{"id":224,"date":"2010-02-21T18:18:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T01:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2010-02-21T18:18:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T01:18:37","slug":"cthulhu-fhtagn-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"Cthulhu fhtagn, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve been playing around with the Cthulhu invocation from H.P. Lovecraft:<\/p>\n

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.<\/em>
\n“In his house at R’leyh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”<\/p>\n

Here is my personal interpretation of that phrase:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Looking at Lovecraft’s translation, it appears to me that the sentence should be read “backwards” as in Fhtagn wgah’nagl R’lyeh, Cthulhu mglw’nafh ph’nglui.<\/em> Stick a comma between R’lyeh and Cthulhu for good measure.<\/li>\n
  2. fhtagn<\/em> then becomes a participial construction meaning something like “waiting; lying in wait (as a predator)”<\/li>\n
  3. wgah’nagl<\/em> becomes “in (his) house\/abode”<\/li>\n
  4. R’lyeh<\/em>, the proper name of the sunken city, modifies wgah’nagl<\/em>, making the phrase R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn<\/em> something like “Waiting in his R’lyeh abode”<\/li>\n
  5. Cthulhu<\/em> is, of course, Cthulhu, the agent of the sentence.<\/li>\n
  6. Sticking to my idea of modifiers coming after their words, mglw’nafh<\/em> should mean “dead”. But Cthulhu cannot actually die (at least in the human sense). Therefore, I’m making mglw’nafh<\/em> mean something like “potentially active, physically inactive, dormant bodily manifestation”.<\/li>\n
  7. ph’nglui<\/em> on the other hand is translated by Lovecraft as “dreaming”. But we know that Cthulhu can influence humans with his mind. ph’nglui<\/em> I am translating then as “active mental state” in contrast to mglw’nafh<\/em>, “a dormant physical state”, but the word in some verbal state.<\/li>\n
  8. Furthermore, take the words ph’nglui<\/em> and wgah’nagl<\/em>. Note the same consonant root in both nglui<\/em> and nagl<\/em> (n-g-l). Using this similarity, I’m saying that nagl<\/em> refers to something “inside or within”, and nglui<\/em> is an “interior mental state”. By this reasoning then, wgah’<\/em> should mean “house, abode”.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Using this reasoning then, we get:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Ph’nglui<\/em> <\/td>\nmglw’nafh<\/em> <\/td>\nCthulhu<\/em> <\/td>\nR’lyeh<\/em> <\/td>\nwgah’nagl<\/em> <\/td>\nfhtagn.<\/em> <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    “dreaming” active mental state (verb)<\/td>\n“dead” dormant physical state (participle)<\/td>\n(agent)<\/td>\n(proper name)<\/td>\n“in (his) abode”<\/td>\nwaiting (participle)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

    Comments?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve been playing around with the Cthulhu invocation from H.P. Lovecraft: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. “In his house at R’leyh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” Here is my personal interpretation of that phrase: Looking at Lovecraft’s translation, it appears to me that the sentence should be read “backwards” as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,29,23],"tags":[58,59],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-conlanging","category-fiction","tag-cthulhu","tag-lovecraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.conlang.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}