summer haiku d'été – damn you Brit hunters = chasseurs anglais damn you Brit hunters blasting red foxes! murder in cold bloodvous chasseurs anglais tuez les renards roux ! meurtre de sang-froid Richard Vallance photo public domain
Tag: English
summer haiku d’été – how Mount Soracte = que le mont Soracte
summer haiku d'été – how Mount Soracte = que le mont Soractehow Mount Soracte shimmers with snow – let's quaff our wine la neige miroitée sur le mont Soracte – buvons le vin come Monte Soracte luccica con la neve - beviamo il vino mons Soracte lucet nivi - bibamus vinum Richard Vallance Original Latin: Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte nec iam sustineant onus silvae laborantes geluque flumina constiterint acuto? Dissolve frigus ligna super foco large reponens atque benignius deprome quadrimum Sabina, o Thaliarche, merum diota. Permitte divis cetera, qui simul stravere ventos aequore fervido deproeliantis, nec cupressi nec veteres agitantur orni. Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere, et quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro adpone nec dulcis amores sperne, puer, neque tu choreas, donec uirenti canities abest morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae lenesque sub noctem susurri composita repetantur hora, nunc et latentis proditor intumo gratus puellae risus ab angulo pignusque dereptum lacertis aut digito male pertinaci. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BCE) Pronounce like Italian. painting by/ par Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875)
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senryu – how we all tweet = comme nous ‹‹ tweetons ›› = come noi twittiamo
senryu – how we all tweet = comme nous ‹‹ tweetons ›› = come noi twittiamohow we all tweet holding hands the world around comme nous ‹‹ tweetons ›› les mains tenues autour du monde come noi twittiamo tenendoci per mano il mondo intorno Richard Vallance
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summer haiku = virgin of the sea, in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French
summer haiku = virgin of the sea, in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and Frenchvirgin of the sea, the priestess of the winds blesses our fleet vièrge de la mer, la prêtresse des vents bénit notre flotte Richard Vallance
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2 haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French, believe it or not! Believe it!
2 haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French, believe it or not! Believe it!
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Summer haiku - Knossos by the sea = Knossos au bord de la mer in Linear B, ancient Greek, English and FrenchKonoso para tarasa anemoiereya Knwsso/j para_ qa&ssash] a21nemou i'e/ria Knossos by the sea Priestess of the winds Knossos au bord de la mer prêtresse des vents Richard Vallance
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winter haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French, snow on the summit
winter haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French, snow on the summit, with the English version below and all of the other languages on the haiku image of the mountain and the church: snow on the summit of a Cretan mountain − a churchRichard Vallance REPOST from 2017
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autumn haiku, rain = haikus d’automne, la pluie
autumn haiku, rain = haikus d’automne, la pluiea beautiful contribution having nothing to do with Linear B = ma belle contribution qui n’a rien à faire avec le Linéaire B. leaves rustling on our cabin’s windowsills while dreaming of them ... froissement de feuilles sur les rebords des fenêtres l’on y rêve ... rainfall drumming on our cabin’s windowsills sweeping leaves off ... averses frappant les rebords des fenêtres balayant les feuilles ... © by Richard Vallance Janke 2018 (All Rights Reserved = Tous droits réservés) I have to print the text here because it is too small on the graphics. J’ai à reproduire les textes puisque les caractères de l’impression graphique sont trop petites.
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Richard Vallance is the editor of the world’s first ever international multilingual anthology of sonnets, The Phoenix Rising from the ashes
Richard Vallance is the editor of the world’s first ever international multilingual anthology of sonnets, The Phoenix Rising from the ashes:
Richard Vallance is the editor of the world’s first ever international multilingual anthology of sonnets, The Phoenix Rising from the ashes, which you can download here:
This anthology contains over 250 sonnets in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Farsi by almost 200 contemporary sonneteers. Almost all of these sonnets are published for the first time ever here. This anthology makes for a profoundly rewarding reading experience.
