Tuesday 23 January 2018

10:00 The living-room carpet, which Ross cleaned yesterday, has dried off overnight. We get going with moving some small items of furniture from the dining room back to the living room, so it starts to look more normal. It will be nice to be able to sit on the couch or in the armchairs tonight. Last night we had to sit in the dining room, which is not so comfortable.

Lois hurries into the kitchen and starts making another 13 pounds of orange marmalade.

10:30 I sit down in front of the computer. Lynda, leader of the local U3A "Making of English" group has sent me an email all about the group's next project in Middle English, John Trevisa's "Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk".

Trevisa (who flourished1342-1402) was a Cornish author and translator. He was born in Trevessa in the county of Cornwall, and was a native Cornish-speaker. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and became parish priest in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, not far from here (25 miles / 40km). He also became the 5th Lord Berkeley's personal chaplain.

I feel a certain connection with Trevisa because he loved translating from language to language. He translated many works for his patron, including "De Proprietatibus Rerum", a medieval precursor to the modern encyclopedia, written by Bartholomaeus Anglicus, an English Franciscan monk.

a typical illustration from "De Proprietatibus rerum",

a kind of medieval encyclopedia,

showing the seven ages of man

In the illustration above, we see:

(top left) from left to right: baby, little child, boy.

(top right) a man talking to his friends: behind him we see a dead man lying on the ground - yikes!

(bottom left) inside a house, a doctor pretending to examine a woman's urine next to her bed.

(bottom right) a surgeon opens a vein on a seated woman who appears to have fainted - oh dear!

A very useful illustration, especially for the average medical student of the time. It reminds students that people are very small when they are born , and then they grow gradually, and when they die, they become skeletons and have to lie on the ground, or (preferably) underground.

I think also that the picture summarizes very nicely medical science's two headline techniques of the period: the first was to pretend to examine the patient's urine and make clever comments to calm them down, and the other was to open veins if the patient started making a fuss about your qualifications.

11:00 I leaf through the dialogue between a lord and a clerk, which Lynda has chosen as her U3A group's next project. The dialogue is about translation and how good it is to have people who can translate from one language to another. The lord-character reminds us that according to the accepted view in the Middle Ages, God deliberately brought about the existence of the many different languages in the world.

Babel, according to the Bible, was a tower built in Babylon by a united humanity (the UN?) in order to reach heaven. The account is in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 11 verses 1-9.

"But God knew that if people got together, nothing was impossible for them, so he made a point of introducing multi-lingualism. In verses 6-7 he said, "See, they are all one people with the same language. When they begin to act like that, nothing they plan is going to be impossible for them. Let's get up there and screw up their language so that they do not understand each other. " That got the job in train, and people then spread to distant lands of the globe. Job done!

This account is effectively the Bible's answer to why different languages have arisen. 

The Babel Tower by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1563: 5000 pieces - yikes!

I just have to discourage Lois from buying this jigsaw puzzle,

That's something I have no doubts about!

It is interesting to read in the dialogue about the pitiful status of the English language in the 14th century. England was a true backwater, and no one in Europe spoke English except the English. What a contrast to the present, where in many European universities many subjects are actually taught in English - my god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

excerpt from the dialogue that makes clear

the pitiful status of the English language in the 14th century - oh dear!

I begin to wonder if a combination of Trump's isolationism and Brexit might make a difference to the current status of the English language, but I have to admit that there seems to be no other single language with sufficient influence to overcome all the others .

As far as I know, no archaeologist has discovered yet exactly where the Babel Tower stood, but I suspect it's only a matter of time.

The search for the tower has, however, resulted in some other interesting discoveries. I recall that some years ago, I read an article about a 5,000 year old tyrannosaurus rex found by archaeologists searching for the remains of the tower (report, January 15, 2003, source: Onion Science and Technology News).

In a big coup for the growing influence of Creationist Science, the perfectly preserved remains of a 5,000-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex had recently been handed over to Tulsa's Creationist Museum of Natural History. This new T. Rex example was dubbed simply 'Methuselah'.

'Methuselah' was discovered in Northern Turkey by a team of Oral Roberts University archaeologists during an excavation to find the Tower of Babel. The curator of the museum in Tulsa, Dr. Elijah Gill, told journalists that the skeleton, standing almost 20 meters high, had scary, sharp teeth and claws that confirmed that it was an evil beast in league with Satan, the great deceiver.

"The fact that no human remains were found anywhere near the skeleton, serves as evidence of the ferocity and great appetite of the tyrannosaur," said Gill.

