The Ancient Alphabet (I got it!)

[Gorthaur]

Now...if only he got back to us. Though I do recall one wall in the room was covered in J.R.R. Tolkien's runes...

huh. who get back to us and about what. and what wall the one at iliopoas(tot). If that is what u are talking about those are mostly the eldrfuthark and some angelo saxxon throun in every once and a while.

[Selmak]

The language on the wall was Asgard... it is based on Norse elder futhark runes.

[Selmak]

I think the rule was broken so that Daniel could come up with the translation faster. Now if only we could find out what it said.

It says "actual words are hard to deciph so thisll work".... I couldn't get past AC when it first aired.

[Gorthaur]

woow it posted twice and not only is it basewd on the elder futhark it is the elder futhark (I know I tried to tanslate it it is junk) and that wasn't the question I asked nor did anyone ells.

[Teal'c]

That was great, I paused the thing, translated it in my head and then laughed when they said Daniel was the only man on Earth who could translate it

[Mio]

It says "actual words are hard to deciph so thisll work".... I couldn't get past AC when it first aired.

D'oh! I translated Decide. <gripe> I guess I was tired. <g> I went back and burned the letter P into my mind

[Selmak]

Here is a screen shot of the message from "Affinity"...


It says.... "ACTUAL WORDS ARE HARD TO DECIPH SO THISLL WORK"

[Selmak]

If you look at the last letter which is a "K" you will see it is much thiner then in any of our fonts and it is doesn't notch in like a block it has a slant on the top of the notch... and all the letters are more stretched out.

[Selmak]

***The Ultimate Ancient Alphabet Post*** (Updated)

The original Ancient Alphabet was deciphered by sgeureka after watching the Season 7 DVD extra Atlantis preview.

NOTE: The Ancient Alphabet only works for Ancient writings found in Atlantis (and even there, not always). It doesn't work for Ancient writings found in SG-1 ("Torment of Tantalus", "Window Of Opportunity", "Fifth Race", "Chimera", "Heroes", "Lost City"... etc.). It is possible that they are older dialects of Ancient since it seems they have the same style but are different.

Ancient Alphabet And Number Screen Shot Chart by sgeureka:



Ancient Alphabet And Number Chart by Markey2:


Ancient letters are found everywhere in Atlantis (stairs, puddle jumpers, computer consoles, door openers). Ancient numbers are found on Atlantis consoles.

Atlantis staircase translation: (In some scenes the letters on the stairs appear to be upside down... but are later corrected.)
01 WE HOLD THESE AS THE TRUTH
02 A HEARTY WELCOME TO THOSE OF OTHER WORLDS
03 VISITING OUR HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME (W)ELCOME AGAIN
04 ABSENCE HAS WEIGHED HEAVILY ON OUR SOULS WE ARE
05 TO THOSE RETURNING YOU Y HAVE BEEN GONE TOO LONG AND YOUR
06 AS WE LEAVE FOR DISTANT WORLDS WE PLEDGE TO RESPECT THE LANDS OF
07 WHOLE AGAIN THAT YOU ARE AMONG US AND WE CELEBRATE YOU BEING HERE AGAIN
08 OUR NEIGHBOURS AND TO ACT WITH INTEGRITY AS AMBASSADORS IN PEACE TIME
09 OF OUR PEOPLE TRAVELLERS WITH OPEN HEARTS WILL ALWAYS BE WELCOME REFUGEES
10 INHABITANTS OF THIS WORLD AND ALL WE MAY EVER KNOW WE WILL ALWAYS STRIVE TO
11 FROM TYRANNY MAY SEEK SHELTER UNDER OUR ROOF AND (?NAT) OUR PEOPLE WILL LAY
12 DOWN THEIR LIVES TO PROTECT THE WEAK AND THE JUST LET THIS BE OUR PLEDGE TO THOSE
13 COME IN PEACE AS WE GO IN PEACE AND YOU WILL BE WELCOME ON OUR SITES FOREVERMORE
NOTE: It makes more sense if the stairs are NOT read in order... the sequence that makes the most sense is 1,2,3,5,4,7,6,8,9,11,12,10,13.

Puddle Jumper console translation:
PROTOCOLS MUST BE SET BEFORE LAUNCH
ATTEMPT GATE REENTRY

There is also a lever in the back portion on the Puddle Jumper that opens that back hatch that says EJECT in Ancient. (38 Minutes)

There are Ancient letters scrolling across a computer screen in the Atlantis control room... In a scene amongst the gibberish you can make out:
WHERE OH WHERE HAS MY LITTLE DOG GONE OH WHERE
THE WILDERNESS
(an art department joke)

We have seen one instance of the Atlantis Dialect being used in SG-1 in the episode "Affinity" Daniel receives a message in Ancient from former NID operatives that he must translate...
We know it says... ACTUAL WORDS ARE HARD TO DECIPH SO THISLL WORK
(another art department joke)

Observed Ancient grammar rules:
1) There are no spaces. (This rule has be broken in "Affinity")
2) There are no capital or lower case letters.
3) There is no punctuation.

*Here's the comparison of all the fonts to date*

To install the fonts:
for Windows: unzip the file to C:\Windows\Fonts\.
for Mac OS X "Panther": unzip the file and double click it, then click install.

Chevron_nine's Font: Times New Ancient


VirtualCLD's Font: Ancient Virtual


WurdBendur's Font: Anquietas


WurdBendur's Font: Ancient Hand

[Markey2]

Well done Selmak! Nice compilation of all the information that's been got. Oh I can't wait for more Atlantis!

[Drewbert]

Apparently the production crew goofed, there are 10 numbers when there should only be 8.

[Selmak]

Apparently the production crew goofed, there are 10 numbers when there should only be 8.

We don't know for sure that those are the actual numbers(we don't know for sure that there entire society uses base-8 math, it could just be in some aspects of there technology)... and if we go by your logic... the production crew also goofed because Ancient is just coded English not some derivative of Latin. It's a TV show and it's just a little production touch... they could have just put down some random weird looking characters and called it Ancient... but they actually came up with an Alphabet that it consistent thru out Atlantis (most of the time)... I doubt they thought anyone would figure it out.

[ToastBusters]

I'll just add one thought to this whole thing. I think it's really cool that the art department did this. It opens up for the possibility of hidden jokes that only certain fans will be able to get, and they can go as crazy as they want. the "little dog" joke was classic.

As for inconsistencies, who cares? Like Selmak said, it's just a show. If that message on "affinity" were just gibberish, it would take the fun out of translating it, but again, who frikkin cares. And in a future episode, we may find out what it really said, and we'll pretend it said that all along. Why? Because it's a show and who cares.

Sorry about that, I love translating this stuff. It's way fun. I just don't feel the need to get after them for inconsistencies with previous eps.

[Teal'c]

Actually, it would have been really funny if the Affinity message explained how the Trust got away

[Replicarter]

Just wondering, how far is everyone with learning all this? I’m currently able to write the alphabet A - T and learning another every minute, I keep writing it out again and again adding the next letter after every 5 times written. I can look at a piece of text an partially decipher it, but its difficult, though that might be to do with the fact I’ve only been learning it for the past few hours, and I haven’t learned the full alpha bet. So can anyone read a piece of text fast? Like, if it were in English?