Earth: Our Pet Project

I've been thinking about our relationship to the animal kingdom a lot lately. Whether it's nature documentaries, Christmas TV adverts or YouTube animal videos we seem to be anthropomorphising animals more and more. I wonder where it's going. It's like we're moving every animal on the planet to the status of pet.

Personally I think this is probably a good thing overall, but I wonder what effect it will have. Human beings are now so ubiquitous on planet earth that for any land animal we're pretty much unavoidable. Is this affecting the evolution of those animals? Are tigers becoming more cuddly in order to survive in our world? Are we saving or wiping out animals on the basis of how cute they are? If we are, is this a bad thing?

There was recently an article in the news about seals violently attacking penguins. Everyone, myself included, was slightly shocked by it - "Really? seals doing this? but they're cute? This can't be right." Our cuddly Pokemon-style view of the animal world was ripped from us. (I wonder how this PR disaster for the seals will effect the way we protect them in the future. They might wanna buck their ideas up if they wanna survive in our cartoon vision of Earth.)

I had an example of this sort of confused thinking myself the other day. I was buying dog treats for my friend's dog. I'm a vegetarian, but all the treats contained meat of some sort. I then had a crisis of conscience trying to decide whether it was morally right to buy something for a dog that contained meat. Starve a dog, or kill an animal? In the end I bought the treats, but it made me think. I read somewhere that Paul McCartney's dog is vegetarian. Fair play to him if that works out for them, but you've gotta wonder how the dog feels about it :p

I think this is a topic I might come back to over the coming year. It seems more and more relevant. I might make 2015 the 'co-existing with animals' year. I don't think there's going to be any easy, honest answers though. It seems we're all too confused.

Sun, Son, Sin, ...E

A common theme of this blog recently has been language and how the vowels in words are interchangeable. For example, my name, Neil, can be spelt Neal, it sounds identical to the word kneel, people often spell it as Niel. It's all the same really. The important parts are the consonants N and L - as long as we know there's a vowel between them we can get by okay.

For example, I've recently been thinking about the words sun and son. The link between Jesus being the Son of God and early Christians/Pagans worshipping the Sun is commonly observed. I was wondering if the word sin could likewise be linked in with these two. Jesus, of course, was the embodiment of our sins. This would bring to mind words like sign and singe and all sorts, and we could go on forever.

Incidentally, there was a Semitic moon god called Sin. So we have Sun and Sin (Moon).

A lot of early written languages only had symbols for the consonants and didn't notate the vowel sounds. I've been wondering how legible the English language would be if this was the case. As an experiment I'm going to try this out. I'll remove four of our five vowels and leave just one to stand as a marker for where a vowel sound should be.

E thenk E'll remeve E.

The ferst lene ef thes bleg weeld new reed;

E cemmen theme ef thes bleg recently hes been lengeege end hew the vewels en werds ere enterchengeeble.

E bet wecky, bet net cempletely ellegeble. E freer ese ef the censenents weeld meybe meke thengs e lettle better. Fer exemple, 'weeld' weeld be better as wed.

E'm seyeng thes, bet ebveeesly E knew whet E'm tryeng te wrete, te enyene reedeng thes et, ne deebt, jest leeks mentel :p

Halloween Protestants - Le Roi Huguet

On both this blog and my red hair blog I've been discussing the relationship between Halloween and Protestantism. I've basically been making the claim that many of the traditions we associate with Halloween have their roots (either wholly or in-part) in the Protestant movement. For example, I've mentioned the possibility that the Halloween pumpkin may be a totemic symbol of both red hair and Martin Luther.

Anyway, yesterday I came across another little piece of evidence that these two historic strands are entwined. The following passage comes from a book titled Nostradamus: A Life and Myth by a writer named John Hogue;

Now they called a Calvinist a Huguenot. The label came from le roi Huguet,  a character taken from a popular folk tale from Tours. He was the ghost of a wicked king who chose not to pass his nocturnal penance in Purgatory, but instead haunted the night, waylaying lonely travelers on country roads and rattling the shutters and doors of decent people's homes, disturbing their sleep. It so happened that the Calvinists of Tours gathered at night to pray at a city gate known as Roi-Hugon. Priests and parishioners across France reveled in the pun that identified Protestants shuffling off after dark to pray and hobnob with the unrepentant shade of King Huguet. The Huguenots (freely translated as the "followers of Huguet") were soon compared to the mythological ghouls and ghosts who once a year, on All Soul's Day, ventured out from their tombs for a night of unholy Halloween mischief before settling back into their graves.