Methuselah had caused such a furore that even supporters of evolutionary science had been caught up in "T. Rex fever". Christopher Eldridge, director of the New York Natural History Museum, stated that the acquisition was "completely unthinkable" and "not to be believed". Dr. Harmon Briggs, a paleobiologist from the Smithsonian Institution, gushed in a telephone conversation that the discovery of the 5,000-year-old animal was "crazy" and "in defiance of all the human senses".

The Tower of Babel itself, however, continues to elude archaeologists' efforts. It's a bit of a pity that the Channel 4 series "Time Team" is no longer being broadcast by the channel. In each episode, a team of television archaeologists used to try to find particular archaeological remains and there was a three-day deadline. A "Time Team Special" with the Babel Tower as its goal would be a big success with television viewers - I have no doubts about that.

12:30 Lunch and afterwards I go to bed to take a giant afternoon nap.

15:00 I get up. Lois has finished making her 13 jars of orange marmalade. Now we have a total of 23 pounds, which will satisfy us until next January, I'm absolutely sure.

Lois in the kitchen

17:30 We have dinner, a bit earlier than usual. Afterwards, Lois has to go out. She wants to attend a Bible seminar taking place this evening in Brockworth Library. She drives to Mari-Ann and Alf's house in Hatherley and they are going to drive her over to Brockworth.

This is a bit of a breakthrough for Lois: for the first time in over a year, she is driving herself to Mari-Anne's house tonight. For months she had to ask me to drive her over there because of her cataracts - she had her eye surgery last October, but it took some time before she has become able to drive a car in the dark like tonight - well done, Lois!

20:00 I have a little alone time and listen to the radio, an interesting series about mazes, puzzles, crosswords, etc. through the ages. Tonight they are airing a 2nd part of 5, all about riddles.

It is interesting that the Anglo-Saxon people loved riddles, which tended to be expressed in the form of poems. We hear a little about the Exeter Book, written in the 10th century in Anglo-Saxon, which contains tons of the most famous Anglo-Saxon poems, but also several pages of riddles of of one sort or other. The original manuscript has been stored in the Exeter Cathedral for most of its life.

England, Scandinavia and Iceland made up the 3 parts of an ancient culture that respected the idea of the "kenning", a complex expression in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse or Old-Icelandic poetry with metaphorical significance, for example. "Oar-steed", which meant a ship. The "sea" was a "whale-way" etc.

There are also more conventional riddles in the book that aim to be surprising and fun. For example, as follows:

"I am a wonderful creature bringing joy to women and useful to those who dwell near me. I stand in a bed. Beneath somewhere I am shaggy. Sometimes the very beautiful daughter of a peasant, a courageous woman, ventures to lay hold on me, assaults my red skin, despoils my head, clamps me in a fastness. She who thus confines me, this curly-haired woman, soon feels my meeting with her. Her eye becomes wet."

Who is it who's speaking? An onion, of course. What madness! I personally never cry when I peel an onion. My mother told me that as a little child I suffered from a blocked tear duct - maybe it has never really been sorted out, but I'm not sure about that.

22:00 Lois comes back. I go to bed, but Lois needs to wind down after tonight's stimulating Bible seminar. Poor Lois !!!!! She starts to watch some television. She does not wake me up when she hops up into bed with me an hour later.

Danish translation

10:00 Stuens gulvtæppe, som Ross i går rensede, er tørret af i nat. Vi går i gang med at rykke nogle små møbler fra spisestuen tilbage til stuen, så den begynder at se mere normal ud. Det vil være rart at kunne sidde i sofaen eller i lænestole i aften. I går aftes var vi nødt til at sidde i spisestuen, hvilket ikke er så komfortabelt.

Lois skynder sig ud i køkkenet og går i gang med at lave endnu 13 pund appelsinmarmelade.

10:30 Jeg sætter mig foran computeren. Lynda, leder af det lokale U3A ”Making of English” gruppe har sendt mig en mail, der handler om gruppens næste projekt på middengelsk, John Trevisas ”Dialog mellem en herre og en ekspedient”. 

Trevisa (virkeperiode 1342-1402 ) var en kornisk forfatter og oversætter. Han blev født i Trevessa midt i grevskabet Cornwall, og var født med kornisk. Han var uddannet ved Exeter College, Oxford, og blev sognepræst i Berkeley, Gloucestershire, der ligger ikke ret langt herfra (25 miles / 40km). Han blev også den 5. Lord Berkeleys personlige kapellan.

