Mysterious Words in SYWTBAW

[Kathy Li]

Semi-related to this, I did want to point everybody to the Owls Springs page where DD posted the code for her Romulan generator.

[Rysade]

Yeah, I've seen the romulan generator. I was thinking about porting it to C++. It might clean it up a bit, or make it shorter. Older languages are rather clunky compared to what's common now...

I can't beleive I wrote this!

[Quill]

Originally posted by Magic Butter:

Oh! And as a note, it not a mix of Latin, Spanish and French, hehe. It's one of the languages that derived from Latin after the fall of the empire. Some of these were Portuguese, French, Spanish, Catalan, and a couple dozen more :P Only in the Spanish territory you can find half a dozen, plus Vasco, which has it's own origin...

Didn't say it was. Said it looked like. That's one of those areas I want to visit some day, along with Finland in the summer.

[Magic Butter]

Hehe, yeah, just feeling...teachy, uck. It's very beautiful. I've visited too little of the Spanish territory but you can find incredible things, both natural and man-made.

----

Magic Butter, better than normal on your toast.

[Nathan]

Originally posted by PK:
Aha!

I found the "Dos d'en agouni" phrase -- it's a quote, found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and for all I know in others directed to other Greek deities.

Excellent detective work, PK! Just out of curiosity, how exactly did you discover the source of that quote?

Another very interesting appearance of a portion of that quote (the first three words, in fact) in SYWTBAW is the very end of Fred's name (Khairelikoblepharehglukumeilichephreidosd'enagoun i- [reproduced {with one letter corrected} from Kat's first post on the thread "Fred's name" in the SYWTBAW section of these forums, which was where I first noticed the appearance of the opening of this quote]). However, I can find no deep significance in the appearance of a portion of this quote in Fred's name (though, conversely, it could 'explain' Peach's utterance of that particular quote), either from its translation or context (if you are curious, you can find a translation of the pertinent hymn here [just as a note, this is listed as the second Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite in all the books I have looked at, despite being listed as the first on this website]).

Thanks to all those who have attempted to find the origin of the words from my original query --they may have been invented after all (or may just be quite elusive --I'm not giving up hope quite yet).

Nathan

Ubi materia, ibi geometria. --Johannes Kepler

Non doctrinam, sed perspicuitatem quaero.

[PK]

Google, and some trial and error regarding which piece of the phrase to use and, I think, variant transliterations.

Now I'm eyeing the rest of the name and trying to figure out if it might be something too, which makes me wish I could remember what search string I used.

...And I found it. "Dos d'en" by itself, with the quotes, and you get the hymn in Greek, transliterated Greek, and German. As they give it, the line is in fact -- so what Fred gave as his name would in fact appear to be "Hail, sweetly-winning, coy-eyed goddess, grant me in this contest..." (since "victory" doesn't actually get in until after he broke off), according to the link you gave. (Here's the Greek and German. At least, I think it's German. http://home.t-online.de/home/mosaiken/hesiod-b.htm )

I also keep thinking rai and entath ought to be letters/numerals/other characters of some sort, but that's mostly because they're sitting between alpha and eight. I tried to decipher a grammar page that seemed to mention entath, but never quite worked out what was going on. Some sort of contracted form, but I'm not really sure. On the other hand, um... I've spotted both rai and entath on this page: http://www.estelnet.com/catalunyacym..._cymraeg_c.htm -- but am no closer to figuring out what they meanthink in at least some systems of numerology eight indicates divinity/transcendence/perfection.

Since I seem to recall (somewhat whimsically) connecting the Lone Power's epithet of "the Beautiful One" to Aphrodite long before we got into this, the whole thing is sort of weirding me out. Perhaps DD just decided, "Aha, this would make a good name" and was amusing herself, and I'm trying too hard, but I'm not sure I want to rule anything out.

I can't find anything about "mesarrh," but "mesarr" yields a reference to a valley referred to here (http://www.dabar.org/McGarvey/Lands/P2_C02.htm ) as the Wad'y el Messar', which is in Israel and apparently used to have a chariot road in it.

Veingt still seems likely to mean 20. Twenty what? Don't ask me.

Asdekh (as in "asdekh class" describing the claudication) I can't identify either, though it may be Arabic.

M'sedh is no go for now too.

Edited rather later to add: I asked in chat about rai and entath, and got "almost certainly made up." So we can safely conclude I was trying too hard. On the other hand, I kind of like the idea of a wadi with a chariot road in it having some relation to the worldgate....

[This message was edited by PK on 12 January 2004 at 9:38.]