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Haiku in Minoan Linear A: wine from an embossed cup, the healing bread of heaven
Provisional count of Mycenaean-derived vocabulary in Linear A = 33.4 %
Provisional count of Mycenaean-derived vocabulary in Linear A = 33.4 %:I have just finished calculating the provisional maximum number of probable/possible Mycenaean-derived New Minoan words in our Linear A Lexicon of 988 words, and the count comes to 330, which is 33.4%. However, there is still a good deal of research to be done before I can determine how many of these potential New Minoan words are in fact just that. I estimate that, once I have eliminated the possible candidates, and restricted myself to the probable, this figure should drop to around 25%, which is roughly in line with the percentage of French words in English = 29%.
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Proto-Greek or Mycenaean kiritai = “barley” on Minoan Linear A tablet HT 114 (Haghia Triada)
Proto-Greek or Mycenaean kiritai = “barley” on Minoan Linear A tablet HT 114 (Haghia Triada):
Like many other Linear A tablets, HT 114 (Haghia Triada) does not appear to be inscribed only in the Minoan language. The proto-Greek or, more accurately, the Mycenaean word, kirita2 (kiritai), which means “barley” and which is almost exactly equivalent to Linear B, kirita, meaning the very same thing, appears on the very first line of this tablet. The only difference is that the Linear A word, kiritai, is plural, whereas the Linear B, kirita, is singular, as we can see here:
While the rest of HT 114 is inscribed in Minoan, the appearance of this one Mycenaean word gives pause. Was Linear A the syllabary of proto-Greek or of Mycenaean Greek just before the advent of the new official syllabary, Linear B? The fact is that it was not. However, this does not mean that there was not proto-Greek or Mycenaean vocabulary on Linear A tablets. How can this be, when the language itself is not proto-Greek?
The phenomenon of the superimposition of a superstratum of vocabulary from a source language (Mycenaean in the case of Linear A) onto a target language (Minoan), is historically not unique to the Minoan language. A strikingly similar event occurred in English with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 AD. Before that date, the only English was Anglo-Saxon. This is what is called Old English. But after conquest of England in 1066 AD, over 10,000 Norman French words streamed into the language between 1100 and 1450 AD, altering the landscape of English vocabulary almost beyond recognition. In fact, believe it or not, only 26 % of English vocabulary is Germanic versus 29 % is French, 29 % Latin and 6 % Greek. So the latter 3 languages, amounting to 64 % of the entire English lexicon, have completely overshadowed the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Germanic vocabulary, as illustrated in this Figure:
This phenomenon is unique to English alone among all of the Germanic languages. While the grammar and syntax of English is Germanic, the great majority of its vocabulary is not. A strikingly similar event appears to have occurred when the Mycenaeans conquered Knossos, is dependencies and Crete ca. 1500 – 1450 BCE. Just as the Norman French superstratum has imposed itself on Old English, giving rise to Middle and Modern English, Mycenaean Greek operated in much the same fashion when it superimposed itself on Old Minoan, leading to New Minoan vocabulary, which is proto-Greek or Mycenaean. I have already isolated no fewer than 150 proto-Greek or Mycenaean words out of 510 intact words (by my own arbitrary count) in the Linear A lexicon. Again, while the Minoan language itself is not proto-Greek in its grammar and syntax, but is of another, to date still unknown, origin, a large portion of its vocabulary is not Old Minoan, but instead proto-Greek or Mycenaean, as I shall demonstrate in no uncertain terms in my decipherments of numerous Linear A tablets to follow this one. One striking feature of New Minoan is this: the percentage of proto-Greek or Mycenaean vocabulary in Linear B comes to 29 %, precisely the same level as Norman French in English. Although this is sheer co-incidence, it is quite intriguing.
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Is the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE in Minoan or in proto-Greek? PART A: Is it in the Minoan language?
