AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[jotwebe]

From the notes of George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

Fragmet II.a:

The Aboleth: Etymology and Legends

The name aboleth derives from the Sumerian abzu-lesh. Abzu (or Apsu in the closely related Akkadian) literally meant “ocean” (ab), and “to know” or “deep” (zu). It was also the word for “swamp” as well pools devoted to certain religious ceremonies. The word has survived into the English language, albeit in changed form. We speak of Abzu when we say “Abyss”. The meaning of lesh simply is “master”, or more literally: “he-who-enslaves”, in opposition to “the lord” nin.

There is some controversy on the provenance of the name giboleth - Dr. H. Barrington (Barrington, 1885) claims it derives from gaba-leth, meaning “the rival master”, indicating the giboleth's potential to enter the aboleths' exclusive society. This is strongly contested by Dr. L. Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury, 1913), among others. Dr. Shrewsbury instead champions the origin gi-bu-lesh, where gi-bu is literally “answer” + “to tear out”, or more freely “one who is made to answer/obey”.

Similarly, Dr. Shrewsbury favors to trace the last syllable “dai” of the gibodai to da-ri, meaning “eternal” or “enduring”, which is more convincing than Barrington's explanation of gaba-da -- “the rival who is protected/may not be harmed”. For while it is true that the gibodai occupies a priviledged place in aboleth society, its position is also fixed, which renders the applicability of the term “rival” questionable.

However, the derivation of dai from da, in the meaning of “one who is protected” is promising. Recently there has been some support (G. G. Angell, 1926) for the gish-ùl-lesh/gish-ùl-da theory, where gish is translated as “submitting” and ùl is the leash. The giboleth would be “the master who has submitted (and is leashed)” while the giboleth would be “the protected one who has submitted”.

While the term is Sumerian, we have very few direct references in Sumerian myth, although there are certain passages in the pre-Noachian flood myths that hint of things that the knowledgable might identify with aboleths.

There is the monstrous fish K'un in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi (“In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is K'un.”). In the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan the Black Tortoise of the North Xuán Wu is described decidedly fishlike, and the serpents that traditionally encoil it could very well be a misunderstanding of an aboleth's tentacles.

There is the figure of the talking fish appearing in several fairy tales of the Atlantic and Baltic coasts that fulfils increasingly grandiose wishes, only to finally take them all back. In the anonymous work “Unaussprechlichen Kulten” there is mention of certain blasphemous rituals practised in isolated coastal communities in which some fish-like creature is placated and beseeched for supernatural assistance.

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