Wolfe's Attitude toward his Readers

Gerry Quinn · 14 Aug 2010, 13:43 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:43:29 +0100
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's Attitude toward his Readers
References: <SNT123-W55FB1AAAD34DB1F72B1CF7CF990 at phx.gbl><8959133DA9D14EF292EB71B361BAF439@jill>
	<4C66907C.60402 at io.com>
Message-ID: <5A5E0E53C5B14D1F95E881258C019E1E@jill>

From: "Jeff Wilson" <jwilson at io.com>
> On 8/14/2010 7:10 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> "Ora faltig teru dres, ent oru klen rebalen tafru."
>
>> I made it to seem pronouncable.and have a plausible distribution of word 
>> lengths etc.,
>> even an echo between 'ora' and 'oru'. But it means nothing!
>
> Which is it?
>
> I mean, it can't have zero meaning if it reflects your opinion of what 
> lexical characteristics are believable by excluding sequences that fail to 
> convey that sense. This includes all kinds of contextual information about 
> Indo-European roots and human cognition.
>
> The above "dres" is a fine candidate for "three", for instance. If you had 
> plenty of time on your hands and a sufficient command of what had been 
> actually used as words at some point, you could construct a notional 
> language that included the above phrase that would regardless be as 
> detailed and meaningful as a natural one. Speak friend, and enter!

It doesn't have 'zero meaning' in the sense you are using it here - but the 
same can be said of the numbers on Pas's seal, which may reflect Wolfe's 
knowledge about bar codes on groceries, or something equally irrelevant to 
the Long Sun Whorl.  It is my belief that the codes on the seal have no 
decipherable meaning that adds to our knowledge of that Whorl.

I can assure you that 'dres' was never intended to mean 'three'; I never 
thought of that.  At the time I made the sentence, I wrote down fairly 
random 'words', certainly using my feel for languages with Indo-European 
roots..  Afterwards as I modified them it may be that I imposed some subtle 
and tentative structure: 'Ora' and 'oru' might indicate two alternatives; 
'ent' may be a conjunction such as 'and' or 'but'; the sentence may 
represent a proverb of some kind.  These are my guesses, and nobody is 
better placed than I to guess!  But I still don't know.  The sentence has no 
particular meaning in the sense of a concrete statement about a fictitious 
world.

- Gerry Quinn

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