Jeg føler en vis forbindelse med Trevisa, fordi han elskede at oversætte fra sprog til sprog. Han oversatte mange værker for sin protektor, herunder ”De Proprietatibus Rerum” (Om tingenes egenskaber), en middelalderlig forløber for den moderne encyklopædi, skrevet af Bartholomaeus Anglicus, en engelsk franciskanermunk.

en typisk illustration fra ”De Proprietatibus rerum”,

en slags middelalderlig encyclopedi,

der viser menneskets syv aldre

I illustrationem ovenfor, ser vi:

(øverst venstre) fra venstre til højre: baby, lille barn, dreng.

(øverst højre) en mand, der taler med sine venner: bag ham ser vi en død mand, der ligger på jorden – yikes!

(nederst venstre) inde i et hus, en læger undersøger en kvindes urin ved siden af hendes seng.

(nederst højre) en kirurg åbner en vene på en siddende kvinde, der virker at have besvimet.

Et helt nyttigt illustration, i sær for den gennemsnitlig medicinsk studerende. Det minder studerende om, at folk er meget små, da de først bliver født, og derefter vokser de gradvist, og når de  dør, bliver de til skeletter og skal ligge på jorden, eller (helst) under jorden.

Og jeg tror at billedet sammenfatter medicinske videnskabs daværende to teknikker: den første var at foregive at undersøge patientens urin og gøre kloge kommentarer, for at berolige dem, og den anden, at åbne vener, hvis patienten starte at beklage sig over dine kvalifikationer.

11:00 Jeg læser igennem dialogen mellem en herre og en ekspedient, som Lynda har valgt som hendes U3A gruppes næste projekt. Dialogen handler om oversættelse og hvor godt det er at have folk, der kan oversætte fra det ene sprog til den anden. Herren minder os om, at ifølge det accepterede syn i middelalderen var det Gud, der bevidst forårsagede eksistensen af verdens mange forskellige sprog.

Babelstårnet var ifølge Bibelen et tårn, der blev bygget i Babylon af en forenet menneskehed for at nå himlen. Beretningen står i Det Gamle Testamente i 1. Mosebog kap. 11 vers 1-9.

”Men Gud vidste, at hvis menneskene gik sammen, var intet umuligt for dem, så han sørgede for at forvirre sproget blandt de enstalende mennesker. I vers 6-7 sagde han: "Se, de er ét folk med samme sprog. Når de begynder at handle sådan, vil intet af det, de planlægger, være umuligt for dem. Lad os stige derned og forvirre deres sprog, så de ikke forstår hinanden." Det fik arbejdet til at gå i stå, og mennesker spredte sig til fjerne egne af kloden.

Denne beretning er biblens svar på hvorfor der er opstået forskellige sprog.

Babelstårnet af Pieter Brueghel den Ældre, 1563: 5000 brikker – yikes!

jeg må forskrække Lois fra at købe dette puslespil,

det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om!

Det er interessant at læse i dialogen om den ynkelige status af det engelske sprog i det 14. århundrede. England var en sand ravnekrog, og ingen i Europa talte engelsk undtagen englænderne. Sikke et kontrast med nutiden, hvor i mange europæiske universiteter bliver mange emner undervist på engelsk – du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

uddrag fra dialogen, der klargør

det engelse sprogs ynkelige status i det 14. århundrede – uha!

Jeg begynder at spekulere om, om en kombination af Trumps isolationisme og Brexit kan gøre noget forskel på det engelske sprogs nuværende status, men jeg må indrømme, at der ikke virker at være ét andet enkelt sprog der har tilstrækkelig indflydelse til at overgå alle de andre.

Så vidt jeg ved, har ingen arkæolog opdaget endnu præcis hvor Babelstårnet stod, men jeg mistænker, det er kun et spørgsmål af tiden.

Men søgen efter tårnet har resulteret i nogle andre interessante opdagelser. Jeg mindes, at jeg for nogle år siden, læste en artikel om en 5.000 år gammel tyrannosaurus rex, der blev fundet af arkæologer, der var i gang med at søge resterne af tårnet (rapport, den 15. januar 2003, kilde: Onion Science and Technology News).

I et stort kup for det voksende indflydelse af kreationismevidenskab var  de perfekt bevarede rester af en 5.000-årig Tyrannosaurus Rex blevet afleveret til Tulsas Creationist Museum of Natural History. Denne nye T. Rex-prøve var blevet kaldt simpelthen 'Methuselah’.

Methuselah blev opdaget i det nordlige Tyrkiet af et team af Oral Roberts University arkeologer, der var i færd med en udgravning, der søgte efter Babeltårnet. Museets kurator, dr. Elijah Gill, sagde, at skeletet, der står næsten 20 meter højt, havde skræmmende, knivskarpe tænder og klør, der bekræftede, at det var et ondt dyr i ledtog med Satan, den store bedrager.

