Cymroglyphics

KR Broadstock

Cymroglyphics Ltd 2021

Pb, 235pp, £19.99, ISBN 9781916287549

“You can learn to read and write Egyptian hieroglyphics in hours – not years” is the bold claim made on the cover of Cymroglyphics.

Broadstock’s theory is that hieroglyphics can be interpreted using the Welsh language as its key. But is it really possible to read and write hieroglyphics through a knowledge of Welsh? And why the Cymric language?

In developing his thesis, the author dismisses established scholarship by eminent linguists and historians such as JeanFrançois Champollion (Rosetta Stone decipherer) and Sir EA Wallis Budge, the editor of a dictionary of hieroglyphics which remains a seminal reference today.

As Champollion pointed out, in a sentence quoted by Broadstock, “Hieroglyphic writing is a complex system, a script all at once figurative, symbolic and phonetic, in one and the same text, in one and the same sentence, and, I might even venture, in one and the same word.” This is an inescapable truth which cannot be avoided by venturing into another, completely unrelated, language in an attempt to simplify that complexity.

Of course, this kind of extrapolation is not new. During the 19th century a wave of “Celticism” swept across Europe; a variety of authors jumped onto this bandwagon, such as Abbé Henri Boudet, known to enthusiasts of the Rennes-le-Château mystery. He claimed in La Vraie Language Celtique (1886) that the Celts of southwest France would have spoken modern English, rather than a Celtic tongue ( FT251:62).

Like Boudet and his misguided efforts to link the Celts to English, Broadstock employs numerous tortuous phonetic examples to demonstrate a supposed connection between the syllables of Welsh and the symbols of Egyptian hieroglyphs. For instance, “the Cymric word for an explorer is ‘tremynydd’. This can be broken into tri (three) mynydd (mountain). So the hieroglyphic for an explorer is 3 mountains.”

Cymroglyphics appears to be part of a broader campaign, online and offline, to promote “Britain’s hidden history”. Espoused by Broadstock and authors such as Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett, their Moses In The Hieroglyphs (2013) represents an earlier example of this theme.

While these flights of fancy may be attractive to anyone familiar with the “alternative history” genre, the research has little grounding in scientific linguistic scholarship and, as such, should be read purely as entertainment. Welsh, the ancient language that survives and thrives to this day, stands with its own heritage, and has no need for claims associating it with Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Marcus Williamson

★★