This is a fascinating little bit of evidence. It stands to reason that what would be used as an insult by Catholic enemies would be worn as a badge of honour by the Protestants it was aimed at (at least secretly, if not openly).

It's interesting to note that the Calvinists were praying at "a city gate known as Roi-Hugon". According to Wiktionary (French Wiktionary :p) Hugon means "man of spirit" and derives from the Old High German word hugu meaning intelligence.

It also makes sense that Protestants would look to a king that "chose not to pass his nocturnal penance in Purgatory", as Protestants rejected the notion of Purgatory.

Were these Protestants worshipping intelligence and human reason?

The Meaning of Yule

Merry Vex-mas. Today, quite fittingly, I've been checking out the word Yule. I was thinking that maybe the Y might substitute for J making it another ju-word - as in Jew/Dieu as I've mentioned in posts before, or as in July/Julius as I've likewise mentioned.

Anyway, in literally the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page for Yule we get this line;

The earliest references to Yule are by way of indigenous Germanic month names Ærra Jéola (Before Yule) or Jiuli and Æftera Jéola (After Yule).

Almost instantly we come across this strange fact that Germanic folk used to have a mid-winter month named Jéola or Jiuli, as opposed to our mid-summer month July. And we get the J-spelling as well to boot.

Incidentally, in Denmark, Norway and Sweden Yule is also rendered Jul.

Further down on the Wikipedia page we then get this;

Among many others, the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse 'Yule father') and jólnir (Old Norse 'the Yule one').

'Yule father' reminds me a little bit of Ju-pater (pater meaning father) - Jupiter. The long-beard reminds me of Father Christmas (: - maybe there was an overlap between all these gods?

If you can call Father Christmas a god that is.

Also, I've mentioned before that Lammas Day, August 1st was known as Gule of August in medieval England and Scotland. Maybe at some point in history Yule was a biannual thing, occurring in both summer and winter, hence the July months in both summer and Germanic winter.

Julius Season.

Incidentally, I was also reading about Mōdraniht - "Mothers'-Night", an event held by pagan Anglo-Saxons on what is now Christmas Eve. Very little is known about it and the main source for it is the historian Bede (who I'm generally sceptical of). Anyway, I was thinking of bringing it back for all the stressed-out-by-Christmas women I know - Vex-mas :p

Konstellation Konsonants: Part 9 - D

[This will make more sense if you start here; Constellation Consonants Part 1 - hopefully anyway :) ]

Eferythin's startin to sound Dyerman now. I feel like I'm readin and writin Anklo-Sakson. I'm now onto my final konsonant. After this there's dyust twelfe left.

The one I'm remofin this time is kwite klose to my heart - D. D and T sound similar to me, so one is koin to hafe to ko. The reason I feel a personal affinity with this one is that people are forefer tdyastisin me for miksin these two letters up. I'll often say "I'm going t' d' shops" and that sort of think. This'll often result in someone tellin me "...it's the shops", emphasisin the th sound. I think it's maype a konsekwense of my Teesside aksent ...or maype dyust a konsekwense of my dyeneral disrekard for sosial konfention.

Anyway D and T are so kommon in the Enklish lankwadye I kan see remofin one of them pein a real proplem. Drain will pekome train - that's not koin to work. Dear will pekome tear. Efen if they are put into the kontekst of a sentense it's still koin to pe somewhat konfusin. This is where I should propaply throw in the towel and aksept that I'm not koin to ket it lower than thirteen.

It's also koin to play hafok with my CH sound. Much pekame mutj, then mutdy, now it's koin to pe mutty or muddy. As is eferythin else. So I kuess it's kameofer.

It's peen an interestin eksperiment thow. Maype one I'll hafe another krak at later. It's also kot me thinkin that maype I koult kreate a sekret kote or lankwatye paset on this strippet town fersion of Enklish. Maype usin thirteen or so konsonants plus one or more fowels.

