer:
"Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman, 140 'Your courteous question pleases me so much
qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire. 141 I neither can nor would conceal myself from You.
Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan; 142 'I am Arnaut, weeping and singing as I make my
way.
consiros vei la passada folor, 143 I see with grief past follies and I see,
e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan. 144 rejoicing, the joy I hope is coming.
2 The use of the ego-pronoun ieu in Dante's Purgatorio, Canto 26, lines 141 & 142

Arnaut Danil had been praised by Dante as a "the best smith" (miglior fabbro) and
called a "grand master of love" (gran maestro d'amore) by Petrarch.[2] In the 20th
century he was lauded by Ezra Pound in the The Spirit of Romance (1910) as the
greatest poet to have ever lived.

13 Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith

14 While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and
triphthongs three.
15 Old Provence
16 Li rouge du miejour
17 Gramtica histrica provenzal
18 Mireille: pome provencal de Frdric Mistral
19 Notes et commentaires pour le pome de Mirio
20 Source : Divina commedia Princeton Dante Project Purgatorio, Canto 26, line 141 & 142
Arnaut's 4th canto21 contains the lines that Pound claimed were "the three lines by which Daniel is
most commonly known" (The Spirit of Romance, p. 36):
"leu sui Arnaut qu'amas l'aura
E chatz le lebre ab lo bou
E nadi contra suberna"

Translation:
"I am Arnaut who gathers up the wind,
And chases the hare with the ox,
And swims against the torrent." 22

Of course there may have been a loss of details in the quotations, copying and printing procedures
of these Mustard Seeds.

Defining the name Mustard Seeds

At first I thought of naming these accents Mothers of Reading, but the expression Matres
Lectionis or Mothers of Reading already had been restricted to the Hebrew symbols for the
definitions of the vowels in abjads.
An abjad is a segmental script containing symbols for consonants only, or where vowels are
optionally written with diacritics ("pointing") or only written word-initially.
In contrast to an abjad a true alphabet contains separate letters (not diacritic marks) for both
consonants and vowels.
Now I needed an extended set of diacritic marks, which generally helped the reader to identify the
long vowels, which had to be pronounced as perfectly isolated vocals. These long isolated vowels
turned out to be religious elements in the triphthongs.
Of course in Hebrew the functionality of Identifying the long vowels by an acute accent would be
equivalent to the Matres Lectionis, but in modern languages the acute accent would be serving
various purposes, which do not really indicate the rules to identify the religious symbols.
Therefore I defined the mustard seed as a generally very small marker sign to indicate a special
purpose in handling and interpreting the alphabetic letters. It might be
an accent such as the French acute accent, accent circonflexe or accent grave.
in Hebrew a niqqud (vowel sign) such as the Sh'va (/e/), Hiriq (/i/), Tzere (/e/), Segol (/e/),
Kubutz ([u]), Holam ([oo]), Kamatz (/a/), Patach (/a/),
respectively in Arabian texts the Fath ah (/a/), Dammah (/u/), Kasrah (/i/), Maddah (/a/ ),
Hamza (/a/), ...
or other equivalent signs such as commas or dots.
Eventually I also noticed that the mustard seeds also visualized the Creation Legend of expanding
the world to a Universe out of a Mustard Seed:
The thing that was created was a small object that was as small as a seed of mustard, this
was the heavens and everything in it. There was also another small dot that was created and
this contained the earth and all that is contained in it. This is the primordial matter for the
heavens and the primordial matter for the earth."23

21 Arnaut Daniel: Complete Works (in English and Provenal)

22 Arnaut Danil
23 Rambam, Maharal, the weekly parsha and other topics in Judaism
Reducing the vowel sets to the long vowels A-I-U
The earliest method of indicating some vowels in Hebrew writing was to use the
consonant letters yod, waw, he, and aleph of the Hebrew alphabet to also write long
vowels in some cases.

Originally, aleph and he were only at the end of words, and yod and waw were used
mainly to write the original diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/ as well as original vowel+[y]
+vowel sequences (which sometimes simplified to plain long vowels).

In modern printed texts the matres lectionis are sometimes used even for short vowels,
which is considered to be grammatically incorrect according to traditional norms, but
instances are found as far back as Talmudic times. 24

In Arabic, the matres lectionis are alif (/a/ or a glottal stop //) , waw (/w/, /u/ , /o/ ) ,
and ya' ( /j/, /i/, /e/ ).

