Feb. 16th, 2006 10:41 am
The best books in life are free
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muckefuckNot.
Ah, gift books! A treasure trove of the bizarre, the trivial, the irredeemably misguided. What do we have today? Why it's a treatise of the relationship of Sanskrit to English! Who's the author, a world reknown linguist? Um, not exactly. Okay, then, a self-taught scholar? You could say that--but why, when "retired barrister in Joliet" is what really fits?
Oh, lookit that, it opened naturally to the page where the paperwork was stuck in. Let's have a look-see:
Of course, our polymath can't restrict himself to languages--what dilettante this talented could? Let's see what he has to say on the complex topic of religion:
After excursus like these, it's almost an anticlimax to get to the meat of the work and find typical dirt-ignorant popular etymologising like "The word cerebellum for a part of the head comes from the Sanskrit word Shri Brahm (Siri is head which becomes cere, and brahm becomes bellum.(the 'ra' becomes 'la')." Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't still gems to be unearthed. I particularly like the correspondences:
D'Silva -- of Shilpa
Lufthansa -- Lift+hansa Flying=swan
Nickelodium -- Relating to young ones
Vatican -- Vaatika (residence, as in Panch +vatika of Ram in forest) Vatican in Rome is Ram Vaatika
Why, your very own name or surname may be Sanskrit and you didn't even know it!
Ah, gift books! A treasure trove of the bizarre, the trivial, the irredeemably misguided. What do we have today? Why it's a treatise of the relationship of Sanskrit to English! Who's the author, a world reknown linguist? Um, not exactly. Okay, then, a self-taught scholar? You could say that--but why, when "retired barrister in Joliet" is what really fits?
Oh, lookit that, it opened naturally to the page where the paperwork was stuck in. Let's have a look-see:
Another language family is the Tibetan, Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian. Tibetan and Chinese belong to this family. The Tibeto-Chinese language consists of mono-syllabic words, words pronounced in four different tones--level, rising, falling and high rising--to distinguish words or syllables that have the same series of consonants and vowels but different meanings. They have more 'vowel-like sounds' and 'vowel-like accents' than the Indo-European languages. French is a good illustration to show how vowel sounds change in these languages.Hey, kids! How many gross factual errors can you spot? (I found six, or more than the number of complete sentences.)
Of course, our polymath can't restrict himself to languages--what dilettante this talented could? Let's see what he has to say on the complex topic of religion:
The Jews also originally followed the Vedic religion at one time, but because of heir captivity [sic] in Babylon and Egypt they adopted some of creeds of these countries. The Ten Commandments of Moses are from the Vedas.I know I have some Jewish readers and I'm betting they didn't know that. (Sad how little modern secularised Jews know about their own religion!)
After excursus like these, it's almost an anticlimax to get to the meat of the work and find typical dirt-ignorant popular etymologising like "The word cerebellum for a part of the head comes from the Sanskrit word Shri Brahm (Siri is head which becomes cere, and brahm becomes bellum.(the 'ra' becomes 'la')." Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't still gems to be unearthed. I particularly like the correspondences:
D'Silva -- of Shilpa
Lufthansa -- Lift+hansa Flying=swan
Nickelodium -- Relating to young ones
Vatican -- Vaatika (residence, as in Panch +vatika of Ram in forest) Vatican in Rome is Ram Vaatika
Why, your very own name or surname may be Sanskrit and you didn't even know it!