Cracking Straczynski's Code - Part A
Kathryn Andersen
Marc Read suggested that I post this here - it has already been seen
in the Babylon 5 newsgroups, and is more linked to Babylon 5 than Tolkien,
so if you aren't interested in Babylon 5, please read no more.
--------------------------
Earlier this year I went to the B5 convention, Parliament of Dreams, in
Queensland. (Sorry, I still haven't written my report. Should I give
up?) One of the presentations was "Cracking Straczynski's Code" by Annie
Hamilton. After much nagging on my part, <grin> Annie has finally
agreed to let me pass on some of her findings to the net. (She has no
net access herself.)
Her basic contention is that Straczynski's triple-encrypted code is to
be found in the names of the characters and locations, and that his
concern with identity, with 'who we are' and 'what we want' is embodied
and embedded in the names themselves. Her other basic contention is
that you should almost always take what Straczynski says literally, but
never at face value.
Here's Annie...
CRACKING STRACZYNSKI'S CODE.
Hello.
A title like 'Cracking Straczynski's Code' is more than a little
provocative, but I make no apology. I have found something that works -
routinely and consistently, with very few exceptions. I have found that
the names in B5 make sense, not just in one, but in three different
ways. I admit that there is a remote possibility I haven't found
Straczynski's triple-encrypted code, but rather have mistaken a superb
cosmic coincidence for a cipher. However, I doubt that is the case.
The probability of this three way code occurring by random chance is
mind-bogglingly small - not just less than 1 in a billion, but less than
1 in a googol.
A googol is Polya's mathematical term for 10 to the power 100, a number
so large that it is bigger than the estimate of the number of atoms in
the universe, which, of course, makes 1 in a googol correspondingly
vanishingly small. Is 1 in a googol small enough to sweep aside the
valid philosophical objection that 'proof' is not, and can never be,
available? I can't answer that for you, but I can say that,
mathematically speaking, all that is required to put it beyond
reasonable doubt is 1 in 50, since this constitutes the 98% confidence
level.
Preliminaries aside, let's cut straight away to the chase: I won't bore
you or tease you with what I believe to be the first strand of the
triple-encrypted code, which you can easily discover for yourself in any
good book of baby names. 'The Great Australian and New Zealand Book of
Baby Names' is particularly good in this regard, as it lists diminutives
and foreign equivalents, which can be exceedingly helpful. 'The
Dictionary of First Names - Pocket Reference' is, however, a better
reference source as it contains names found no where else which are
referred to in B5.
On the other hand, what I consider to be the second strand of the code
is more difficult to get a handle on. Fortunately, Straczynski has
provided us with a major clue.
*
"I was raised by elves with attitude." jms
*
It occurred to me that anyone raised by elves, with or without attitude,
ought to know Elvish. Unfortunately when this thought first appeared, I
didn't know a single word of Elvish, merely that it existed. I have
since remedied that lack. The philologist and writer, J.R.R. Tolkien,
invented two major Elvish languages - Sindarin and Quenya - which he
used in his epic high fantasy, 'The Lord of The Rings'. Sindarin and
Quenya influenced and were influenced by the other twelve languages of
LoTR - Hobbit, Black Speech, Rohirric, Westron and so on. Yes, yes, I
know that Straczynski is not doing 'The Lord of The Rings' with the
serial numbers filed off.
*
"...probably the only producer able to name all of the Fellowship
of the Ring."
Jan Vincent-Rudzki describing J. Michael Straczynski
in Starburst Special # 22, December 1994, p. 62
*
"Last year, I said to him, 'You've got this whole rich tapestry of story
worked out, with so many dimensions and so much depth to it. What was
the germination of this? Where does this sort of thing come from?' He
gave me a copy of Lord of The Rings, and he asked me to please read it
over the hiatus..."
Bruce Boxleitner in Sci Fi Entertainment, April 1996, p.52
*
In many ways B5 has become a Rohrscharch test: you see in it whatever
mythic form you are most familiar with.
jms
*
Rorschach test? This is an interesting hypothesis and raises
interesting questions. How do you explain seeing patterns when you're
not familiar with LoTR? And, even if it is a Rorschach test, does that
invalidate what you see? Believe me, I was so ignorant of LoTR that I
translated 'television' from Latin to English then to Elvish, got
'palantir' and didn't recognise either the word, or its major
significance.
*
"Expect me when you see me." Gandalf
"Expect me when you see me." G'Kar
"Do not try the patience of wizards (etc)..." Elric
"Do not try the patience of wizards (etc)..." Gildor, quoted by
Sam Gamgee.
"Remember that the Mirror shows many things and not all have yet come to
pass. Some never come to be unless those that behold the visions turn
aside from their path to prevent them. The Mirror is dangerous as a
guide of deeds."
Galadriel to Sam Gamgee.
Very similar to Ladira's comment to Sinclair at the end of 'Signs and
Portents': do take a good look at the central letters of the name,
Galadriel.
*
"I am not doing 'Lord of The Rings' with the serial numbers filed off."
jms
*
"I do not think that means what you think it means."
Inigo Montoya in 'The Princess Bride'
*
I strongly advise if you wish to check the following decodings
that you acquire:
'The Languages of Middle Earth' (Ruth S. Noel)
'The Complete Guide to Middle Earth' (Robert Foster).
Both will be very helpful, as will the appendices in Tolkien's 'The Book
of Lost Tales'. Please bear in mind that the constraints of a TRIPLE
cipher are such that, with rare exceptions where the Elvish falls out
perfectly, it is necessary to look for the closest Elvish fragment of
the syllable to be decoded.
*
TRANSLATIONS IN THE ELVISH STYLE
The gloves are off, but sarcasm is not, so this week's Rorschach Test is
brought to you by the letter, A, and the serial numbers, M-i-n-b-a-r-i,
D-r-a-a-l and Z-a-g-r-o-s-7. The letter A is not a very convincing
letter to start with, but bear with me. I have tried to be exhaustive
and comprehensive - at least as far as the end of season 2 - so if there
is any glaring omission or error, I would welcome input and advice.
ABBAI: out of the fall - Abbai 4 was one of the members of the League of
Non-Aligned Worlds. The 'fish' aliens came from here. (Now, where did
the fish come from in LoTR? And if you think that's cute, you're gonna
love Markab.).
ABBUT: power fishing - A Vicar employed by Ambassador Kosh to record
certain reactions from Talia Winters.
ABBY: power - The telepath who guided Talia Winters through her first
year in Psi Corps.
ACHILLES: down foot leaf - An Earth Force transport.
ADIRA TYREE: friend, great passion (or dark high barrow) - Londo's
Purple Files were stolen during his affair with Adira Tyree. 'Tyree',
of course, is a play on the word 'purple', which in ancient days was
synonymous with the seaport of Tyre. 'Adira' may also be connected to
the Italian for 'adorable'.
ADRONATO: very high human/elven - the language of religious caste
Minbari. The overlap of human and elven is a nice touch. Pardon me,
but just who was responsible for Adronato? Valen?
AGAMEMNON: glorious wisdom of heaven? - Sheridan's previous command.
AIR DOME: high harbour - Pilot training centre.
AKDOR: tree land - The world where a civil war takes place in the
desert.
AL COLESTO: high hope of glory - A Narn starliner.
ALEXANDER, LYTA: rushing western flame, queen of light (or serpent
queen) - B5's first commercial telepath. 'Rushing western flame'
appears complete nonsense. No doubt it would have to be. What on earth
could Lyta Alexander possibly have to do with the sword, 'Anduril', of
LoTR?
ALGHOUL: mighty sorceror - Timov was the daughter of Alghoul.
ALIEN HEALING MACHINE: king's green hand - The device used by Dr Rosen,
which was given to Dr Franklin and enabled him to stablise Garibaldi.
(May I suggest looking up the word, 'athelas', in the 'Complete Guide to
Middle Earth'?)
ALIEN SECTOR: king's (or queen's) outer fortress - Housing on B5 for
aliens.
ALLAN, ZACK: understar (understudy) - Member of security.
ALPHA SEVEN: swan blood foam - Pilot killed by tachyon emissions of B4.
ALPHA WING: swan spray - Squadron of starfuries on B5.
ALVAREZ: king's power horn - Member of Homeguard.
ALYT: your eminence - Alyt is an honorific title used by the Minbari.
AMAZONIS PLANITIA: hill of the sun watching far-off - A region near Mars
colony.
AMBASSADOR: doomed lord.
AMIS: doom (or warning of doom) - former gropo driven mad by the Soldier
of Darkness
ANTARES SECTOR: high fire of warning, outer fortress - The sector where
Del Varner acquired a Changeling Net.
ANTI-GAPIC: long watching half glory - A serum conferring immortality.
May perhaps be spelt ANTI-GATHIC: long watching hand of the shadowed
dragon. (You couldn't guess at what the word, DILGAR, means, could
you?)
ARAIN STATION: king's high rock - Walker Smith visited here.
ARIA TENSUS: fallen noble, star end - Aria ran away with Kiron Maray to
avoid an arranged marriage.
ASHAN: impetuous - Ashan was a member of the Third Fane of Chudomo who
was involved in framing Sheridan for murder.