Is the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE in Minoan or in proto-Greek? PART A: Is it in the Minoan language? In my previous post on the Minoan Linear A labrys inscribed with I-DA-MA-TE, I postulated that the word Idamate was probably either the name of the king or of the high priestess (of the labyrinth?) to whom this labrys has been ritually dedicated. But in so doing I was taking the path of least resistance, by seeking out the two most simplistic decipherments which would be the least likely to prove troublesome or controversial. In retrospect, that was a cop-out. No sooner had I posted my two alternate simplistic translations than I was informed by a close colleague of mine in the field of diachronic historical linguistics focusing on Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B that at least two other alternative decipherments came into play, these being: 1. that the term Idamate may be the Minoan equivalent of the Mycenaean Linear B Damate, which is apparently an early version of the ancient Greek, Demeter, who was the goddess of cereals and harvesting:
2. that the term Idamate may be Minoan for Mount Ida, in which case, the word Mate = “mount”, such that the phrase actually spells out “Ida mount(ain)” :
Since both of these decipherments make eminent sense, either could, at least theoretically, be correct. But there is a third alternative, and it is far more controversial and compelling than either of the first two. 3. It is even possible that the four syllabograms I DA MA & TE are in fact supersyllabograms, which is to say that each syllabogram is the first syllabogram, i.e. the first syllable of a word, presumably a Minoan word. But if these 4 supersyllabograms represent four consecutive Minoan words, what on earth could these words possibly signify, in light of the fact that we know next to nothing about the Minoan language. It appears we are caught in an irresolvable Catch-22. Yet my own recent research has allowed me to tease potential decipherments out of 107 or about 21 % of all intact words in Prof. John G. Younger’s Linear A lexicon of 510 terms by my own arbitrary count. Scanning this scanty glossary yielded me numerous variations on 3 terms which might conceivably make sense in at least one suppositious context. These terms (all of which I have tentatively deciphered) are: 1. For I: itaja = unit of liquid volume for olive oil (exact value unknown) 2. FOR DA: either: daropa = stirrup jar = Linear B karawere (high certainty) or datara = (sacred) grove of olive trees or data2 (datai) = olive, pl. date = Linear B erawo or datu = olive oil or daweda = medium size amphora with two handles 3. For TE: tereza = large unit of dry or liquid measurement or tesi = small unit of measurement But I cannot find any equivalent for MA other than maru, which seemingly means “wool”, even in Minoan Linear A, this being the apparent equivalent of Mycenaean Linear B mari or mare. The trouble is that this term (if that is what the third supersyllabogram in idamate stands in for) does not contextually mesh at all with any of the alternatives for the other three words symbolized by their respective supersyllabograms. But does that mean the phrase is not Minoan? Far from it. There are at least 2 cogent reasons for exercising extreme caution in jumping to the conclusion that the phrase cannot be in Minoan. These are: 1. that the decipherments of all of the alternative terms I have posited for the supersyllabograms I DA & TE above are all tentative, even if they are more than likely to be close to the mark and some of them probably bang on (for instance, daropa), which I believe they are; 2. that all 3 of the supersyllabograms I DA & TE may instead stand for entirely different Minoan words, none of which I have managed to decipher. And God knows there are plenty of them! Since I have managed to decipher only 107 of 510 extant intact Minoan Linear A words by my arbitrary count, that leaves 403 or 79 % undeciphered! That is far too great a figure to be blithely brushed aside. The > impact of combinations of a > number of Minoan Linear A words on their putative decipherment:
To give you a rough idea of the number of undeciphered Minoan words beginning with I DA & TE I have not been able to account for, here we have a cross-section of just a few of those words from Prof. John G. Younger’s Linear A Reverse Lexicon: which are beyond my ken:
For I: iininuni ijadi imetu irima itaki For DA: dadana daini daki daku daqaqa For MA: madadu majasa manuqa masuri For TE: tedatiqa tedekima tenamipi teneruda But the situation is far more complex than it appears at first sight. To give you just a notion of the enormous impact of exponential mathematical permutations and combinations on the potential for gross errors in any one of a substantial number of credible decipherments of any given number of Minoan Linear A terms as listed even in the small cross-section of the 100s of Minoan Words in Prof. John G. Younger’s Reverse Linear A Lexicon, all we have to do is relate the mathematical implications of the chart on permutations to any effort whatsoever at the decipherment of even a relatively small no. of Minoan Linear A words: CLICK on the chart of permutations to link to the URL where the discussion of both permutations and combinations occurs:
