Re: Latest on Hamptonese

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > [Dennis:] I also think that Hampton thought that his script had
    > mystical significance. Every piece of his Throne is labeled both
    > in English and Hamptonese.

Those labels may be the Rosette stone! But surely that has been
tried before, and obviously it didn't work... But at least the labels
should put some constraints on the nature of the Hamptonese "code".

    > I currently recognize 31 characters. I also have seen a few more
    > characters in text that I haven't yet transcribed. However, I
    > doubt that the real total reaches 40. That doesn't indicate
    > either a syllabic or a logographic script.
    
That is a strong point. 

Hampton *could* conceivalbly have used a logographic system where each
word was encoded by 2 or 3 of what you consider to be single letters.
And/or, perhaps Hamptonese has a very small vocabulary and does not
record syntactic subtleties --- sort of a simplified Chinese,
specialized for commandments and revelations. However I agree that
these theories are stretching it...

On the other hand, it seems a bit unlikely that Hampton would develop
a truly phonetic alphabet with distinctive signs for 30+ sounds.
Instead, I would expect a system where the same symbol represents two
or three distinct phonemes, that are to be disambiguated by context
--- as in standard English spelling. (Only I would expect Hampton's
"spelling" to be more systematic than English).

    > The most common consonant y has two variants that might in fact
    > be separate letters/phonemes (sound familiar?).
  
I see that you also ignored the underlining in some characters--- cf.
e.g. the "l"s of <p10.2> and <p10.15>, and the "v"s of <p10.7> and
<p10.20>. If these details were taken into account, perhaps the total
would get close to the range of syllabic scripts. Japanese hiragana,
for eample, has about 50 symbols.

    > With the Ten Commandments, I thought that his
    > equivalents are single words, perhaps mnemonic.  

Perhaps, although they seem to have some structure that suggests a
syntax of sorts. For example, many of his 19 commandments begin "T",
and many end with "v" or "vp".

    > I don't remember a "last commandment". Where did you see that?
    
Sorry, I misremembered "10th" as "last" in the following bit (If I was
the VMs author, then you could easily guess that "daiin" meant "I"
and "dain" meant "sorry".)

  http://www.missioncreep.com/tilt/hampton.html

  Hampton's masterpiece was inspired by visions that persisted
  throughout his life. He recorded many of the visions on tablets
  that adorn the Throne. The first recorded vision took place when
  he was only 22-years-old: "This is true that the great Moses the
  giver of the tenth commandment appeared in Washington, D.C. April
  11, 1931." 

So my speculation that the commandment <Thrjv> may have been revealed
between p9 and p10 has nothing to stand upon...

    > ... Where do you see a reference to the Virgin Mary?
    
>From the same paragraph:

  http://www.missioncreep.com/tilt/hampton.html

  My favorite states that "...on October 2, 1946, the great Virgin
  Mary and the Star of Bethlehem appeared over the nation's capitol."

Also:

  http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/throne.html

  the Virgin Mary descending [sic] into Heaven, November 2, 1950. It
  is also spoken of by Pope Pius XII." The Pope had proclaimed the
  Assumption of the Virgin as church dogma on that day.
    
BTW, the following bits from that page may be useful hints:

