h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why don't you find Tedlock's translation (it's readily available) and see for yourself how Christian you think it is?

Thanks for the recommendation.

I've requested it through the library. It doesn't appear to be online although some of his other work is at the Electronic Poetry Center of SUNY-Buffalo.

We'll see what the library can do for me. They have to get it from some other library district.

Oh, I've got a copy right here. Just let me get it off the shelf -- oh.

Ah I see you've found those 'peruvian heiroglyphs' I was talking about when I misspoke about ancient Mayan symbols. The point being that the 'parallel' symbolic language was never seen as a language until recently. It was thought to be 'illumination', an understandable euro-centric estimation.
It was my understanding that until they understood that the Spanish text was 'corrupted' and would not parallel the original they were having trouble proving the symbols constituted a language, especially the verbal syntax. Anyway..Yeah!

~jwf~

Remedial Native Geography or Other Stuff 101 pop quiz:

1) Peru is in the highlands of Guatemala and the lowlands of Yucatan and Honduras. True or false?

2) Hieroglyphs are:

a) Egyptian;
b) Talking leaves;
c) Knotted ropes;
d) Another word for the clergy.

3) Popol Vuh is:

a) A Mexican rock star;
b) A Mayan tradition detailing how the world was created and other stuff;
c) A Russian Vodka brand;
d) A secret Serbian society.

4) Manitou is:

a) A town west of Colorado Springs;
b) An algonkin name for a very powerful spirit;
c) A heretical early Christian sect;
d) The keyboard on a cellphone.

5) An Inca is:

a) A Bolivian tribe who conquered people living in the Andes;
b) An aylla or clan who gained control of older Andean confederations;
c) The dark stuff in my pen;
d) Tupac Amaru.

6) What's the difference between Quiche and Quechua?

a) The spelling;
b) 42;
c) The first is a Mayan dialect. The second is the language of the Incas.;
d) No difference. They were twin sisters of Moctezuma.

4b or b4, that is really the question.


~jwf~ (dilettante and jester)

for question 2 I'm going to have to answer a)Egyptian and e) Maya. Those Darn White Anthropologists and Epigraphers have gone and used the term "Hieroglyphs" (priestly carvings) for Maya writing as well. The more modern ones usually just say "glyphs", but it's really just a short form for the long form.

I like your test, though, Analiese. And your point is most valid.

BTW:

1 False
2 See above.
3 b
4 b
5 d
6 c (although the spelling is different, too.)

I think you flunked, Mr. Fulton.

It helps if you try to answer all the questions of course rather than trying to change one of them into a palindrome or a bingo game. But you knew that already, right?

Oh well, looks like you'll just have to take the course over again. So clear your bingo card, okay?

2b oar knot 2b that is the... pencil ?

shakespear can be confusing

You maxed it, Anhaga. Guess you get the complimentary case of virtual beer too, or maybe canned pulche, yumyum!!

And ain't it too bad the anthropologists are still struggling with inappropriate terminology? I guess "cartoons" wouldn't sound scholarly enough would it?

Come to think of it, that was a French thing too. "Cartouche" eh? Much better description than "glyph". Glyph sounds like something you tack on a cathedral to disquise the rain gutter.

Any kind of spear can get confusing, Math, if you don't know which end the point's on. That's true of pencils too probably.

can you really get pulche in a can?!

Sure you can get it a can, same as Corona, although probably most people still like it in bottles, same as Corona.

You can get Corona in a can?!

Sure you can. You didn't know? They call it Tecate though. Kind of confusing isn't it?

Back in the old days when we had socialist liquor stores I would have known all this. But the fascist provincial government privatized the booze outlets. Now there's one on every corner but there's no selection. In the old days we had beers, wines and spirits from all over the globe. Now we've got Old Milwaukee, the Big Two Canadian Breweries, California sugar wines by the gallon and white rum in hip flasks. That's free enterprise.

And they say they're cultivating educated consumers, right?

>> ..that was a French thing too. "Cartouche" eh? <<


Cartouche is the source of cartoons?
Makes sense. Brilliant!

~jwf~

not really. sorry, they are related, sort of, in the sense of first cousins.

"cartoon - 1671, from Fr. carton, from It. cartone "strong, heavy paper,
pasteboard," thus "preliminary sketches made by artists on such paper,"
augmentive of M.L. carta "paper" (see card (1)). Extension to comical
drawings in newspapers and magazines is 1840s. Cartoonist first recorded
1880. "

"cartouche - see cartridge. Borrowed in its Fr. form 1611. Application to
Egyptian heiroglyphics dates from 1830."

"cartridge - 1626, corruption of Fr. cartouche "a full charge for a pistol," from
It. cartoccio "roll of paper," an augmentive form of carta "paper." The notion is
of a roll of paper containing a charge for a firearm. "

From the Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/c2etym.htm

Quick, somebody look up a Yukatec word for "writing" and be done with this.

Oh...and here's me thinking the root for both would come from the lost art of cartoography, the decorating of maps and charts with little drawings of sea serpents and cheeky winds.

~jwf~ terra incognita