ASIMOV: hollow sunlight - Earth Alliance starliner
ATAMBE: mighty man - C&C officer
ATTRAXION ALE: son of the falling burrow star - A speciality of the 'Dug
Out'.
*
Serial Numbers - 1
D-R-A-A-L:
From the Elvish for 'trees'. You can by folding, spindling and
generally stretching a fair bit find the meaning 'glory', but the fact
is, the closest is 'trees'. Now the machine on Epsilon 3 looks a lot
like a tree, but this is not sufficient to pin down anything. A great
deal more is needed. If you're persistent and you keep looking, it's
possible to find a meaning for Draal not in Elvish, but in Rhovannion
(another language of Middle Earth). It means 'very old'. This seems a
bit better than 'trees' because Draal, of course, was nearing the end of
his life and seeking the Sea when he took the place of Varn in the
machine. A minor technical point - the Rhovannion translation comes
from part of the name for Tom Bombadil, who was the lord and master of
the Old Forest in The Lord of The Rings. Ahh. Old. Old Forest.
Forest. Trees. All together in the very same place. Umm.
*
It's almost like -- and I hate to even use the reference, because
somebody'll say, "oh, that's what he's doing," and I ain't, it's just a
point of comparison -- Tom Bombadil in LoTR ... quite funny but also
someone not to be trifled with.
jms
*
Serial Numbers - 2
M-I-N-B-A-R-I:
From the Elvish for 'people of the towered halls' or 'first people'. Or
from Sindarin/Rohirric: 'firstborn'.
The elves of Middle Earth were known, amongst other names, as the
Firstborn. They were virtually immortal, providing they were not slain
or did not die of grief. In 'The Book of Lost Tales', it is explicitly
stated that those of the elven clans who did die went to the halls of
Mandos there to await the time when they would be reborn in their
children. This not only parallels the belief of the Minbari regarding
the rebirth of souls into the next generation, but also points to a
similarity between early elven clans such as the Inwir, and Minbari
clans such as the StarRiders and the Third Fane of Chudomo.
Now, the elves had a love of stars, trees, the Sea (pardon me, what was
that you were seeking, Draal?) and living things. Once wakened, the
call of the Sea could not be stilled as it activated the latent
compulsion of the elves to seek the lands of the Valar. Some of the
elves lived in vast chambered halls or carved towers, particularly
before the Third Age. Their domains were usually isolated and hidden
because of the threat of Sauron and before him, Melkor. The elven
leaders were able to see and communicate mind to mind across vast
distances. This ability may, according to Robert Foster in 'The
Complete Guide to Middle Earth', be shared by all elves. An interesting
comment in the light of the Kevin Stevens' interview with John
Iacovelli, B5 set and production designer (in Sci Fi Universe, Volume 2,
Issue 15, 1996, p.23) where the following statement was made: "...the
White Star's Minbari technology demands that the ship be run partially
by Minbari crew and thus by telepathic command." Could only be
coincidence. As, no doubt, is the fact that the Minbari are divided
into Light, Dark and Gray, closely reflecting the division of the Elves
into Light Elves (Calaquendi) and the Dark Elves (Moriquendi), the
latter containing the major sub-set of Grey Elves (the Sindar). As for
the spelling of Grey in Grey Council ...
And then there's 'Minbar' itself - but let's leave that for another
time, because I'm still enjoying the following quote far, far too much:
Minbar was an intentional co-opt of the term for a pulpit in a mosque;
seemed appropriate.
jms
*
Serial Numbers - 3
Z-A-G-R-O-S--7:
From the Elvish for 'sun cave foam, fortress'.
At first sight, 'sun cave foam, fortress' doesn't make any sense at all.
Which is why it's even more significant. The temptation to dismiss it
as meaningless should be ignored. Because a careful examination of the
description of a place called Henneth Annun reveals some intriguing
parallels. Henneth Annun in LoTR is the base and refuge of the Rangers
of Ithilien. It means 'the window of sunset' or 'window on the west'.
It was located in a cave behind a waterfall and was named for the fact
that it afforded an outstanding view of the setting sun. Sun. Cave.
Foam. Window. Zagros 7, the planet which Marcus Cole escaped from in
'Matters of Honor'. Zagros 7, where a Ranger training base was located.
*
"Marcus, there's your window." Sheridan, 'Matters of Honor'.
*
How many LoTR serial numbers or 'points of comparison' are there? I
have to admit that I'm not really sure. But I've found 269
correspondences of names - and I've only just started on Season 3.
(Only 14 of them come from later than 'Fall of Night'.) Now to be
absolutely honest, about 70 of the names have only their translations as
evidence, and are not backed by corroborative clues or attributes as the
other 190 are. Thank you, jms. Draal as a 'point of comparison' to Tom
Bombadil was one of those 70.
*
I also have to admit that I'm no longer sure about the form
Straczynski's triple-encrypted code takes. (Being in doubt is a much
more comfortable state of being for me, so I won't complain.) I had
thought that the triple-encrypted code was
ORDINARY NAME MEANING / ELVISH MEANING / LoTR POINT OF COMPARISON
but now I'm not so certain. In a very short space of time, I have
discovered an accumulation of evidence that the Elvish is not a code in
its own right, merely the ciphering device, and that the ordinary meaning
is possibly just an adjunct.
This is such a sudden development that I have actually had very little
time to examine it in any detail at all, so it may well be wrong. Perhaps
it's even a retrospective addition. Either way, the hypothesis is
worthwhile propounding. My current thought is that the triple-encrypted
code may actually be an IDENTITY grouping of this structure:
LoTR POINT OF COMPARISON - WWII POINT OF COMPARISON -
BIBLICAL/BABYLONIAN POINT OF COMPARISON
I very much doubt that the WWII 'points of comparison' are as ubiquitous
as the LoTR ones, but you never know. WWII is not a bit of history with
which I'm vastly familiar, so why do I suddenly have this urge to include
it? Well, very recently, I had occasion to look up some details on the
Allee' des Justes (the long avenue in Jerusalem where more than 6000
commemorative trees have been planted to honour non-Jewish people who,
without thought of gain or reward, risked their lives to help a Jew during
WWII). What I was reading was Peter Singer's book on ethics, "How Are We
To Live?" where the case of Raoul Wallenberg was mentioned in connection
with the Allee' des Justes. I knew I'd been in Elvish immersion too long
when 'Wallenberg' automatically translated itself into Eldarin and emerged
as 'Vir Cotto'. I might have considered it another coincidence but for
the fact that Vir's deception in issuing papers as "Abraham Lincolni" to
rescue the Narns is strikingly similar to Wallenberg's "Swedish
Protection Passes" which saved the lives of an estimated 120,000 Hungarian
Jews. Raoul Wallenberg is one of only two people to be granted honorary
US citizenship (the other is Winston Churchill). His fate is a tragic
mystery, and if you therefore object to Vir as a 'point of comparison' on
the basis of Morella's prophecy about his future, take care. The
translation of Morella's name should be enough to worry anyone about her
veracity.
Pick up a stone to look at it closely and start an avalanche. A friend
rang while I was still reading. She's a history major, so I asked her to
rattle off any names she could think of associated with WWII. She did,
even suggesting a few connections with Babylon 5 characters which quickly
turned out to be actually supported by the Elvish translations. However,
one thing that really unsettled me was that amongst all these famous names
of allied generals, commanders, military leaders, Presidents, Prime
Ministers (not to mention some positively obscure ones), I just couldn't
find a 'point of comparison' for either Garibaldi or Lennier.
Ahh, serendipity. As Alfred Bester once wrote, it never fails. I'm an
Australian and as a result, I'm more aware of the Australian
contribution to the allied war effort, most notably, of course, the
North African campaign. Bugger the validity or otherwise of a Rorschach
test. Who do I want to choose from 'Babylon 5' as a 'point of
comparison' to the 'Desert Fox'?
*
Some things to think about before next time, when the letter B will be
under scrutiny:
Green is to space as Minbari is to hair, so why is Brakiri space green?
Is the translation of 'Alpha Wing' really as ridiculous as it looks?
Hmm, swans.
By the way, when I said at the start that there are very few exceptions,
it's what I meant. Of the words beginning with the letter 'A' only two,
as far as I can tell, don't make sense. But you'll have to wait a
little longer before the patterns start to become obvious.
To finish, I'd really like to thank Kathryn for this charming piece of
doggerel. It's just perfect.
Annie H. 11/11/1996
---------------
(Here follows the doggerel.)
The dear Sleeping Beauty has died in the head
The Future is ravaged in mind
The Knights of the Moon have examined the corpse
Fascinated by what's left behind.
The collector of secrets is rescued again
Suspicion is all he returns
Takes knowledge for wisdom and judgement for grace
And nothing-at-all's what he learns.
The iron usurper has tightened his hand
The whisper of unrest is quelled
The tower of moonlight falls under the dark
The speakers of truth are bespelled.
The Starkindler's broken, by Shadows destroyed
Because of the actions of one
Who, since he's the hero, must always be right
In spite of the damage he's done.
