Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

25/01/2005 1:22:19 AM, Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>That is, if one wants to show that the VMs contains
>meaningful text. For the alternative, it is much
>more complicated.

No, the alternative is easy. It is the one championed
by Rugg. And by me. I had received a query, relayed
by Jim Gillogly, from a Russian journalist. I answered,
demonstrating the worthlessness of Rugg's argument by
fabricating Russian-looking text off the top of my 
head.

His article got published, and he sent me an electronic
copy, in pdf format. My Russian is very poor and rusty.
Without resorting to a dictionary I understand only half
and I piece together the other half, painfully and slowly.
I came to this quote from me, saying "Zhe upiraju..." and
so on. I guessed that the first sentence meant "I believe
that it does not hold water" (literally: stand on its feet)
But then... I could not understand a single word. I grabbed
my Russian dictionary (printed in 1958), and I could not
find any of those words. My first thought was: "Russian
did change a lot since I learnt it". Then, then...
I checked my past e-mail with that journalist. "Zhe upiraju"
and so on was what I had sent him as an example of bogus
Russian. I had plumb forgotten about it! It is only
once I had read on to "Abrakadabra, ne pravda li?" 
(i.e. Abracadabra [i.e. hocus pocus] isn't it?)
that I realized it was my own gibberish!

And BTW, it is the best article on the VMS which I have 
read in a popular magazine so far. There is also an article
on the Phaistos Disk.


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