to realize how blatantly obvious it is that any number of interpretations of any one of the selective cross-section of terms which I have listed here can be deemed the so-called actual term corresponding to the supersyllabogram which supposedly represents it. But, and I must emphatically stress my point, this is just a small cross-section of all of the terms in the Linear B Reverse Lexicon beginning with each of the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE in turn. It is grossly obvious that, if we allow for the enormous number of permutations and combinations to which the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE must categorically be subjected mathematically, it is quite out of the question to attempt any decipherment of these 4 supersyllabograms, I DA MA & TE, without taking context absolutely into consideration. And even in that eventuality, there is no guarantee whatsoever that any putative decipherment of each of these supersyllabograms (I DA MA & TE) in turn in the so-called Minoan language will actually hold water, since after all, a smaller, but still significant subset of an extremely large number of permutation and combinations must still remain incontestably in effect. The mathematics of the aforementioned equations simply stack up to a very substantial degree against any truly convincing decipherment of any single Minoan Linear A term, except for one small consideration (or as it turns out, not so small at all). As it so happens, and as we have posited in our first two alternative decipherments above, i.e. 1. that Idamate is Minoan for Mycenaean Damate, the probable equivalent of classical Greek Demeter, or 2. that Idamate actually means “Mount Ida”, these two possible decipherments which do make sense can be extrapolated from the supersyllabograms I DA MA & TE, at least if we take into account the Minoan Linear A terms beginning with I DA & TE (excluding TE), which I have managed, albeit tentatively, to decipher. However, far too many putative decipherments of the great majority of words in the Minoan language itself are at present conceivable, at least to my mind. Yet, this scenario is quite likely to change in the near future, given that I have already managed to tentatively decipher 107 or 21 % of 510 extant Minoan Linear A words, by my arbitrary count. It is entirely conceivable that under these circumstances I shall be able to decipher even more Minoan language words in the near future. In point of fact, if Idamate actually does mean either Idamate (i.e. Demeter) or Ida Mate (i.e. Mount Ida), then: (a) with only 2 possible interpretations for IDAMATE now taken into account, the number of combinations and permutations is greatly reduced to an almost insignificant amount & (b) the actual number of Minoan Linear A words I have deciphered to date rises from 107 to 108 (in a Boolean OR configuration, whereby we can add either “Demeter” or “Mount Ida” to our Lexicon, but not both). A baby step this may be, but a step forward regardless.
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2 more black haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English and French
2 more haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English & French, this time about silence in the temple…
2 more haiku in Mycenaean Linear B, ancient Greek, English & French, this time about silence in the temple…
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Happy New Year 2017 in Linear B, Greek, English & French!
Just added to my academia.edu: Did you know you speak Mycenaean Greek? You do! An amusing read too!
Just added to my academia.edu: Did you know you speak Mycenaean Greek? You do! An amusing read too! Click on the banner to read, bookmark or download the article:To my utter astonishment, in the first two weeks alone I have been present on academia.edu, my little research corner has already been visited 552 times, and I now have 75 followers.
I would be delighted if you were to follow me on academia.edu, and if you yourself are already a member, please be sure to send me a message on site, and I shall follow you back. Richard
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New article on academia.edu. My translation of Sappho’s Ode, “The Moon has set, and the Pleiades…” from Aeolic Greek to Mycenaean Linear B, Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, English and French
New article on academia.edu. My translation of Sappho’s Ode, “The Moon has set, and the Pleiades...” from Aeolic Greek to Mycenaean Linear B, Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, English and French, here: Click to OPENThis article with my translation of Sappho’s Ode, “The Moon has set, and the Pleiades...” into two archaic Greek dialects (Linear B & Linear C), as well as into English and French, is the first of its kind ever to appear on the Internet.
