spring haiku – HRH Argentée = SAR Argentée

spring haiku – HRH Argentée = SAR Argentée

HRH Argentée
on her forest path  –
queen of trilliums




SAR Argentée
sur son sentier forestier  –
la reine des trilles

Richard Vallance

HRH Argentée, my gorgeous Maine Coon mix, died on March 14 2019, just one month short of her 16th. birthday. She walked on a leash all over Ottawa and the Gatineaux Hills some 1,200 times in her life. Her ashes box is inscribed, Libre Esprit (Free Spirit). I miss her terribly!

SAR Argentée, ma Maine Coon mixte super belle, est morte le 14 mars 2019, seulement un mois avant son 16ìeme anniversaire. Elle marchait au moins 1.200 fois à la laisse pendant se vie à Ottawa et parmi les Collines du Gatineax. Sa boîte funéraire est inscrite, Libre Esprit. Elle me manque tellement. 

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spring haiga de printemps – surfing in waves = déferlant en vagues

spring haiga de printemps – surfing in waves = déferlant en vagues 

surfing in waves
by the forest path
trilliums bloom




déferlant en vagues 
près du sentier du bois
les trilles fleurissent

Richard Vallance

photo by Richard Vallance, May 2019

winter haiku d’hiver – two wilted trees = deux arbres flétris

winter haiku d’hiver –  two wilted trees = deux arbres flétris

two wilted trees
on the brushwood path –
skeletal mirage



deux arbres flétris
dans les brousailles –
mirage de squelettes

Richard Vallance


This photo was taken by my friend, Willem Tensen, while on a hike in the Hollywood Hills, late January 2019.

Mon ami, Willem Tensen, a pris cette photo, lors d’une randonnée dans les collines de Hollywood, vers la fin de janvier, 2019.

Linear A seals: Part 1 + Minoan grammar, enclitic ne = in/on

Linear A seals: Part 1 + Minoan grammar, enclitic ne = in/on:

On these Linear A seals we find the word patane, apparently a variant of patos (Greek) = “path”. But how can we account for the divergence from standard Greek spelling? In the Mycenaean dialect, the preposition “in” was proclitic and expressed as eni, hence eni pati (locative singular). But as I have already pointed out several times in previous posts, when any word is imported from a source superstratum language (in this case, Mycenaean) into a target language (in this case, the Minoan language substratum), its orthography must be changed to comply with the spelling conventions of the target language. This phenomenon also occurs in English, where 10s of thousands of Norman French and French words are imported, but where in a great many cases, the French spelling must be adjusted to conform with English orthography. To cute just a few examples of French orthography adjust to meet the exigencies of English spelling, we have:

French to English:

albâtre = alabaster
bénin = benign
cloître = cloister
dédain = disdain
épître = epistle
forêt = forest
fanatique = fanatic
gigantesque = gigantic
gobelet = goblet
loutre = otter
maître = master
plâtre = plaster
similitude = similarity
traître = treacherous

and on and on. This phenomenon applies to every last substratum language upon which a superstratum from another language is imposed.

Likewise, in the case of Old Minoan, it is inevitable that the orthography of any single superstratum Mycenaean derived word has to be adjusted to meet the exigencies of Minoan orthography.

The most striking example of this metamorphosis is the masculine singular. Mycenaean derived words in Minoan must have their singular ultimate adjusted to u from the Mycenaean o. There are plenty of examples:

Akano to Akanu (Archanes)
akaro to akaru (field)
kako to kaku (copper)
kuruko to kuruku (crocus/saffron)
mare (mari) to maru (wool)
Rado to Radu (Latos)
simito to simitu (mouse)
suniko to suniku (community)
Winado to Winadu (toponym)
woino to winu (wine)
iyero to wireu  (priest)

But these same words terminate in u in Minoan. And there are well over 150 in the extant Linear  A lexicon of slightly more than 950 words. 

As we can clearly see on Linear A seal HM 570.1a, the word patane is typical of several Minoan words, all of which also terminate in ne. These are:

aparane
asamune
dakusene
dadumine
jasararaanane
kadumane
namine
parane
patane
qetune
sikine
wisasane

It distinctly appears that all of these words are in the Minoan dative/locative case, and that the enclitic ultimate therefore means “in” or “on”. This will have to be substantiated by further research, but for the time being, let us assum that this conclusion is at least tentatively correct.