Re: VMs: Alchemical

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  > [Jeff Haley:] If so which language and which words.

  > guoal.oili.la.urlo.lti.ccue.munl.e.ita.depre

Well, if you ask, here is my best guess...

  "guo" is a Mandarin Chinese radical for "government".
  "al" is the Arabic definite article.
  "oili" is a Finnish first name.
  "la urlo" is Italian for "[I] scream it(fem.)".
  "ita" is Tupi-Guarani for "stone".
  
However "oili la" is more likely to be an abbreviation of "oilì-oilà",
the title and refrain of an old Neapolitan song. Indeed perhaps the
VMS grammar was borrowed from Beddy-Byes, so "AL oili la urlo LTI " is
to be read "ALTI (a slight mistake for "alto", i.e. "ad alta voce")
urlo oilì-oilà". Coming at the start of f1r, this is an obvious if
oblique literary reference to Vergil's famous opening verse "arma
virumque cano", itself patterned after Camões's "as armas e os varões
assinalados ... cantando ... fúria ALTA e sonorosa".

So it seems that the VMS is a secret report to the Chinese government
about a band of slogan-shouting, stone-throwing protesters, male and
possibly armed, directed by neapolitan anarchist agitators.

(Apologies for the irony, but I could't resist. All the best, 

--stolfi 8-)

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