THE SCRIPT OF RAPA NUI (EASTER ISLAND) IS LOGOSYLLABIC, THE LANGUAGE IS EAST POLYNESIAN: EVIDENCE FROM CROSS-READINGS

Successful decipherment of forgotten scripts can be demonstrated by cross-readings, in which the same phonetic value for the same sign is independently obtained in at least three different contexts. The Kohau Rongorongo script is a pictorial writing system developed on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) before the arrival of Europeans. The knowledge of the script was lost. Provisional reading values for 20 signs are suggested on the basis of their combinatorial properties, contexts of use and sign imagery. Interpretations for 11 of the signs are confirmed by cross-readings, which reveal that seven of them are logographic and four are syllabic. The implications are that (i) the system is logosyllabic, (ii) the language is East Polynesian and (iii) some phonetic signs are of acrophonic origin.