Kai von Fintel over on Semantics etc. has posted an entry of links on whether Incans used quipu (or khipu) to record their language, Quechua (or Qheshwa). Khipus are basically knots tied in strings and for a long time they were dismissed as a numeric system and not a "writing" system. Quechua has the most speakers of any Native American language (I would have thought that was Maya), and a quick search to determine how khipu should be pronounced led me to the conclusion that I need to do some more research. Here's a quick overview of Qheshwa phonology. My guess at this point is that the kh in khipu is a (post-)velar stop, but I suppose it depends on which dialect the Spanish borrowed the word from.
Posted by jim at July 5, 2003 10:51 AMLet me offer a few more threads to tie to this:
An excerpt from Gary Urton's "Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records"
and a fair dinkum corpus of extant khipus: CODE OF THE QUIPU: DATABOOKS by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher.
Btw, Marcia Ascher thinks Gary Urton is talking crap from the linked article.
The attention to khipus has its roots in insights from Marcia and Robert Ascher, a husband-and-wife team who began an extensive survey and analysis of khipus in 1968...
...''I don't see that this proposal arises from the actuality of the khipus,'' said Marcia Ascher, an emerita professor of mathematics at Ithaca College. ''I don't see it being shown to fit or explain any of them.''
Thanks for the links. It's nice to see infromation like the Ascher have published online.
Posted by: jim on July 7, 2003 06:46 PM