It will eventually be followed by my translations of several other splendid lyrics by Sappho, as well as by serial installments of my translation of the entire Catalogue of Ships in Book II of the Iliad by Homer, and several haiku which I have already composed in parallel Mycenaean Linear B, English & French (I kid you not!) If you would like to keep up with my ongoing research on academia.edu, you should probably sign yourself up with them, and follow me. Additionally, you can follow anyone else you like, especially those researchers, scholars and authors who are of particular interest to you (not me). And of course, once you have signed up with academia.edu, which is free, you can upload your own research papers, documents, articles, book reviews etc. to your heart’s content. Oh and by the way, we have a surprise coming up for you all, a research paper by none other than my co-administrator, Rita Roberts of Crete. Richard
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Did you know you speak Mycenaean Greek? You do! K-Z = kunaya to zeukesi
Did you know you speak Mycenaean Greek? You do! K-Z = kunaya to zeukesi Mycenaean Greek in Modern English: korete to zeukesi: Click to ENLARGE[1] kunaya – Mycenaean Greek has no “g”, but ancient Greek does. Many English words begin with Greek words, as for instance gynecology + all others in this table marked with [1] [2] The same goes with prefixes. Many English words begin with the Greek prefix “peda”. [3] The ancient Phoenicians were famous for their purple cloth, which they inherited from the splendid purple cloth, the finest in the entire then known world (the middle Mediterranean & the Aegean) the Minoans at Knossos had produced before them. Hence, Phoenician is a synonym for “purple”. [4]The Mycenaean syllabary can express words beginning with “te”, but for some reason, they spelled 4 the same was the Romans did, “qetoro”, and there is nothing wrong with that. Archaic Greek sometimes expressed the number 4 with “petro” and sometimes with “tetro”. This too is not at all unusual with early alphabetic Greek, in which the various East Greek dialects derived from Mycenaean Linear B & Arcado-Cypriot Linear C flipped between these two spellings. Orthography was uncertain in archaic Greek, in other words, it had not yet fossilized into the final spelling used in Attic Greek in Classical Athens = tettares. [5] The English word “quartet” is derived from the Latin “quattro”, which in turn was preceded historically by the Mycenaean “qetoro”, although the Latin spelling is unlikely to have derived from the latter. It is just that Mycenaean Greek and Latin happened to resort to the same basic spelling for 4. [6] Since Mycenaean Greek had no “l”, words beginning with “lambda” in (archaic) Greek had to be spelled with “r” + a vowel in the syllabary. Hence, “rewo” = archaic Greek “lewon” = English “lion” & “rino” = ancient Greek “linon” = English “linen” [7] The ancient words “sasama” = “sesame” & Mycenaean “serino” = ancient Greek “selinon” = English “celery” are in fact not Greek words, but proto-Indo European. [8] While “sitophobia” = “fear of eating” in English does not seem to correspond with “sitos” = “wheat” in ancient Greek, in fact it does, since wheat was one of the main staples of their diet, just as it was for the Egyptians, Romans and most other ancient civilizations. In other words, wheat was a staple food. [9] Although the Mycenaean infinitive “weide” = archaic Greek “weidein” = English “to see”, the aorist began with “weis”, hence “vision” in English. Richard
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Ode to the Archangel Michael = Ode à l’Archange Michel (translated from Mycenaean Linear B = traduit du grec mycénien )
Ode to the Archangel Michael = Ode à l’Archange Michel: Click to ENLARGE = Cliquer pour ÉLARGIR :As far as I am concerned, the French version of the original Ode in Mycenaean Greek is more successful and more convincing than the English. Franchement et à mon avis, la traduction du texte intégral de l’Ode en grec mycénien est plus réussi, donc plus convaincant que celle en anglais. Richard
Canadian Zen Haiku canadien ISSN 1705-4508 
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