Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 14) [Hardcover]

Steven Roger Fischer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198237103 | ISBN-13: 978-0198237105 | Publication Date: March 5, 1998 | Edition: First Edition

This book is the first comprehensive documentation of Rongorongo, Easter Island's enigmatic script and Oceania's only known pre-twentieth-century writing system. The author tells the full history of rongorongo's exciting discovery and the many attempts at a decipherment and provides full transcriptions of all the 25 surviving rongorongo inscriptions along with detailed photographs of nearly every incised artifact.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`The book is highly recommended for beginners and a fruitful inspiration for advanced readers.' Michael Schlottner, International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics

`the well documented anthology provides a constructive and effective stage in the ongoing discussion as a considerable stimulation for broader attention.' Michael Schlottner, International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics

`Fischer now has complete, readable texts in an ancient form of Greek. Fischer's most valuable contribution is a detailed history of research on Rongoronga ... and a full catalogue of all known Rongorongo inscriptions. These alone will make this book a must, not only for Polynesian specialists, but for all those interested in non-European scripts.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

Language Notes

Text: English

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First Edition edition (March 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198237103
• ISBN-13: 978-0198237105
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,043,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars obstreperous, March 30, 2011

By 

California Star - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 14) (Hardcover)

I could equally well give this book a one star or five stars. One star because of the way it is written. Five star because of the topic. If you are interested in rongorongo then you will get this book no matter what. If you look for some kind of introduction to rongorongo, then despite this being the only position, you should better stay away.
The value of this book may lay in two things: first - the new tracings of all the artefacts, second - the gathering of many literature titles in one place.
As for the rest I cannot say anything good. Fischer has an awful habit of presenting his own personal conclusions as scientific facts. Some of those might be reasonable but unproven (like the Spanish visit of 1770 as an inspiration for rongorongo) other utterly rejected by scientific community as a sheer nonsense (the procreation triads without phallic suffix in majority of rongorongo inscriptions). Twisting of narrative of even seemingly not related topics just to support author's own speculations is a constant feature of this book.
The most striking is however the level of author's egotism. One wonders how is it possible that an adult person can have such a level of narcissism. Fischer constantly revokes how many languages he has mastered, how nobody else could have done this job, what possible honours he received for his work etc. You are left feeling sick.
This said, the book also has many mistakes. For example the mischaracterization of Sebastian Englert was summed up by rongorongo[dot]org (now defunct but you can still find it at web[dot]archive).
To all that we have to add author's love for words like "obstreperous", "injudicious" or "genuflected". Adding to this we have plenty of "actual facts" - normal facts do not exist. Frequent descriptions using word "doubtless" precisely for the aspects which true nature remains doubted (for everyone except Fischer). And the drastic over-usage of the word "scientifically" - to describe author's work. I would guess that a true scientist does not feel the need to describe his work as scientific every second sentence. A source of this quirk might be that the author is not a true academic as he wants us to think. The Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures of which Steven Roger Fischer claims to be a director of is not affiliated with any university, one never learns its address, it doesn't have a website or email domain (Fischer always gives email address at a domain of casual internet provider) and in the twenty years of its existence the only person that ever used this affiliation is Fischer himself. Looks to me like a self-proclaimed pseudo-institution. Something ala "The Sergei Rjabchikov Foundation - Research Centre for Studies of Ancient Civilisations and Cultures". The difference being that Fischer had enough sense not to name his "institute" with his own name and to call himself just a Director and not President and General Director as Rjabchikov does.
Ah, and the notes. For 500 pages of text you have additional 100 pages of notes. Very convenient to read.
To sum up and paraphrase the author... It is a scientifically doubtless actual fact that this is an obstreperous, injudicious, genuflected book written by a trained dilettante.

17 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly amazing book, May 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 14) (Hardcover)

This is a truly amazing book. By its contents, its style, and ... its price. The author affects a convoluted, turgid style where archaisms abound (erstwhile outnumbers former by two to one), where few words will not do when many can (in March 1865 becomes at the very end of the American Civil War in March 1865), where speculations and misrepresentations are handed down as God's Truth. Three pages on Father Sebastian Englert, who spent most of his life on Easter Island, would alone justify buying this book if it were not so expensive. They are a torrent of venomous, defamatory abuse opening with a mild Sebastian Englert (1888-1969) was perhaps personally the most remarkable-and academically the most overrated-figure, soon waxing to the German Capuchin father distilled a yarn as far removed from the historical truth of rongorongo's erstwhile use as one can imagine. For if Englert genuflected to any dogma it was to that of the almighty Oral Tradition... His claim that the inscriptions were read alternately left to right and right to left, without mentioning boustrophedon or the need to rotate the artefact while reading, shows in fact just how limited his knowledge of the subject was...Even in his posthumously published Island at the Centre of the World - New Light on Easter Island (Englert, 1970: 73-81)- regarded today on the island, in the Spanish edition, as "Scripture"-Padre Sebastian only reiterated the superannuated posture toward rongorongo of the 1930s and confused its scientific discussion with sophomoric inaccuracies... ignoring in later years all scientific advances made by Thomas Barthel or the Russians... and concluded with Unscientific but remarkably well-read, Padre Sebastian was long on words-but short on substance. The fascinating thing there is that those claims are never substantiated by, say, a direct quote, or a precise reference. Even more fascinating is that any reader who bothers to look up pages 73-81 of Englert "Island at the Center of the World" will discover that Fischer's claims are all outright misrepresentations. There Englert wrote: According to the tradition, Hotu Matua brought with him from Hiva sixty- seven of these inscribed tablets...The sequence of the writing is a rare and curious one called reversed boustrophedon that is, each line of script when it reaches the edge of the board turns back upside down to form the next line. This means that to read the script one must turn the board around at the end of each line...The most complete work dealing with the problem up to the present time is Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift (Foundations for the Decipherment of the Easter Island Script) by Thomas Barthel... A group of Russian scholars... have spent some years studying the problem. Englert having died in 1969, the editorial board of Clarendon Press must have felt it was safe to publish this libellous material. Fischer's aim becomes clear when he mistranslates Thomas Barthel's Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift as Rudiments Toward the Decipherment of the Easter Island Script (p. vii). The message is clear: Barthel's work was rudimentary, only awaiting the coming of Fischer's. The mistranslation is systematically repeated to ensure that the reader gets the point. What then, of Fischer's offering? The corpus of inscriptions is given as free- hand line reproductions of the hieroglyphic texts, falsely claimed to be computer- drawn (p.404). Those drawings are vastly inferior to Barthel's and contain glaring errors. Where Barthel had further provided alphanumerical transliterations to help analyze the texts, Fischer gives none. There are photographs, but so reduced that the signs, already tiny (10 to 15mm tall), become quite microscopic. A truly amazing book, hailed as the first study of rongorongo in any of the world's languages that comprehensively addresses the classical Rapanui scripts full history, traditions, and texts by its author, who has himself modestly described elsewhere as the greatest decipherer to have ever lived.