"Det, at der ikke blev fundet nogen menneskelige rester overalt i nærheden af skelets sted, tjener som bevis på tyrannosaurens hårdhed og store appetit," sagde Gill.

Methuselah havde forårsaget en sådan furore, at selv tilhængere af evolutionær videnskab havde fundet sig fangede af "T. Rex Feber". Christopher Eldridge, direktør for New Yorks naturhistoriske museum, oplyste, at overtagelsen var "helt utænkelig" og "ikke at blive troet". Dr. Harmon Briggs, en paleobiolog fra Smithsonian Institution, svømmede hen i et telefonsamtale, at opdagelsen af det 5.000 årige dyr var "vildt" og "i modsætning til alle menneskelige sanser".

Selve Babeltårnet fortsætter imidlertid med at undvige arkæologers indsatser. Det er lidt af en skam, at Channel 4-serien ”Time Team” ikke længere blive sendt af kanalen. I hvert afsnit prøvede et hold af tv-arkæologer at finde bestemte arkæologiske rester, og der var en 3-dages frist. En ”Time Team Special” me Babel-tårnet som sit mål, ville være en stor succes med tv-seere – det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om.

12:30 Frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

15:00 Jeg står op. Lois er færdig med at lave sine 13 krukker appelsinmarmelade. Nu har vi sammenlagt 23 pund, som vil tilfredsstille os indtil næste januar, er jeg helt sikker på.

Lois i køkkenet: 

17:30 Vi har aftensmad, lidt tidligere end normalt. Bagefter skal Lois ud. Hun ønsker at deltage i et bibelseminar, der finder sted i aften i Brockworth byens bibliotek. Hun kører over til Mari-Ann og Alfs hus i Hatherley og de vil køre hende over til Brockworth.

Det er lidt af et gennembrud for Lois: for første gang i over 1 år kører hun sig selv i aften over til Mari-Anns hus. I månedvis var hun nødt til at bede mig om at køre hende derover på grund af grå stær – hun gennemgik sin øjenoperation sidste oktober, men det tog lidt tid, inden hun er kommet i stand til at køre bil i mørket, som i aften – godt klaret, Lois!

20:00 Jeg har lidt alenetid og lytter lidt til radio, et interessant serien, der handler om labyrinter, gåder, krydsogtværser osv gennem alderne. I aften sender de en 2. del af 5, der handler om gåder.

Det er interessant, at det angelsaksiske folk elskede gåder, der havde tendens til at blive udtrykket i form af digte. Vi hører lidt om Exeterbogen, der bleve skrevet i det 10. århundrede på angelsaksisk, som indeholder tonsvis af de mest berømte angelsaksiske digte, men også flere sider af gåder af en eller anden art.  Den oprindelige manuskriptet er blevet opbevaret i Exeter-katedralen for det meste af sit liv.

England, Skandinavien og Island dannede  de 3 dele af en gammel kultur, der respekterede ideen af ”kenningen”, et sammensat udtryk i angelsaksisk, oldnordisk eller oldislandisk poesi med metaforisk betydning, f.eks. ”oar-steed” (åre-ganger), der betød et skib. ”Havet” var en ”hvalvej” osv.

Der er også mere konventionelle gåder i bogen, der har til formål at være overraskende og morsomme. For eksempel, den der følger: ”Jeg er noget vidunderligt, der er til glæde for kvinder og nyttig for dem, der bor i nærheden af mig. Jeg står i en seng. Derneden er jeg stridhåret. Nogle gange kommer en bondes meget smukke datter, en modig kvinde i gang med  at holde fat på mig, angribe min røde hud, plyndre mit hoved, klemme mig i en fasthed. Hun, som således begrænser mig, denne krøllehårede kvinde, føles snart mit møde med hende. Hendes øje bliver vådt.”

Hvem er det, der taler? Et løg, selvfølgelig. Sikke et vanvid! Jeg græder personligt aldrig, når jeg skrælle et løg. Min mor fortalte mig, at jeg som lille barn led af en blokeret tårekanal - måske har det aldrig blevet ordnet, men det er jeg ikke helt sikker på.

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage. Jeg går i seng, men Lois trænger til at geare ned efter aftenens stimulerende bibelseminar. Stakkels Lois !!!!! Hun går i gang med at se lidt fjernsyn. Hun vækker mig ikke, da hun en time senere hopper op i sengen til mig.