  http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/throne.html

  Labels on [the throne] objects indicate that to the viewer's left
  (or, to the "right hand of God") the pieces refer to the New
  Testament, Jesus, and Grace. To the viewer's right, the system is
  based on the Old Testament, Moses, and Law.
  [...]
  Attached to many of the objects are labels with references to the
  Millennium and Revelation chapters 20 and 21, which describe the
  first Resurrection, the judgment of the dead before God, and the
  new heaven and earth. On one of the pieces Hampton wrote: "The
  word millennium means 'the return of Christ and part of the
  Kingdom of God on earth.'" Deeply affected by the Book of
  Revelation, Hampton must have believed in the inevitability of the
  Second Coming; he, in fact, told one friend that they were living
  in the last millennium. The Throne may have been built to ensure
  his personal salvation as well as to warn and instruct others. An
  adage found on his bulletin board is telling: "Where There Is No
  Vision The People Perish." Visionary experiences and the
  expectation of a Second Coming of Christ are not uncommon among
  the fundamentalist members of the black community, and Hampton's
  Baptist background is likely to have shaped his subsequent
  religious focus.
  [...]
  Intriguing parallels exist between certain details of the Book of
  Revelation and The Throne. When God showed Saint John the events of
  the Second Coming in a vision, he instructed John to record them in a
  little book in a cryptic language. Hampton may have believed that he
  had received a similarly portentous vision, for in addition to
  building The Throne, he developed an as yet undeciphered script and on
  the bottom of each page wrote "Revelation." Named as author of the
  book is Saint James, Hampton's chosen eponym, suggesting that although
  a humble man, he may, nonetheless, have fancied himself a holy figure
  or prophet like Saint John. The book may contain Hampton's translation
  of John's revelations, or, possibly, an entirely original religion
  based on his own vision. The script also appears on labels attached to
  each object, usually following an English word or phrase, suggesting a
  translation into his mysterious language. Composed of graceful
  characters resembling those of semitic or oriental languages, the
  script is the product of an uneducated man who printed his misspelled
  English words in childlike capital letters. It may indeed be inspired
  writing or it may be an artistic creation devoid of meaning.

  http://www.gadfly.org/1999-03/stjames.htm
  
  He also wrote a new book of Revelation. Like St. John's Revelation
  in the New Testament, recorded in a special language on the Isle of
  Patmos and scribbled onto parchment at the speed of a fever dream,
  St. James' Revelation was also a kind of stenography from God. On
  fire with the Spirit when he wrote, he recorded these messages in a
  spiral notebook.

(BTW, this last link is broken on your Hampton page -- I got it throuh
Google.  I am not sure I trust that page though --- some of the details
sound like they have been, um, interpolated for effect.)

    > The Catholic Church does have the "seven deadly sins" -
    > greed, gluttony, rage...
    
Right.

The "Church commandments" of my Sunday classes were actually five. It
seems that they were first compiled in the 15th century, never were an
"official" list, and varied between 5 an 10 depending on time and
place. From an old Catechism (Laurence Vaux, 1583):

  Celebrate and keep the Catholic holy days [in addition to Sabbath=Sunday].
  
  Attend mass every Sunday and holy day.
  
  Keep the fasting days and abstinence from meat as commanded by the Church.

  Confess all sins to a Priest at least once a year.
  
  Take Communion at least once a year.
  
Other versions of the list may have "Pay tithes", "Do not eat meat on
Fridays", "Do not marry close relatives", "Do not celebrate matrimony
on forbidden days", or specify Lent as a time for mandatory
confession.

There seems to be no explicit list of Church Commandments in the
present version of the Catholic Catechism (presumably a result of
Vatican II reform?)

In the New testament, Jesus recites five of the ten commandments:

  "You shall not murder," [OT VI.]
  "You shall not commit adultery;" [OT VII.] 
  "You shall not steal;" [OT VIII.]
  "You shall not bear false witness:" [OT IX.]
  "Honor your father and mother." [OT V.]
  
There seems to be a lot of theological writing, Christian and
non-Christian, about the question of why those five and not the other
five.
  
Elsewhere he is quoted giving two commandments that imply
all ten:
  
  "You shall love God with all your heart"
  "You shall love your neighbour as yourself"

Judaism identifies among the ten OT commandments a
subset of seven "Noachian Commandments", that 
were given to Noah. (A gentile who follows them is considered
righteous enough to join the kingdom of God in some sense). 

A [non-denominational?] site about the 10 commandments
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_10co.htm 
observes that "Literally read, the [Old Testament] Decalogue includes
19 different commands and prohibitions. If the text is further divided
into component parts, there are a total of 25 instructions."

All the best,

--stolfi