The Mariner's sailing; he carries his star
A thousand years back in the dark
Though destiny's turning has torn him away
He once was the lord of the Mark.
A jewel of contention, a symbol of power
The eye that is not, cannot see
A circle, a circle, that once ruled them all
So precious, but not at all free.
------------------------------------------------
Please note that news to this site has at times flowed like molasses, so
don't be surprised if I am unable to respond immediately.
Kathryn Andersen
--
_--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <k...@welkin.apana.org.au>
/ \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat
\_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h"
v |
David Salo
Dear Annie:
While I understand that you have enjoyed this game a great deal, and it
is very entertaining, your work is valueless except as an indication of how
you think - it says nothing about Mr. Straczynski's intentions. Your
'decoding' system, while it may seem to you to produce unarguable results,
actually has no system at all. If you take a dictionary of any language, a
list of names in another language (or any set of languages) and then poke
here, prod there, and twist letters around, you will start to find
"meaning". If you have the time (and you seem to have a great deal) sit
down with a copy of Moby Dick and a dictionary of Swahili, and apply
yourself with the same energy you have shown here, and I am sure you will
get amazing results. But they will be completely unreproducible by anyone
else.
In article <E2H4...@welkin.apana.org.au>, k...@welkin.apana.org.au
(Kathryn Andersen) wrote:
> I strongly advise if you wish to check the following decodings
> that you acquire:
>
> 'The Languages of Middle Earth' (Ruth S. Noel)
>
> 'The Complete Guide to Middle Earth' (Robert Foster).
>
> Both will be very helpful, as will the appendices in Tolkien's 'The Book
> of Lost Tales'. Please bear in mind that the constraints of a TRIPLE
> cipher are such that, with rare exceptions where the Elvish falls out
> perfectly, it is necessary to look for the closest Elvish fragment of
> the syllable to be decoded.
I would guess that I know as much about Elvish (i.e. Quenya and
Sindarin) nomenclature as anyone now living. If you have serious interest
in this subject, these works are not of much use to you; Ruth Noel's book,
for instance, has been outdated for many years, while the appendices to
"The Book of Lost Tales" refer to an entirely outmoded stage in the
development of the elvish languages.
Not one of the words or names you have cited look in the least bit
elvish. With a fair bit of pain I might be able to guess at what
pseudo-etymology you are giving to these words, and in some cases I have,
only to find that it wasn't worth it. I know how to properly construct
elvish words and names, and I have seen improperly constructed elvish or
pseudo-elvish: these are neither. I don't think that any writer worth his
salt (as Mr. Straczynski surely is) would create names by snatching a
syllable here and a syllable there and then creating anagrams of them, just
so that you could come along and 'decode' them. And most of the names you
have cited have perfectly obvious interpretations: why you insist on
ignoring them I have no idea. Here are some of the ones that are clear to
me, just at first glance:
> ABBY: power - The telepath who guided Talia Winters through her first
> year in Psi Corps.
I suggest that this is a common English name, derived from "Abigail".
> ACHILLES: down foot leaf - An Earth Force transport.
The name of a Greek hero in "The Iliad".
> AGAMEMNON: glorious wisdom of heaven? - Sheridan's previous command.
Another Greek hero from "The Iliad".
> AIR DOME: high harbour - Pilot training centre.
A pair of English words of obvious meaning.
> ALEXANDER, LYTA: rushing western flame, queen of light (or serpent
> queen) - B5's first commercial telepath. 'Rushing western flame'
> appears complete nonsense. No doubt it would have to be. What on earth
> could Lyta Alexander possibly have to do with the sword, 'Anduril', of
> LoTR?
Alexander was a Macedonian emperor.
> ALGHOUL: mighty sorceror - Timov was the daughter of Alghoul.
Arabic for "the Demon." The star "Algol" in the constellation Perseus.
> ALIEN HEALING MACHINE: king's green hand -
_Three_ English words.
>
> ALIEN SECTOR: king's (or queen's) outer fortress - Housing on B5 for
> aliens.
Two English words.
> ALLAN, ZACK: understar (understudy) - Member of security.
Two not uncommon English names, Zack being short for "Zachary" or
"Zacharias", the father of John the Baptist.
> ALPHA SEVEN: swan blood foam - Pilot killed by tachyon emissions of B4.
A greek letter and an English number. A very common combination of
letters and numbers, indicating "seventh member of the first (alpha)
group".
> ALPHA WING: swan spray - Squadron of starfuries on B5.
A greek letter and an English word.
> ALVAREZ: king's power horn - Member of Homeguard.
A common Spanish name, meaning "descendant of Alvaro".
> AMAZONIS PLANITIA: hill of the sun watching far-off - A region near Mars
> colony.
An actual place on Mars, meaning "Low Plain of Amazon", the last being
a classical name applied by early astronomers to a bright patch on the
surface.
> AMBASSADOR: doomed lord.
A very common English word.
> ANTARES SECTOR: high fire of warning, outer fortress - The sector where
> Del Varner acquired a Changeling Net.
Antares is a red star in the constellation Scorpio, meaning "opponent
of Ares" (i.e. Mars, the bright red planet).
> ASIMOV: hollow sunlight - Earth Alliance starliner
Isaac Asimov, the famous Science fiction writer.
> Serial Numbers - 1
>
> D-R-A-A-L:
>
> From the Elvish for 'trees'.
You mean "aldar"? Yes, it's an anagram, but if Straczynski really
wanted a word with that meaning, he could have _used_ "Aldar"; it isn't as
if anyone would have recognized the word.
> If you're persistent and you keep looking, it's
> possible to find a meaning for Draal not in Elvish, but in Rhovannion
> (another language of Middle Earth). It means 'very old'.
I'm sorry to say that Rhovanion (only two n's, please) is a region of
Middle-earth, not a language. The name _Orald_ (which you are hoping Draal
is a distortion of) is from Old English: _oreald_.
> Serial Numbers - 2
>
> M-I-N-B-A-R-I:
>
> From the Elvish for 'people of the towered halls' or 'first people'. Or
> from Sindarin/Rohirric: 'firstborn'.
I don't even want to guess what anagram you're looking for here. But
Sindarin and Rohirric are not the same language: Sindarin is an elvish
language, Rohirric a quite unrelated Mannish language (of which we know
maybe half-a-dozen words, "firstborn" not among them) which is represented
by Old English.
> And then there's 'Minbar' itself - but let's leave that for another
> time, because I'm still enjoying the following quote far, far too much:
>
> Minbar was an intentional co-opt of the term for a pulpit in a mosque;
> seemed appropriate.
This is quite true. What's your problem with it?
>
> Serial Numbers - 3
>
> Z-A-G-R-O-S--7:
>
> From the Elvish for 'sun cave foam, fortress'.
_Zagros_ is the name of a mountain range in Iran. While there is a
Sindarin word 'ros' which refers to foam, spray, rain, there is of course
no "zag" in Elvish at all, which lacks the sound of _z_.
> At first sight, 'sun cave foam, fortress' doesn't make any sense at all.
Go with your first impressions!
> I knew I'd been in Elvish immersion too long
Not nearly long enough.
> when 'Wallenberg' automatically translated itself into Eldarin and emerged
> as 'Vir Cotto'.
What on earth do you think "Wallenberg" means? Nothing in any of the
elvish languages looks at all like "Vir Cotto".
> By the way, when I said at the start that there are very few exceptions,
> it's what I meant. Of the words beginning with the letter 'A' only two,
> as far as I can tell, don't make sense. But you'll have to wait a
> little longer before the patterns start to become obvious.
There are no patterns at all except what you have imposed on the data.
You will get the same kinds of results with Latin, Swahili, Sanskrit, or
even English (the last might be a little more helpful).
> Skepticism doesn't bother me. I wouldn't expect anyone to believe this
> when so far I've presented less than 1% of the evidence. But I'm sure
> my hypothesis has legs and if you're still with me and aren't afraid of
> appearing ridiculous either, let's see if we can stand up.
No. It doesn't have legs. It's not going anywhere. Please stop this
before you make a bigger fool out of yourself than you already have.
Please.
> We're not
> going to be running for a while yet, but we can take our first steps.
> To recap the hypothesis: if the names in Babylon 5 are treated as Elvish
> words, they can be translated meaningfully (using such tools and
> "dictionaries" as Ruth S. Noel's "Languages of Middle Earth"; Robert
> Foster's "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth" and the word-lists in
> J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Book of Lost Tales", "Lays of Beleriand" etc.).
No. They cannot. They are not elvish words. They do not look like
elvish words; they do not even look like somebody's failed attempt at
elvish words. The connection _is not there_.
> Now what constitutes a "large number"? Kathryn recently reminded me of
> the quote that once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is
> enemy action. I hadn't figured out what 302 times was, but yes, I
> cheerfully concede that "ridiculous" is as fitting an appellation as
> any.
You haven't got _one_, let alone 302.
> BATTLE OF SALOS: starpower stone fortress - Battle where the Dilgar were
> defeated.
"Salo" is my name. That must mean something, doesn't it?
> BELDON: mighty power - Eliot ("startower") Beldon was the father of
> Alisa ("sweet elf") Beldon, the teenager who suffered a mindburst. Her
> mother was Esperanza ("half silver hope").
