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Sep 11

XLVII

Posted on Sunday, September 11, 2011 in Books

Nome Gods Bearing Offerings

During my recent birthday, I decided to take the day off work and celebrate linguistically. My primary trip was to the Egyptian Gallery of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Recently beginning to study J.P. Allen’s Middle Egyptian (for the 2nd time through), I really wanted to try my hand at understanding some of the inscriptions there. I spent two hours taking photos, writing notes, looking up words in my Middle Egyptian dictionary. It was quite a rush to be able to pick out the names of Ditamenpaankh, Horwedja, Senbi, Shemai, and others. Being able to actually read the names Nebmaatre and Amenhotep III on the stela depicting the gods of the various nomes bearing offerings (plus a good chunk of the sentences, too) was very cool as well. A detail of that stela is to the right.

I rarely get to spend that much time in one gallery, so it was a very enjoyable early afternoon. Plus it definitely made me want to continue my studies in Allen’s book. If you’re interested at all in being able to read (or simply understand) Egyptian hieroglyphs, Allen’s book is an excellent introduction.

On my way home from the museum, I stopped at Half Price Books and ended up purchasing a copy of Lyle Campbell’s Historical Linguistics. Paying just a little over $14.00, I think I got a good price. I’ve just started perusing it but already see tons of useful information to apply to conlanging efforts. I still want to create a series of sister languages and Campbell’s book just might give me the ability to do it. Once again… in my spare time.

There were a number of things I didn’t get to do (e.g., work on The Conlanger’s Library site, work on more Dritok webpages, mow the grass, get my hair cut), but sometimes you have to make choices and, heck, one’s birthday only rolls around once per year. I’m hoping to begin posting some Dritok pages in the not-too-distant future. My goal is to have something ready for St. Hildegard’s Day this year. If not, that’s going to be my St. Hildegard’s Day Resolution: Get some Dritok details up on the web before St. Hildegard’s Day 2012!

So, I had a great little jamōla jÄ«stelon (in KÄ“len) and “Asshekhqoyi vezhvena” to me (in Dothraki).