I was not getting much out off Poul Anderson's humorous piece, "Uncleftish Beholding" (
All One Universe, 1997, pp. 99-104), which translates scientific terminology into the Anglo-Saxon language of a timeline in which the Norman Conquest did not occur. However, when I put down my copy of
All One Universe, Sheila, a Modern Languages graduate, picked it up and started to unravel some of the meanings -
worldken: science;
stuff: matter;
work: energy;
watching: observation;
firststuffs: elements;
waterstuff: hydrogen;
ymirstuff: uranium;
aegirstuff: neptunium;
helstuff: plutonium;
motes: particles;
unclefts: atoms;
bulkbits: molecules;
bindings: compounds;
sourstuff: oxygen;
kernel: nucleus;
forward and backward: positive and negative.
But there are two more pages and I am lost again.
8 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Yes, I agree, "Unclefish Beholding" was one of the more difficult pieces Anderson wrote. Maybe it needs a philologist like Sheila or JRR Tolkien to really appreciate this item. Tolkien, as you may know wss a scholar and expert in Old English and other Germanic languages, so he would have no problem with this article Anderson wrote.
Sean
Odd.
I was very amused by it & enjoyed figuring out 'translations' from 'Ander-Saxon' to English. I knew enough history of science & the origins of element names to figure out waterstuff & sourstuff etc. Most of the 'translations' you listed I figured out myself.
I have an education in science (BSc. Physics, MSc Geophysics) and read some Norse mythology, all of which likely helped me 'translate'.
I read it when it was first published in Analog.
Kaor, Jim!
"Waterstuff" was easy, but "sourstuff" beat me! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
sourstuff is oxygen (same as Sauerstoff in German!)
helstuff is helium
Dear Mr. Reid,
Many thanks. I have wondered a time or two how English might have developed if there had been no Norman Conquest in 1066.
Ad astra! Sean
Sorry, correction. Helium is sunstuff.
Helstuff is plutonium.
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