Esperanza does mean "hope". But not in Elvish.
> SERIAL NUMBERS - 4
>
> G-'-K-A-R
>
> From the Elvish for "commander of dwarves" or "commander of stone" or
> "commander of the land of stone" or "blood of glory" or "glorious
> dwarf".
No. It doesn't mean any of that. Tell me, have you _ever_ taken a
foreign language? Has it ever been impressed on you that languages follow
_rules_, and are not just haphazard collections of syllables? Well, if it
has, you are not using that knowledge. Good elvish names can be
constructed from the 'translations' you have given: Naukoka'no, Ondoka'no,
Ondono'reka'no, Alkasserke, Alkarinauko: but "G'Kar" isn't one of them. In
fact "G'Kar" _cannot_ be a name in either Quenya or Sindarin. There are
rules of phonetics as well as word construction, and this violates them.
Hasn't it occurred to you that you may be getting all of these different
translations not because your methodology is so apt, but because it fails
utterly: it cannot produce a single verifiable translation?
> C-A-S-S-A-N-D-R-A
>
> From the Elvish for "commander of the land of stone."
No. It doesn't mean that. Not in elvish, not in any language of this
world. Only in your mind. Kassandra is an excellent Greek name (also from
the Iliad).
> There appears to be no Elvish word for "steward".
I'm afraid there is. It is _arandur_. Doesn't look much like "G'Kar"
(or Cassandra).
> Now Denethor, like
> Cassandra as a matter of fact, went mad.
Denethor is not in the least a Cassandra figure. Nor is he a dwarf.
> Now G'Kar is a Narn and the
> word, "Narn", has several possible derivations- "nano" (Latin, Italian
> or French), "naug" (Sindarin Elvish) or "nar" (Old Norse).
There is an Elvish name of the form "narn". It means "tale, story
told". That doesn't fit your hypothesis terribly well, however, so you
ignore it. Is this your methodology?
> Speaking of which, it's to be hoped that the manuscript G'Kar
> is working on is not the Book of G'Kar, because "kar" is, amongst other
> things, an Elvish element for "red", and "red" and "book" in close
> proximity might just remind us of the Red Book of Westmarch. The level
> of coincidence is quite scary when you think about it.
But you just insisted that G'Kar meant "Commander of the Land of Stone."
Naturally, if every name is infinitely polyvalent, you can get any meaning
out of it that you want.
> Tolkien invented a separate language for the dwarves. Dwarvish might
> just possibly extend to two dozen words and fragments if we are
> extremely lucky
More than that, a bit over forty.
, but oddly enough, Narn words contain a goodly
> percentage of this vast vocabulary: Kha'ri ("group of dwarves"); Kha'tok
> ("dwarf blade"); Kha'mak ("high lord of dwarves"); G'Khamazad ("forge of
> the dwarves" or "stone treasure of the dwarves"); Z'ha'dum ("bold
> delving").
These interpretations are nonsense, and have nothing to do with Khuzdul
("Dwarvish"; the combinatory form for "Dwarf" is not Kha- but Khazad-).
We do have a bit more than two dozen words, but
The latter may also be translated as an Elvish word meaning
> either "dark maw" or "fort(ress) of the shadows".
It may not be translated as anything of the sort.
> SERIAL NUMBERS - 5
>
> W-H-I-T-E-S-T-A-R
>
> From the Elvish for "high silvery-grey".
From the English for "white star".
> SERIAL NUMBERS - 6
>
> H-E-D-R-O-N-N
>
> From the Elvish for "lord of the shadowed havens".
I suppose in Sindarin you could have a phrase "Hi^r Du'lond" of that
meaning. If you think that looks a lot like "Hedronn", then you can come
to any conclusion.
> SERIAL NUMBERS - 7
>
> S-Y-R-I-A-P-L-A-N-U-M
>
> From the Elvish for "moonfall shadowed tower"
From the Latin, meaning "Syria Plain". It's a place on Mars.
> it was patrolled by the Rangers of
> Ithilien, a hard, cold and suspicious group who protected the land with
> zeal and determination, tending towards a "shoot first and ask questions
> later" attitude.
That is quite untrue, an absolute misrepresentation of the character of
the Rangers of Ithilien, who definitely did ask questions before they shot.
> Now, there is also a "Tower of the Sun" in Middle Earth. It's Minas
> Arnor,
Minas Anor
which was renamed Minas Tirith after the fall of Minas Ithil.
> The fascinating thing is that Minbar could be translated as "Tower of
> the Sun", amongst other possibilities, such as "Dawn Tower", "Towering
> Tower" and "Dawn of the Sun".
No, it couldn't be translated as any of those things.
> Of course, we should remember that this couldn't be anything
> other than yet another amazing coincidence because Straczynski has
> definitively told us that the word "Minbar" is co-opted from a term for
> a pulpit in a moslem mosque. Doesn't that last statement strike you as
> just sublimely delicious?
That _is_ the Arabic word. I'm not at all certain why it seems so much
less plausible to you than your other fantasies. Consider, for instance,
the architectural qualities of the Minbari head-bone :-).
> In the meantime, let's return to the Rangers of Ithilien, whose name
> translates as "wanderers of (the land of) the moon" or "ring guardians
> of (the land of) the moon" or possibly "knights of (the land of) the
> moon".
The latter pair are quite interesting, because we could
> construct an alternative in the Elvish style that looks something like
> this: si cor.
That is not in the elvish style, nor does it mean anything like what
you say it does. (It is French for "if heart"; does that suggest anything
to you?)
> Just a couple of minor points. First, my spelling of names could be a
> problem. When what I've noted disagrees with any published work, I have
> given alternatives, where I am aware of them. Second, these names, with
> occasional exceptions, are only up to the end of Season 2 and are, as I
> noted in my first post, "in the Elvish style" which means that Elvish
> forms are rarely perfect, but they're consistently close.
They are neither perfect, nor close, nor anything but gibberish.
> Now you may wish to protest that actually *looking* for something that's
> not readily apparent is the ultimate step towards illegitimate
> perception.
So you're admitting that you're pulling my chain, and you've never been
serious at all? How did you get this much time to waste?
> But as I said, I already had a hundred "points of
> comparison", more than half of which I had found while maintaining a
> strict ignorance of LoTR. Statistically speaking, the chances of this
> Elvish convergence occurring accidentally had left "infinitesmal" behind
> ninety decimal places previously, so looking for the Silvan Elves, at
> that point, didn't seem a dubious practice in any respect. My principle
> has always been : if there's no parallel to be found on the show, I
> shouldn't be able to find any. (One exception aside.)
Um. Do you really not expect anyone reading this to have a better
grasp of statistics than that? Given your methods, the chances of you
finding what you are looking for seem to be exactly 1:1.
> The
> woman who knew about the herb athelas in LoTR was Ioreth. Curiously Dr
> Laura Rosen's name translates several possible ways
No it doesn't.
> and one of those
> ways matches Ioreth.
Ioreth means "Old woman". It matches "Laura Rosen" in exactly no way at all.
The extraodinarily interesting thing about
> Lorien/"dreamland" is that some of the early Elvish forms for "sleep"
> and "dream" are "mur" and "maur" which would enable us to construct an
> alternative in the Elvish style for "dreamland" as Moria!!!
You could. You give yourself permission to 'construct' anything. I
couldn't, because I like my constructions to be real elvish. Moria does
not mean "dreamland", it means "Black Chasm."
> P.P.S. I repeat: I couldn't agree with Straczynski more. Of course it's
> ridiculous. But is it totally untrue?
Yes. And it's either a sign of a peculiar strain of madness, or an
extraordinarily stupid joke. But the problem with the joke is that a few
people may take you seriously, to the great increase of their ignorance.
If you have any compunctions, or any pretensions to honesty, call it off
now.
David
!@?*$%
> While I understand that you have enjoyed this game a great deal, and it
> is very entertaining, your work is valueless except as an indication of how
> you think - it says nothing about Mr. Straczynski's intentions. Your
> 'decoding' system, while it may seem to you to produce unarguable results,
> actually has no system at all. If you take a dictionary of any language, a
> list of names in another language (or any set of languages) and then poke
> here, prod there, and twist letters around, you will start to find
When applied to naturally occurring languages and stories, a valid
criticism. Perhaps, however, JMS really is playing these games.
--
He left the light and laughter clean |For the time being, email
and stumbled on the stones unseen. | to me might be lost or
He walked beneaththe wold and heath; | delayed. Email to the
betrayed by hope to truth obscene. |sender will definitely go
Janez Brank
David Salo wrote:
>
> "Salo" is my name. That must mean something, doesn't it?
>
Sure. In fact, in Slovenian it would mean "fat" :)
No offense intended. I'm not at all serious about it. But the meaning
is right. I'm just trying to show another proof that if you search long
enough, you can find a "meaning" for anything.