In French I found out the most important words had been based on long vowels, especially
concatenated in triphthongs25 such as aeul (Grandfather).
In ancient eras the honored grandparents may have been considered as semi-divine or divine
representatives. They had to be honored by lots of vowels. The most honored grandfather may have
been the sky god, in Proto-Indo-European languages: Dyeus.
A great number of most important words referring to eternity or eternal powers such as divine
beings, the law, marriage, history, leadership, etc. Obviously eternity had been encoded in
triphthongs or deteriorated vowel strings.
Originally the ancient languages seemed to have been based on three long vowels A, I, U. The other
vowels may be considered as later transitions caused by deterioration.
In a number of ancient languages such as Hebrew, Arabian, Gothic and Proto-Vandalic26 are based
on the vowels A, I and U.
The Proto-Germanic vowel system was asymmetric and unstable. The difference between the long
vowels expressed by e and (sometimes transcribed as *1 and *2) were lost. The Younger
Futhark continues neither, lacking a letter expressing e altogether.
The Anglo-Saxon futhorc faithfully preserved all Elder futhorc staves, but assigned new sound
values to the redundant ones, futhorc oh expressing a diphthong.
In the case of the Gothic alphabet, where the names of the runes were re-applied to letters derived
from the Greek alphabet, the letter ? e was named aus "horse" as well (note that in Gothic
orthography, <a> represents monophthongic /e/)27.
Old Persian (Aryan) the reduction to three vowels has been proven by inscriptions such as the
Behistun inscription. The script encodes three vowels, a, i, u, and twenty-two consonants, k, x, g, c,
, j, t, , d, p, f, b, n, m, y, v, r, l, s, z, , and h.28

24 History 1.1 Hebrew

25 While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and
triphthongs three.
26 Vandalic
27 Ehwaz
28 Old Persian cuneiform
The vocal tract
The vocal tract is the articulation cavity in human beings. The estimated average length of the
vocal tract in adult male humans is 16.9 cm and 14.1 cm in adult females.
While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulation position, diphthongs
have two, and triphthongs three Places of articulation.
A vowel is any phoneme in which airflow is impeded only or mostly by the voicing action of the
vocal cords.
The vowel triangle is an I-A-U based triangular concept defining the borderline frequencies for the
vowels. Fundamental speech frequencies are 130 Hz for male and 260 Hz for female speakers29.

The vowel triangle (introduced by Christoph Friedrich Hellwag, 1781)

Foucault refers to the Vowel Triangle (by Christoph Friedrich Hellwag, who designed the triangular
concept of arranging vowels A, I and U in a triangular in 1781).
In this concept the I, U and A are extremities, whereas E and O are transitory positions.30

3: vowel triangle - tongue

position (public domain)
(MiB) - (1781)

With respect to the tongue's position the triangle's base is a deep vocal a. The tops are
the high vocals i respectively (with rounded lips) at the front articulation position
and thehigh Vocal u at the deepest articulation position. A median opening may be
found at the e respectively. (with rounded lips) at the front articulation position and o
at the deepest articulation position.31

In his German Grammatics32 Jacob Grimm describes the problem of exact vowel definition.
Originally the vowels were considered to be fluid and unstable. Therefore the ancient writing had
been restricted to the consonants, which may have been thought to deliver more stability33.

29 Vokaldreieck Frequenzlage der ersten beiden Formanten (schematisch) (PDF-Datei; 230 kB)
30 page 291 in the order of things
31 Vokaldreieck (1781)
32 Deutsche Grammatik (1819)
33 Michel Foucault Les Mots et les choses. Une archologie des sciences humaines) (1966)
Allh
The use of ligature in Arabic is common. A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven
distinct components is commonly used to represent the word Allh. The word ( Allh) is usually
produced automatically by entering "alif lm lm h". The word consists of alif + ligature of
doubled lm with a shadda and a dagger alif above lm.
Components of a ligature for "Allah" are: 1. alif 2. hamzat was l 3. lm 4. lm 5. shadda 6. dagger
alif (/a/) 7. h

4: Components of a ligature for "Allah":

1. alif
2. hamzat wasl ( )
3. lm
4. lm
5. shadda ( )
6. dagger alif ( )
7. h

Public Domain
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Relations between the sky-god and the ego-pronoun.................................................................2
Strange patterns in the Provencal conjugation............................................................................3
Triphthongs in Provencal............................................................................................................4
Jeuse and Jsus.......................................................................................................................4
Fiu de Diu...........................................................................................................................4
Miu in contrast to mieu (mieux)...........................................................................................4
siucle sicle .....................................................................................................................4
Vii vieux (old)..................................................................................................................5
liu if (yew, taxus)............................................................................................................5
Eternity...................................................................................................................................5
Awe, Matrimony.....................................................................................................................5
Justice.....................................................................................................................................5
Jeudi dijou ........................................................................................................................5
jeune joueino.....................................................................................................................5
Overview of some vowel words..................................................................................................6
Sample patterns of the Provencal conjugation............................................................................7
The Mustard Seed ...........................................................................................................................8
Defining the name Mustard Seeds...........................................................................................9
Reducing the vowel sets to the long vowels A-I-U...................................................................10
The vocal tract...........................................................................................................................11
The vowel triangle (introduced by Christoph Friedrich Hellwag, 1781).............................11
Allh..........................................................................................................................................12