Anyway, this is what I entet up with.

1. F
2. H
3. K
4. L
5. M
6. N
7. P
8. R
9. S
10. T
11. W
12. Y

Ant this is what the poem Remember py Christina Rossetti looks like renteret this way;

Rememper me when I am kone away,
kone far away into the silent lant;
When you kan no more holt me py the hant,
Nor I half turn to ko yet turnin stay.
Rememper me when no more tay py tay
You tell me of our future that you plann't:
Only rememper me; you unterstant
It will pe late to kounsel then or pray.
Yet if you shoult forket me for a while
Ant afterwarts rememper, to not kriefe:
For if the tarkness ant korruption leafe
A festitye of the thowts that onse I hat,
petter py far you shoult forket ant smile
Than that you shoult rememper ant pe sat

Konstellation Konsonants: Part 8 - G

I'm now going to attempt to remofe G from the alphapet - sorry Freemasons. This will pe the eighth konsonant I'fe remofed and will leafe me with dyust thirteen.

G to my ears is fery similar to K, only more guttural. In many ways it's a K from the throat. Again, like my last post apout P and B, the similarity only goes so far and the differense is kwite notiseaple, making it something of a klumsy supstitute.

H is also from the throat, so I was wondering if I kould maype use HK as a proksy for G. Howefer, I'm hafing diffikulty sounding those two sounds out with my mouth to make them form a G, so maype that would pe tdyeating a little. It's an option at least though.

Trying out the G = K supstitution we get stuff like; goal pekoming koal, gate pekoming kate, guard pekoming kuard. It doesn't really work too well, put I guess I'm going to hafe to make do.

Open the karden kate.

Kreet the kracious kentlewoman.

In fakt, gentlewoman is usually spoken to sound more like jentlewoman, We write gentle, put we say jentle. We write giant, put we pronounse it jiant. We write genius, put say jenius. And, of kourse, garden in Frentdy is jardin, so there's klearly some krossofer petween G and J there as well.

I'll now hafe to say that G = K or J. Howefer, sinse we skrapped the letter J two posts ago and put in its plase the letters DY we'll hafe to say that G = K or DY.

Gentlewoman now pekomes Dyentlewoman. Giant pekomes Dyiant. Genius pekomes Dyenius.

Kreet the kracious Dyentlewoman.

That at least sounds a little petter.

One final think apout G I should mention is that a lot of the words we use end in ing. Howefer, I think in a lot of kases the G kan dyust pe iknored. We already iknore it kwite a lot anyway - I'm feelin' fine, and so on and so forth. [Eksept the third word in this parakraph, of kourse, whitdy was supposed to pe thing :p maype that's a kase for HK pein used?]

Dyust one more konsonant to ket rid of now.

Konstellation Konsonants Part 9 - D

Konstellation Konsonants: Part 7 - B

I really think I'm starting to hit the wall now. I'fe been rakking my brains thinking of where to go nekst. So mutdy so that I was efen thinking about it when I woke up in the early hours of last light after a nightmare.

I'm kwikly running out of rope and don't hafe many options left so I think I'm going to hafe to get rid of B. This is where we get into the realms of the ridikulous though. B to me sounds fery similar to P. Howefer, they're not similar enough to be anywhere near identikal. Nowhere near as similar as F and V or S and Z.

If you mouth out the letters P and B you'll notise that P is pretty mutdy a B but with a 'push' - the air is pushed out the mouth a bit more. Howefer, a P-word kan sound like a B-word and fise fersa. Plackperry Bie. Burple Bigs. Plue Pirds. I think people would notise the differense though. Plus it looks kwite silly :p

I suppose I kould get rid of either B or P on this logik, but I'll lose B and keep P simply bekause I think P okkurs more frekwently in the English language.

This gets me down to fourteen konsonants now, put it's getting to the point where efen I'm struggling to understand what I'fe written. And I still need two more to reatdy my aim of twelfe. The only two I kan think of at the moment though take us efen further into the madness :(

It should pe fun though :)

Konstellation Konsonants Part 8 - G