Janez
DDDR
>From: k...@welkin.apana.org.au (Kathryn Andersen)
>Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 21:14:17 GMT
>Earlier this year I went to the B5 convention, Parliament of Dreams, in
>Queensland. (Sorry, I still haven't written my report. Should I give
>up?) One of the presentations was "Cracking Straczynski's Code" by Annie
>Hamilton. After much nagging on my part, <grin> Annie has finally
>agreed to let me pass on some of her findings to the net. (She has no
>net access herself.)
This was a fun read :) Now if only Ms Hamilton would have Net access,
then we'd get lots and lots of threads more interesting than "is Frodo
Gay" :)
Isn't there some Tolkien Language Mailing Lists? I'm assuming that
the Quenya, etc language experts hang out there. Now, no offense
to Mr Salo, but what would these other linguists think about this
Straczynski's Code? Would they agree with his criticisms?
dwk2...@netset.com
D
reminds me of some one i knew at one time wonderfully elaborste theories
on every thing and no life.....no logic can rebuff a person
entretrenched in their own private world
>Numbers - 3
David Salo
In article <19961218060...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, dd...@aol.com
(DDDR) wrote:
> Isn't there some Tolkien Language Mailing Lists? I'm assuming that
> the Quenya, etc language experts hang out there. Now, no offense
> to Mr Salo, but what would these other linguists think about this
> Straczynski's Code? Would they agree with his criticisms?
No offense taken. If you can get permission from Annie
Hamilton/Kathryn Andersen to forward the message to tolk...@dcs.ed.ac.uk,
you can find out, I suppose.
DS
NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl
In article <32B6E5...@guest.arnes.si>
Janez Brank <janez...@guest.arnes.si> writes:
>David Salo wrote:
>>
>> "Salo" is my name. That must mean something, doesn't it?
>>
>
animal fat :-(
GSN
Juha Kalanen
In article <17861F29ES...@vm.amu.edu.pl>, NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl
(NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl) says...
>
>In article <32B6E5...@guest.arnes.si>
>Janez Brank <janez...@guest.arnes.si> writes:
>
>>David Salo wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>In Polish, a similar word "sadl/o" exists, but it pertains only
>animal fat :-(
The Finnish word 'salo' is in English forest. Or to be more precise
it's an old forest from a considerable distance away from nearest
human habitation.
-JuhaK
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ www
+ Email: ju...@taltta.lpr.carel.fi + You feel more alive + (o o)
+ Alias: Juha Kalanen + after a brush with death ++oOO+(_)+OOo+
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
John Osborne
dmro...@students.wisc.edu (David Salo) wrote:
Gosh David, you evil man you! >:-)
Regards
John O
--
John Osborne jo...@kami.demon.co.uk
Eallra craeft unnytt be thonne Engel on flintloce micgeth
Robert Holland
Well, if you had a life you'd end up frittering it away...
--RH
Glenn Saunders
The mortal Bill Seurer wrote:
: What I think is a terrible shame is that JMS is being held up as some sort
: of plagerizer, unsable to create his own sweeping epic. He has PUBLICALLY
: STATED that this is all a load of garbage and while LotR was one of his
: inspirations Babylon 5 has nothing to do with it.
You expect OJ to admit to the murders?
Kathryn Andersen
Note: I passed on David Salo's original posting to Annie, and this is her
response.
-------------------------
AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVID SALO
Dear David,
Hello. I am a little troubled by the thought that you consider me
dishonest. Deluded I may be, but if I am, it's genuinely deluded. And
also if I am, I do believe I have good cause. You imply I don't know
anything about linguistics. I teach German and have done so for nearly
twenty years. You imply I know nothing about statistics. I've taught
it for over a decade. And while I cannot claim, unlike yourself, to be
one of the world's great experts in any field, I am a respected educator
in my own state and I have contributed to textbooks in both German and
Mathematics.
I can see that you are very angry, but please do me the honour of at
least considering the following. You may still consider me nuts at the
end, but that doesn't particularly bother me.
Like Zathras, if I'm mad, I may even come to enjoy it.
Through the first two seasons, repeated comparisons were made between B5
and LoTR. The whole idea was originally encouraged by Straczynski:
"Characters sometimes start to take on a life of their own, as Tolkien
discovered with 'The Lord of the Rings'. However, Straczynski is
adamant this will not happen. .... Continuing the analogy of 'The Lord
of the Rings', Straczynski (probably the only producer able to name all
of the Fellowship of the Ring) likens the change in emphasis to the
breaking of the Fellowship of the Ring, whereby for a large part of the
story, Sam and Frodo are out of the action. All we know is that they
are heading for Mordor. Later on, most of the Fellowship rejoin."
Starburst Special # 22 p. 61 f.
"Like Tolkien and Jonathon Carroll, whose wonderful books start out like
very nice and comfortable ... and gradually take you someplace strange
and dark and unique ... I've tried to apply a similar structure to
Babylon 5." Internet posting (Signs and Portents)
"Michael Ansara appears as the Technomage Elric, and his warning to Vir
is almost verbatim from Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' in which Gildor,
an elf, tells Frodo (speaking about Gandalf), "But it is said, Do not
meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to
anger." The Technomages are a fascinating creation, and embody
Straczynski's fascination with the combination of the technological and
the magical. "It's definitely a favorite of mine," he says of the
episode. ..." Kevin Stevens, Sci-Fi Universe Vol 2, Issue 14, p. 50.
In response to the question: 'How important is Sheridan to Babylon 5?',
his response was 'How important is Aragorn to The Lord of The Rings?'
(Sorry I can't find the exact quote here, but lots of people remember
this one and would be able to verify its authenticity.)
"The stories I like best are the ones that rachet up the tension and the
uncertainly inch by inch until your're screaming. This could apply to
any of Stephen King's novels (and recall that a lot of my background is
in horror writing.) Mother Abigail in 'The Stand' was supposed to be
their hope for the future. So in short order, she's vulture-food, JUST
when she's most needed. *Because that's interesting.* It makes you say,
"Oh, hell, NOW what?" (Stephen actually does that a lot in his books and
it's a technique I've learned as well.) Boromir in LoTR was a capable,
skilled fighter, deemed absolutely essential to the Company of the Ring
... oops, there he is by the tree, full of Orc arrows. Stuff happens.
Same here."
(Internet response re Talia's departure).
Furthermore, a couple of the actors seem to have some delusions with
regard to LoTR too:
"... I didn't get into 'Lord of the Rings' until I was about 18,
undergoing a tonsillectomy in hospital. I read it all while laid up,
and thought, "If Frodo can get through all that pain, then so can I!"
Does Jason see the much-talked-about 'Lord of the Rings' comparisons in
Babylon 5, I wonder? "I suppose I like to look at Marcus as a bit like
Aragorn," he smiles. "You know, Strider? The show is like 'Lord of the
Rings' in other ways, too. They had this dark powerful force they were
fighting against, and in 'Babylon 5' we have the mysterious Shadows."
Jason Carter, SFX #9, p. 25
"We also meet the Rangers. By the way, the Rangers come straight from
the J.R.R. Tolkien epic, 'The Lord of the Rings'." Bruce Boxleitner,
Starlog Explorer #11 p. 26
Boxleitner's comment had this interesting postscript a few months later:
"Last year, I said to him, "You've got this whole rich tapestry of story
worked out, with so many dimensions and so much depth to it. What was
the germination of all this? Where does this sort of thing come from?"
He gave me a copy of 'Lord of the Rings' and he asked me to please read
it over the hiatus. I did and I started to see some parallels and some
very interesting things. I happened to remark on this in an interview,
and Joe read it and said, "My God, it sounds like I'm a plagiarist!"
Well, no, I certainly didn't mean it that way. This was merely one
example of the kind of literature that inspired Joe to do this, and he's
read very widely in that field." Bruce Boxleitner, Sci Fi Entertainment,
Vol. 2 #6.
Straczynski's also quipped that he was 'raised by elves with attitude'.
He also remarked when someone asked him, early in the second season,
what Sheridan's middle name was that he was "working on one". I'm sorry
if I sound unduly suspicious, but what's to work on?
Furthermore, in a personal response to me via another person (Aaron
Brockbank, founder of the Babylon 5 Oz Fan Club), Straczynski neither
confirmed nor denied using Elvish but said that in making his names, he
used 'the sound of a word, much as Tolkien did'. Quote unquote.
Now the one thing that seemed clear to me very early was that
Straczynski was constructing a language for B5. I wanted to understand
it. Is that so strange? It also seemed enormously likely, given the
preponderence of his own comparisons and references to LoTR at the time
(more than to any other story, at least so it seemed), that it would be
based on Elvish. Now maybe this was a big assumption on my part, but I
always figured the Elvish was going to be modified. I never for a
moment considered that Straczynski would appropriate Tolkien's languages
as is. For one thing, I couldn't see him making it that easy for us.
Nevertheless, I expected him to extrapolate in fairly standard ways
using readily-available texts. Ruth Noel's 'The Languages of Middle
Earth' is quite easy to get hold of. (I didn't have a copy myself, but
it took me one phonecall to get one, and I didn't even know its title.)
The appendices in the various works of Tolkien I have mentioned are also
very simple to locate. So that's where and why I concentrated my
attention. I don't think that what I'm saying is illogical. Quite
frankly, I think your expectation that there should be perfect Eldarin
is unwarranted.
