i hate when people in movies/tv are reading ancient languages and they translate everything really smoothly and poetically, as if when people who study ancient languages aren’t consulting three different commentaries and sobbing profusely when we read
ok so like…. it says
“come you all into the deepest cavern, or maybe that’s fireplace, depends on usage, and having come may you give your…. treasures? Skin? Pants? I don’t know, something…. to the….. about-to-be-adored guy, that one who…. okay, he either causes earthquakes or sleeps a lot, I think this might be an idiom….”
“ok, sorry that took so long and i hate to disappoint but i’m still not entirely sure what it means, like, it could be something about a religious ceremony or it could be a dick joke. leaning towards dick joke, might be both. knowing the ancients, probably both. this could very well be an ancient dick temple and we should probably leave.”
Funnest part is when you get shit like this:
Why yes that is a text comprised of almost exclusively crocodile hieroglyphs.
We also can’t get a coherent translation because the grammar makes absolutely no sense. Participles and Participial statements all the way. Sobek who is Crocodile of Crocodopolis who advances the Crocodile for the Crocodiles….
The crocodile hieroglyph is also used to write sovereign and an adjective meaning power…so the text is suuuuuuuper confusing.
As someone who knows nothing of hieroglyphics, I would assume this meant “There’s a lot of crocodiles here, you should probably leave.”
Buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, ancient Egyptian style.
but with that triple meaning for crocodile hieroglyph, my guess is that this is a very clever punny poem or political satire piece, about a mighty crocodile king and his crocodile subjects who are all crocodiles from crocodile houses with crocodile children and crocodile jobs and crocodile dreams. all written with as many homonyms/homophones/homographs as the writer could possibly cram in
30, She/her. Used to be DreamingPagan a long time back. Multi-fandom, mostly Black Sails these days but with a lot of Tolkien and funny things interspersed. Complete language and history nerd - be warned. I write fic and occasionally I talk about ships.
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