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Subject: "Correspondence I: 2380-2389"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences Mini-Stories Topic #83
Reading Topic #83, reply 17
Offsides
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Mar-22-10, 09:58 AM (EDT)
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17. "RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389"
In response to message #13
 
   LAST EDITED ON Mar-22-10 AT 10:11 AM (EDT) by pjmoyer (moderator)
 
Fixed the quoted link for you -- PJM

>>>As they say aboard the ships where one of
>>>Earth's ancient religions has found a foothold in the last few
>>>decades, mazel tov.
>>>
>>Sing it with me now!
>>
>>"We're Jews, in space..."
>
>Well, the way I figure it, once the Flotilla had a permanent address
>and a proper connection to the Internet, a lot of stuff probably
>filtered into quarian culture from outside - and though Tali doesn't
>mention it here, there are probably people within the fleet who are
>mighty ticked off about it and expect it will bring about the downfall
>of civilization. For better or worse, one of the things that often
>makes an appearance in situations like that is religion, all the more
>so because the quarians have largely lost their own (as alluded to in
>a couple of places here, they were ancestor worshippers- but they lost
>most of their historical records of who those ancestors were during
>the war). And it seemed to me that certain aspects of Judaism would
>appeal to the quarian mindset. They know, more than most other
>peoples, the importance of keeping kosher, for instance. And there's
>the whole promised-land thing. Obviously quarian Jews don't literally
>believe that they belong to one of the tribes of Israel, but there's
>at least enough of a feeling of kinship there that some cultural
>cross-pollination is happening.
>
The fact that we both like debating things probably didn't hurt either :) But yes, when I read it originally while I cracked up right away, I think my first real thought on the matter was that it felt very reasonable from what I've gleaned about quarian society, and not forced. I just hope they end up following one of the more reasonable variants and not one that looks to find ways to make the rules even more stringent and unreasonable just because they can... (And yes, there are ultra-orthodox groups that do their best to poke holes in the "what's allowed" rulings just so they can force people to follow their rules when they don't like the people on the other end... *sigh* Most religious nitpickers are about finding ways to make life easier, not harder).

>>Quite amusing, as was G's use of every language in the book to end his
>>letters saying "I love you" :)
>
>I was hoping somebody would pick up on that. :) In order, the
>languages he used in part 1 are (according to
>the website I cadged them from - yes, dangerous as it is, I had to Trust The Web™ for
>this):
>
Probably safe enough, given that it's a) short and b) very common, but yes...

>The Cheltarese one is linguistically interesting; I'm no Tolkien, but
>I do like these things to mean something, and though tayyôr
>qitæn
is used contextually to stand for "I love you", it doesn't
>literally mean that at all. It's quite an old-fashioned thing to say
>by 24th-century Salusian standards, the equivalent of throwing an
>Anglo-Saxon phrase into a modern English letter. Qitæn is the
>first-person singular of an Old Salese verb - it forms the root of the
>modern Cheltarese adjective quitayn, which is the word
>Salusians (and other linguistic precisionists) use when they mean what
>we mean when we say we're "only human". It's a more philosophical
>concept than just "sapient" - it implies a whole constellation of
>interrelated concepts such as the capacity for compassion and the
>different forms of love, what we with our single-species bias would
>use words like humane and talk about "our humanity" to try and
>describe.
>
I remember you discussing this word in an earlier piece - maybe the one with you and Nadia playing paintball (can't remember much else, especially the title)?

>Tayyôr, on the other hand, is a modern but quite old-fashioned
>Cheltarese word meaning, depending on how you shade your translation
>from context, something along the lines of "thanks to you" or "for
>your sake" or even "in your honor". ("Tayyôr, my Queen"
>is the traditional rejoinder when one is knighted by the Salusian
>monarch and bade to rise.) So if you break it down, tayyôr
>qitæn
can't be translated directly, but it basically means
>something like, "For your sake I am a thinking, feeling creature," or
>even, if you want to be really florid with your translation, "By your
>grace, I possess a soul." Quite a lofty sentiment, but that's Old
>Salese for you.
>
IIRC, there are quite a number of old human languages that have rather flowery expressions that seem a bit over the top by today's standards, but that's the evolution of language for you :)

Much fun!

Offsides

<...> in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 Correspondence I: 2380-2389 [View All] Gryphonadmin Mar-21-10 TOP
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Zuki Mar-21-10 1
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 eriktown Mar-21-10 2
          RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-21-10 3
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Arashi Mar-21-10 4
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Polychrome Mar-21-10 5
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-21-10 10
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Matrix Dragon Mar-21-10 6
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Apostate_Soul Mar-21-10 7
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Meagen Mar-21-10 8
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 BZArchermoderator Mar-21-10 9
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Chris Redfield Mar-21-10 11
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 BeardedFerret Mar-22-10 15
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Offsides Mar-21-10 12
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-21-10 13
         RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Offsides Mar-22-10 17
              RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-26-10 23
                  RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Offsides Mar-26-10 24
                      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-26-10 25
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Prince Charon Mar-21-10 14
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 jhosmer1 Mar-22-10 16
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Tabasco Mar-22-10 18
          RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 drakensis Mar-23-10 19
              RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Arashi Mar-23-10 20
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Fred MacManus Mar-25-10 21
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Apostate_Soul Mar-25-10 22
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 JeanneHedge Mar-26-10 26
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Mar-26-10 27
          RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 JeanneHedge Mar-27-10 29
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Peter Eng Mar-26-10 28
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Zuki Mar-30-10 30
   RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Pasha Jun-03-11 31
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 pjmoyermoderator Jun-03-11 32
      RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Gryphonadmin Jun-03-11 33
          RE: Correspondence I: 2380-2389 Bitstream Jun-04-11 34


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