The standard method of extrapolation that I used was to transpose V with
B or W, S with TH or occasionally Z, T with D, L with R etc, and
interchange G, K and C. Bearing in mind Straczynski's comment about
sounds, I decided that C and S were a permissible transposition as well
and vowels were pretty much fair game. Is any of this a problem? Now I
admit that sometimes I didn't change letters, I left them as they were.
I hope this inconsistency won't be seen as a damning flaw, merely as
reasonable. Thus for CASSANDRA, for example, I used the pronounciation
KA/SARN/DRA - 'ka' from 'kano' or 'gon' (commander), 'sarn' from 'sarn'
(stone) and 'dra' from 'dor' (land). Okay, be picky - I've used Ruth
Noel's dictionary. Be even more picky - 'ka' is a fragment rather than
totality. Let me ask you a question: do you honestly think Straczynski
is making up a brand new language in the Minbari we've seen? Do you?
Please don't tell me that, while you accept that Straczynski's inventing
new languages, he's not applying them to the character names. Because
someone better informed than you has indicated differently:
"I tried to develop a basic language structure for each of the races on
B5. There are certain commonalities to the structure of names. I came
up with some prefixes and suffixes, and assigned meanings to them, the
same as real names. For instance, Rathenn (referred to by Delenn in
'Voices') and Delenn have the same suffix, which has a specific meaning.
You can break it down; Ner-oon ('Legacies'), Del-enn, Rath-enn, Der-onn,
and so forth. The various parts have specific meanings but I generally
keep that to myself, just for amusement." jms (Internet posting
regarding 'Voice in the Wilderness', Part 1)
I've seen Straczynski's mentions of psychology, classics, history and
all sorts of other stuff (not forgetting LoTR at regular intervals until
a bit over a year ago), but I've never seen or heard a mention of
language study. So, where is this coming from? Did he get up before
breakfast one morning and invent Minbari, get up the next morning and
invent Narn? How long does it take to develop a language? Tell me,
David, how long did Tolkien take? How long has Marc Okrand taken with
Klingon?
I'm left breathless, David. Behind your global denunciations, there is
quite a vacuum of thought on this issue. Very frankly I believe that
your bias against Ruth Noel straitjackets your thinking. I realise you
wouldn't use 'The Languages of Middle Earth' but I find it incredible
that you would attack not only my work, but my integrity, all because
you can't credit my deduction that a long time fan of Tolkien's writings
(who is in the process of attempting to create languages of his own)
would use the most readily obtainable resources and skew them just a
little to disguise where the languages came from! I personally think
Straczynski's been very clever, but I don't think he's a master of
linguistics. Nevertheless, he's good enough that his use of extended
alien phrases and sentences do make sense.
DRAAL is amongst the most skewed of all. The closest I ever found to it
was a part of the name of Tom Bombadil, and I never even considered it a
legitimate counterpart until Straczynski made a 'point of comparison'
between the two! That point seems to have been lost on you. Indeed,
until that moment I was given that particular posting, I laughed a lot
over the dozen or so 'coincidences' I'd found and how strange it was
that they really were appropriate to the characters. I stopped
laughing, and I asked myself the obvious question. If there's a 'point
of comparison' to Tom Bombadil, what else is there? I seemed to me that
someone who knew LoTR back to front and inside out might not just limit
himself to such an obscure 'point of comparison' as Tom Bombadil, and
the apparent parallels I'd found to Arwen and Frodo might not be
completely coincidental after all! These two names were staggeringly
simple, but there were others almost as easy.
Strangely enough I not only started to think I was on the right track, I
started to be suspicious about all the major names. It was a long, long
time before I became suspicious about all of the names. Now, obviously
to you I'm not on the right track and the fact that Straczynski himself
made that comparison between Draal and Tom Bombadil doesn't seem to be
good enough for you to concede even that small point. So busy were you
in denouncing my imperfect Eldarin (which I made a point of pointing out
myself, thereby I suppose trying to deceive everyone in some perverse
fashion by telling the truth) that the mind-blowing possibility that
perhaps Straczynski was virtually handing over a Rosetta Stone didn't
occur to you. Is it really too irrational to consider that his language
and his names might be a variation on Elvish? Did it occur to you that
rather than conceal what I believed to be a vital clue, I deliberately
used it as my first serial number, not out of dishonesty but out of a
misguided sense of honour to help anyone who wanted to follow what I was
doing? The bottom line of all this is that, I don't concede your point
on Draal. The closest is 'trees', also close is an element from the
word for Tom Bombadil, who is closely associated with trees and in
Draal, there is one enormous clue as to how the triple-encryption works.
If you look at it only as an anagram, you will miss the clue. I do not,
repeat not, use anagrams in translation.
Equally, while I may be prepared to concede on a very few of your
points, HEDRONN is not one of them. It has more elegance and style than
HI^R DU'LOND and, moreover, it is a dead obvious extrapolation from it,
particularly since 'lonn' is an alternative for 'lond', and R frequently
substitutes for L . You seem to have over-looked this in your haste to
query my pretensions to honesty. But you're right on one thing - I
don't have the slightest compunction about not using *pure* Eldarin.
I'm quite content if it's close, particularly if there's a corroborative
clue lurking close at hand, as there seems to be in the case of Hedronn.
ZAGROS - I got the feeling on this one you were so intent on proving I
was wrong that you did exactly what you were accusing me of: ignoring
whatever you felt to be inconvenient. 'Za' from 'aze' (sunlight), with
dropping of initial vowel. Is there any problem with such an eminently
standard procedure? 'Ros' from 'ros' or 'roth' (foam), overlaid in the
interests of elegant formulation with 'gros' from 'groth' (delving or
cave). As for Kha'ri, Kha'tok etc, I find it difficult to believe that
you have any trouble seeing the connection between Kha' and Khazad
(dwarvish for 'dwarf'). In your decrying my translation of Morden as
'shadow man', you demonstrate quite narrow minded thinking. In Robert
Foster's "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth" under the entry
'Shadow-land', he comments "'Shadow-land' is an acceptable Westron
translation of Mordor." There are other times 'mor' is used to describe
'shadow', rather than 'dark' or 'black', but look for them yourself.
Only you can open your mind, I can't do it for you. I used 'den' from
'adan', dropping the initial vowel. Perhaps that's a problem for you.
But it shouldn't be, because I'm sure you know it is not exactly unknown
in moving from Sindarin to Quenya! Speaking of the latter, I'm not
going to dignify your statement about the lack of 'z' in Eldarin, except
to offer you the thought that nosing around a little in Quenya might be
helpful.
I apologise if I'm getting a bit sharp about this, but I am not prepared
to accept any assertion that I am lying or am being dishonest. I am not
ignoring what I feel to be inconvenient - I say again that I could make
this whole thing look a damn sight better by picking and choosing only
those words that work, instead of including all the ridiculous things
that don't. I am not ignoring what I feel to be inconvenient - in the
case of Narn as 'tale', I intended to give that as a translation later
when I had more space. There are others as well and I will get back to
them. I am not ignoring what I feel to be inconvenient - I am not
choosing the best and most fitting names as serial numbers, I'm still
working up to them.
I assumed any reader would have intelligence enough to figure that a
code like this would have one strand of English associations. I guess I
assumed too much in view of your scathing sarcasm. And yes, on a
similar note, Minbar is the word for a pulpit in a moslem mosque. I
didn't dispute that, but I continue to find it amusing. Let's see:
'min' - the fragment for high, prominent, pre-eminent or first things.
Often used in 'minas', meaning 'tower'. Also used in 'minual' -
'morning twilight', 'first light'. Also part of 'minya' - 'first'. Bar
- home or dwelling. Bar - a part of 'barad', tower. Ar - 'noble',
'royal', 'high' and part of 'nar' - 'fire' or 'anar' - 'sun' or 'are',
the other possibility for 'sunlight' besides 'aze'. I could go on with
a few more, but what's the point? You've already decided that it's
impossible to find 'towering towers' in any combination of the above and
I hardly dare mention I thought of 'dawn of the sun' because Ruth Noel
says that the element 'min' may possibly be used to indicate the rising
of the sun. Even if you were to grant the possibility that Straczynski,
being the Tolkien fan that he once admitted to being, were to pilfer a
bit of Elvish, Dwarvish and so on, in the construction of his own
languages, it's plain that, for whatever reason, you couldn't possibly
conceive he'd use less than Jim Allen's translations. This, despite the
fact that Jim Allen's book is a lot harder to get hold of. So Minbar
couldn't possibly be a 'point of comparison' to Minas Anor or Minas
Tirith. Please pardon me if I amuse no one but myself then with the
similarity of Pippin's impression of a city with a shimmering crystal
spire that seemed to be carved from the bones of the earth to Delenn's
description of the cities of Minbar carved from crystal formations and
displaying breath-taking patterns of light. I can even go further in
private amusement by realising that, while my brain is totally unable to
find the designer's alleged shape of a nautilus when I look at a Minbari
cruiser, the whole idea of a chambered spiral again seems consonant with
Minas Tirith with its chambered tiers and its spiral path to the top.
