Xavier and I were doing some investigating earlier tonight, and found some surprising things. Our research for tonight was inspired by the absolutely gorgeous 50 Moolah note. The first thing that strikes me about it, in fact about Moolah in general, is the use of the Greek phi in place of the ohs. When it appeared in
Munch's Oddysee I thought that Φ would turn out to be the symbol for Moolah, but it seems this honour is actually bestowed upon the sideways dollar sign. Now, having been used three times now, it's clearly no accident that these vertical lines are there. But why? There's no other instance I know of of a phi on Oddworld. You could call it stylised, but I won't accept that. It's very clearly integral to Moolah, as Humphrey's cartoons make sure to include them.
The Moolah sign itself is largely uninteresting, though highly nifty. Notice that the three vertical lines could be seen to be an ‘M’, as in SM. Now, I couldn't find anything interesting by looking for things SM is an abbreviation for, but it's highly likely M stands for Moolah. S may stand for standard, or perhaps Sekto?
The sign on the right of the note looks to me to be a pneumatic drill and a cog. But on top of this is a red stamp, and this yielded the most interest. Around the outer edge are the words “Adonay Elohim Are” on the left and “Teth age amma tonah” on the right. Just inside this are the words “Ad oy ahi vei ova iah aha el oh el am yo elo his,” (starting with the clearly-visible AD at the top). Inside that there are lots of less-recognisable symbols, then the four words “Theoska,” “Zenaoth,” “Adoyah” and “Adymon.” At the very centre circle is the word “Schaide.”
“Adonay” and “Elohim” were the first words we cracked. They are both Hebrew words, names for God. On a couple of occassions we found them used together as “Adonay Elohim.” I couldn't figure out the purpose of the “are”. On the other side, “Teth” is the ninth letter in the Arabic alphabet, while “amma” is again Hebrew, meaning nurse or spiritual mother. “Tonah” is not a letter, but a word. In Aztec it means the Sun. But wait, it's not actually a devient from the pattern, because according to
Sarah Leah, “this name has been transliterated into the Hebrew phonetically.”
But wait! Could things get any more obvious? Fear not, the theme continues. The four inner words can all be found on
this page entitled
The Sixth Book of Moses. Hmm. The Torah family just got bigger. I haven't bothered to check the identity of this book, but all four names are indeed found within the text. “Alymon,” “Adoyah Zawah” and “Zeboath” are found under the subheading
The Conversation of God, while “Theoska” is named as an archangel. We couldn't find anything for “Schaide.”
The only other thing of interest are the small marks Xav described as upside-down crowns. I couldn't find anything similar at
www.symbols.com, but I found some intriguing meanings of an upside-down crown symbol. Most typically it seemed to be a dismisal of the monarchy, or sometimes the casting away of one's own riches - which doesn't sound like Industrial Oddworld at all. It's also a symbol of the lost Serbian Empire at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.
Finally, I put forward the suggestion that “el oh el” is actually “LOL”.
It looks like whoever designed the note has some reason to put Jewish terminology on the note. Quite a nice easter egg. Gave me something to do this lonely night. Anyone have anything to say, other than shock at our geekiness?
An Evaluation of Moolah
