Tuesday 20 August 2013

Uncleftish Beholding

I was not getting much out off Poul Anderson's humorous piece, "Uncleftish Beholding" (All One Universe, 1997, pp. 99-104), which translates scientific terminology into the Anglo-Saxon language of a timeline in which the Norman Conquest did not occur. However, when I put down my copy of All One Universe, Sheila, a Modern Languages graduate, picked it up and started to unravel some of the meanings -

worldken: science;
stuff: matter;
work: energy;
watching: observation;
firststuffs: elements;
waterstuff: hydrogen;
ymirstuff: uranium;
aegirstuff: neptunium;
helstuff: plutonium;
motes: particles;
unclefts: atoms;
bulkbits: molecules;
bindings: compounds;
sourstuff: oxygen;
kernel: nucleus;
forward and backward: positive and negative.

But there are two more pages and I am lost again.

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Yes, I agree, "Unclefish Beholding" was one of the more difficult pieces Anderson wrote. Maybe it needs a philologist like Sheila or JRR Tolkien to really appreciate this item. Tolkien, as you may know wss a scholar and expert in Old English and other Germanic languages, so he would have no problem with this article Anderson wrote.

Sean

Jim Baerg said...

Odd.
I was very amused by it & enjoyed figuring out 'translations' from 'Ander-Saxon' to English. I knew enough history of science & the origins of element names to figure out waterstuff & sourstuff etc. Most of the 'translations' you listed I figured out myself.
I have an education in science (BSc. Physics, MSc Geophysics) and read some Norse mythology, all of which likely helped me 'translate'.
I read it when it was first published in Analog.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

"Waterstuff" was easy, but "sourstuff" beat me! (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean

Hugh Reid said...

sourstuff is oxygen (same as Sauerstoff in German!)

Hugh Reid said...

helstuff is helium

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Reid,

Many thanks. I have wondered a time or two how English might have developed if there had been no Norman Conquest in 1066.

Ad astra! Sean

Hugh Reid said...

Sorry, correction. Helium is sunstuff.

Hugh Reid said...

Helstuff is plutonium.