Can you see a nautilus? I can't. But if I accept, against my better
judgment, that it is, I also take on board its immediate associations,
and if those immediate associations happen to augment my so-called
erroneous ideas, that doesn't make me dishonest. If I find the wider
LoTR associations more 'fitting' for Minbar than a pulpit (let's be
precise: small set of stairs) in a mosque, so what? Particularly since
'minbar' is not the usual spelling for that particular small set of
stairs from which the khutbah is delivered - more commonly, it's spelt
'mimbar'. We find amusement where we can - in this instance, I find it
in the dissonance of one comparison, and the rippling resonances of
another.
If I appear a bit hostile, I say in defence that you attacked my
integrity. As I said before, like Zathras, I'm happy to be called mad,
but I will not be called dishonest by someone who is using his own
opinions as fact and his own innate prejudices as reasons. Your opinion
in the matter of the tendency of the Rangers of Ithilien to shoot first
and ask questions later is nothing but that - opinion. As a matter of
fact, I used to agree with your opinion totally until I read a
commentary describing the Rangers of Ithilien as hard, cold and
suspicious. I was so startled, I thought about it, then asked a few
Tolkien fans of my acquaintance if they considered this was an accurate
view. They said ' yes'. As I could see the book and the fans both had
a good case for this interpretation, I felt I was probably wrong. What
changed my mind was one of my friends saying that Faramir was an
exception rather than the rule and that seemed to me to be a quite
reasonable assertion. I understand your opinion, David, but I no longer
agree with it. Your opinion is no better or worse than my opinion, but
it's not a fact.
Had you said to me that my translations look a bit dubious and would I
explain how I got them, I wouldn't have minded a bit. Indeed, I would
have welcomed a good devil's advocate. But instead, your sweeping and
categorical no's have left me with the distinct impression that you have
very slightly misrepresented yourself. Now, I'm not claiming to be one
of the world's great Eldarin scholars. Or that what I've done is
without mistakes. (No, I didn't know there was a word for 'steward' -
thank you for telling me.)
What I am claiming, however, is that I've applied some of the most basic
and simple principles of linguistics to all of Tolkien's languages
(including early Elvish) and I've found far, far, far more 'points of
comparison' than can possibly be accounted for by random chance. I
don't see why I should abandon early Elvish just because you've got
something against it.
Instead of seeing the use of Tolkien's languages for the immense
limitation it actually is, you pour scorn and suggest that not only
would I have to find a one-to-one correspondence because this pattern is
only in my mind, but that I would be capable of finding patterns of
Swahili in 'Moby Dick' if I tried. Now if I knew that Melville spoke
Swahili or had an interest in it, this might be a good topic for a
thesis. Some very respected and learned people have turned in some very
bizarre dissertations and they haven't been called crazy. So,
unfortunately, all your insult does is re-inforce to me that you didn't
think before you donned armour and waded in. It's obvious whom you're
attacking, but who are you defending? I'd be very interested in
knowing.
Your scorn and nice turn of phrase may win you applause, but the blatant
and uninformed exaggeration (putting it in the best possible light)
leaves me wondering why you are so vicious and vitriolic in your blanket
assumptions about my mind. I actually restrict my pattern-finding in a
very exclusive manner - ask anyone who knows me well. Yet you impute to
me an ability to find a madman's pattern anywhere, all because I've made
one very specific claim that you disagree with, since you've apparently
instantly determined that the only way it can be true is if there's
perfect unadorned, untransmuted Eldarin! Worse than that, you suggest
I'm a liar. Worse still, a hypocrite. Should I express a doubt, that
only verifies to you that I'm lying. But if I hadn't expressed a single
doubt, I have the feeling you would have impugned me anyway. I'm sorry
if this runs very deep with me, but I have sacrificed a great deal of
happiness in my life for the sake of personal honour, I have fought
hypocrisy repeatedly and I loathe it, and for you to suggest this is the
deepest insult you could offer. Call me mad, but don't call me
dishonest - I don't call Straczynski that. I believe he's telling the
truth, but that he is being very careful with it. I don't find anything
he's said inconsistent with what I'm saying. Okay, you don't see as I
do that his statements are very astute variations on 'no comment'. You
see in them a denial. All I can say is I envy you your innocence in
never having encountered economy with the truth before.
But let's consider something else. Even if you ignore names and
language entirely in B5, we'd still be left with free-floating Tolkien
parallels. Yes, I know - a coincidental result of the same mythic well.
Please pardon me if I'm suspicious. Please pardon me if I think the
line about all epics being alike is evasion. All epics are alike and
all epics aren't alike. All epics resonate (people have compared LoTR
and 'Dune', as well as 'Dune' and B5) but they don't resonate to the
degree B5 does with LoTR. Please pardon me if I took Straczynski at his
word when he said that there are resonances here for those looking (that
was, of course, before he started getting annoyed at the kind of
resonances they were finding). Resonance? Try something - look at
Cerin Amroth. Vowels in the first word are fair game. Keep the
consonants. Use 'roth' as is, but bear in mind L as a *possible*
substitute for R. Now there are only a limited number of possibilities
for where 'am-' comes from, and I'm not going to find them for you. Try
to keep an open mind. A striking parallel may or may not have hit you,
but if you've watched B5 from the first season, I would be surprised if
it hadn't. Now what odd manifestation happened when the Fellowship of
the Ring reached Cerin Amroth? There is, of course, nothing remotely
like that in B5, is there? Let me say that I didn't notice this
parallel incident *at all* until the translation slapped it into my
face.
Please pardon me again if I took Straczynski at his word when he said
this was a carefully layered show, and it seemed logical that, with all
those LoTR references he was making way back when, there might be some
serious bits of Tolkien floating around, as opposed to just casual
throw-away lines. Please pardon me if I didn't find it unusual that
someone who claimed an intimate knowledge of Tolkien was making tributes
in quotes and allusions. Why not in language as well? Please pardon me
for making a logical extrapolation. Please pardon me if "isil'zha"
sounds strikingly like "Elessar" and, bearing in mind Straczynski's
comment that he used sounds 'much as Tolkien did', it was hardly
surprising to see that an isil'zha has a greenish stone at its centre.
I never expected to find whole chunks of Tolkien's descriptions as
supporting associations. I thought it was a superb game on
Straczynski's part until there were far too many of them to call it a
game anymore. Speaking of isil'zha, if you can figure the associations
of 'future, births, beginnings, dawn of a new age', you will be a long
way towards understanding the nature of the shifts I believe he's
formulated.
Please pardon me, David, if when Bruce Boxleitner asks Straczynski what
his inspiration is and he gets handed a copy of LoTR and remarks on this
in an interview, I think that perhaps I really have got it. Please
pardon me if action speaks louder than words and the handing over a copy
of LoTR seems to me to be more significant that all the subsequent
back-pedalling, all the sudden claims of Arthurian romance. Please
pardon me if I can make hugely long-term character predictions, right
down to specific details, and it is that specific detail that has
shocked and finally convinced my friends and acquaintances (who included
die-hard skeptics) that I really do have an inkling of what these names
mean. Please pardon me, if for over fifteen months before 'Fall of
Night', when anyone asked me what my theory of the Vorlons was, I
replied that I didn't really have a clue because my analysis had to be
faulty - while I thought that they should be angelic guardians, that
couldn't possibly be right as (1) Straczynski was a self-avowed atheist,
and (2) he'd promised us 'very alien aliens'. In my view, angelic
beings didn't qualify as 'very alien aliens', so I figured whatever
Straczynski's inspiration for the Vorlons was, he wasn't cribbing them
from Tolkien's Valar. I suggested to a number of people that I felt, if
we wanted to deduce the nature of the Vorlons, somebody should locate a
copy of Delaney's 'Babel 17'. (We still haven't found one, but I
continue have this feeling it's going to be helpful when we do.) Now, as
I'd been very public in expressing all these thoughts and doubts, you
can imagine what happened to my reputation when Kosh was revealed.
People were even prepared to overlook my biggest blunder: "I think Kosh
is a three in her own right." Very quickly, they came prefer my
explanation that I have a simple decoding system, to any other
frightening possibility of how I could be right in detail so often. But
let me not misrepresent the situation - I've been badly wrong, but only
twice so far. And when I get to those 'points of comparison', I will
admit them. Because they are interesting mistakes and they reveal a lot
of the process.
I've tried to put what I know of what Straczynski has said into a
cohesive whole. Which brings me to your remark about the illegitimacy
of choosing more than one meaning for G'Kar. I know this may sound
strange but I got the idea from Straczynski. He mentioned once about
his doing psychology and the revelations which come from having to
answer the repeated question "Who are you?" in a different way each
time. He likened it to getting through the layers of an onion. Why, I
thought, would he not apply this concept of identity to the characters
of B5? He has, after all, made one hell of a big deal about identity
and about the question "Who are you?"
Layers of an onion. The multiple possibilities for names, using more
than one of Tolkien's languages, including the dreaded early Elvish,
appear to be the way Straczynski's peeling through the onion layers of
his characters' identities and personalities. Is it so far-fetched to
suggest that Straczynski might have a plan, not just for the plot and
arc, but for the development of his characters? And that this plan for
that development might actually derive its internal cohesion in this
somewhat logical fashion, given his interest in both the psychology of
identity and Tolkien?
Now, at this point, I hope you're not thinking that I think there's
nothing but Tolkien in the names. I've said it's triple-encrypted:
that's what I mean. It's triple-encrypted. It's triple-encrypted.
It's triple-encrypted. It's not perfect Eldarin. It's not perfect
Eldarin. It's not perfect Eldarin. Am I making myself clear? Please
do pardon me if I've enjoyed myself a little too obviously in my
previous postings, but if I didn't laugh, I'd cry and if I started that,
I might not be able to stop. I hope you understand what I'm saying.
Tolkien's the basic thread, the anchor, but there is more than Tolkien
here. Tolkien's the basic thread, the anchor, and is thus much easier
to find. As I am not the first to point out. Though I am the first to
point out that it's on a much vaster scale than anyone has previously
thought. I don't doubt I won't be the last. Are you going to attack
them as dishonest too? Because let me assure you of one thing: other
people are going to find this sooner or later. It's too damn simple.
Annie Hamilton
19/12/96
-------------------------
David Salo
In article <E2ww...@welkin.apana.org.au>, k...@welkin.apana.org.au
(Kathryn Andersen) wrote:
[I have cut out everything not pertaining to Tolkien]
> Equally, while I may be prepared to concede on a very few of your
> points, HEDRONN is not one of them. It has more elegance and style than
> HI^R DU'LOND
YMMV
>and, moreover, it is a dead obvious extrapolation from it,
No, it is not.
> particularly since 'lonn' is an alternative for 'lond', and R frequently
> substitutes for L .
No, it does not. Rond is Sindarin for 'domed cavern or hall'. Using
her methodology, 'Hamilton' might have equated Hedronn with 'Elrond' (a
dead obvious extrapolation!) but evidently it didn't suit.
> ZAGROS - I got the feeling on this one you were so intent on proving I
> was wrong that you did exactly what you were accusing me of: ignoring
> whatever you felt to be inconvenient. 'Za' from 'aze' (sunlight), with
> dropping of initial vowel. Is there any problem with such an eminently
> standard procedure?
This is only 'Hamilton''s 'standard procedure', it has nothing to do
with elvish word-formation. Nor is it sound practice, in any kind of
derivation, to equate two words on the basis of their having in common a
single consonant!
> Speaking of the latter, I'm not
> going to dignify your statement about the lack of 'z' in Eldarin, except
> to offer you the thought that nosing around a little in Quenya might be
> helpful.
-z- does not exist in Quenya or Sindarin. There was an archaic -z-
(originally from -s-) in forms ancestral to Quenya; this was altered to -r-
in Quenya. Thus _a'ze_ became _a're_. This would have been clear if
Hamilton had ever actually consulted _The Lord of the Rings_ instead of
just reading Ruth Noel.
> As for Kha'ri, Kha'tok etc, I find it difficult to believe that
> you have any trouble seeing the connection between Kha' and Khazad
> (dwarvish for 'dwarf').
The old 'single consonant' trick again. Why not identify Kha' with "Khand"?
> In your decrying my translation of Morden as
> 'shadow man', you demonstrate quite narrow minded thinking. In Robert
> Foster's "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth" under the entry
> 'Shadow-land', he comments "'Shadow-land' is an acceptable Westron
> translation of Mordor."
Robert Foster did not know what he was talking about. Mordor means
'black land'.
> There are other times 'mor' is used to describe
> 'shadow', rather than 'dark' or 'black', but look for them yourself.
> Only you can open your mind, I can't do it for you.
The words 'dark' and 'black' can surely be used to _describe_
'shadow'. But they do not mean _shadow_. *mori > Q. more, S. mor means
'dark, black'.
> I used 'den' from
> 'adan', dropping the initial vowel. Perhaps that's a problem for you.
> But it shouldn't be, because I'm sure you know it is not exactly unknown
> in moving from Sindarin to Quenya!
The Quenya form of _adan_ is _atan_. If there were a Sindarin word
*mordan it would mean 'black craftsman'. *morden might mean 'black
slope'.
> 'min' - the fragment for high, prominent, pre-eminent or first things.
> Often used in 'minas', meaning 'tower'. Also used in 'minual' -
> 'morning twilight', 'first light'. Also part of 'minya' - 'first'.
That's minuial; and uial means 'twilight', not 'light'. minuial is the
period _before_ 'first light'.
Bar
> - home or dwelling. Bar - a part of 'barad', tower.
These two elements are quite unconnected. Bar 'house, dwelling, land'
comes from a root MBAR; barad from a root BARAT, probably an extension of
BAR 'raise'.
Ar - 'noble',
> 'royal', 'high' and part of 'nar' - 'fire' or 'anar' - 'sun' or 'are',
> the other possibility for 'sunlight' besides 'aze'. I could go on with
> a few more, but what's the point?
Indeed, what is the point? -ar is not 'part of nar'. These are two
different roots: AR 'high' also 'outside, removed'; NAR 'fire, red light'
which is also present in Q. anar 'sun'. a're comes from yet another root,
AS 'warmth'.
> You've already decided that it's
> impossible to find 'towering towers' in any combination of the above and
> I hardly dare mention I thought of 'dawn of the sun' because Ruth Noel
> says that the element 'min' may possibly be used to indicate the rising
> of the sun.
Ruth Noel did not know what she was talking about.
> Even if you were to grant the possibility that Straczynski,
> being the Tolkien fan that he once admitted to being, were to pilfer a
> bit of Elvish, Dwarvish and so on, in the construction of his own
> languages, it's plain that, for whatever reason, you couldn't possibly
> conceive he'd use less than Jim Allen's translations. This, despite the
> fact that Jim Allen's book is a lot harder to get hold of.
'Hamilton' must have me confused with someone else. I have never put
forward or endorsed Jim Allen's _Introduction to Elvish_ as a reliable
guide to the study of the elvish languages. It is not. It may be better
in some respects than Ruth Noel's book, but both books are terribly
outdated. The only reliable sources for the study of elvish remain
Tolkien's published works.
> Your opinion
> in the matter of the tendency of the Rangers of Ithilien to shoot first
> and ask questions later is nothing but that - opinion.
No, it is not. The Rangers of Ithilien do not shoot Frodo, Sam, or
Gollum, first and then ask questions. They do exactly the opposite: asking
questions first, and then judging. '"For I am commanded to slay all whom I
find in this land without the leave of the Lord of Gondor. But I do not
slay man or beast needlessly."'
'"It seems we are discovered at last. I have my bow here, and I have
posted other archers, nigh as good marksmen as myself, on either bank. We
wait only for your command to shoot, Captain."
"Shall we shoot?" said Faramir, turning quickly to Frodo.'
This disciplined behavior, with due concern for the motives and
purposes of those they suspect, is exactly the opposite of 'shooting first
and asking questions later'.
> What I am claiming, however, is that I've applied some of the most basic
> and simple principles of linguistics to all of Tolkien's languages
> (including early Elvish) and I've found far, far, far more 'points of
> comparison' than can possibly be accounted for by random chance. I
> don't see why I should abandon early Elvish just because you've got
> something against it.
I have nothing against 'early Elvish'. I know a good deal about the
development of the Elvish languages. But 'Hamilton' is not using 'early
Elvish', nor Quenya, nor Sindarin; but rather a number of elements (not
identical with the actual elements used in the elvish languages),
identified by the presence of one or two consonants (she indicates that she
doesn't care about vowels); and she allows so many equations of consonants
with one another --
>The standard method of extrapolation that I used was to transpose V with
>B or W, S with TH or occasionally Z, T with D, L with R etc, and
>interchange G, K and C. Bearing in mind Straczynski's comment about
>sounds, I decided that C and S were a permissible transposition as well
>and vowels were pretty much fair game.
that that the total number of possible combinations is probably under 150,
each with a large number of possible meanings. Add to that the free use of
anagrams (and there are thousands of possible anagrams for, say, a
nine-letter word) and the willingness to suppress inconvenient consonants
(as in 'Hedronn'!) it is no wonder that she can always find what she is
looking for.
> Please pardon me if "isil'zha"
> sounds strikingly like "Elessar"
Both words have an 'l' and an 's' in them. But then so do a lot of
Tolkien's words: dentals are among the most common sounds in them. Why not
compare it to Isildur "servant of the moon", or ithildin "moon-star", or
estel "hope", or estolad "encampment", or lithlad "ash-plain"? A neat
methodology, that.
> Now, at this point, I hope you're not thinking that I think there's
> nothing but Tolkien in the names. I've said it's triple-encrypted:
> that's what I mean. It's triple-encrypted. It's triple-encrypted.
> It's triple-encrypted. It's not perfect Eldarin. It's not perfect
> Eldarin. It's not perfect Eldarin.
How about it's _not_ 'triple-encrypted' (which is Hamilton's way of
saying that she can play around with the words indefinitely until she gets
what she wants) and it's _not_ Eldarin at all.
>Because let me assure you of one thing: other
> people are going to find this sooner or later. It's too damn simple.
Much too simple.