What language is this....
- dubhlinn
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- Location: North Lincolnshire, UK.
What language is this....
Earlier today on my travels I chanced across a headstone with a very strange inscription. I am assuming that the bottom half is a translation of the top half but I cannot figure out the language.
A learned friend of mine is leaning towards a pidgin Greek but I am having difficulty seeing that. I was wondering if this is some obscure cuneiform which is made up of various scripts and languages.
I have had to link to the pictures because I needed to keep them very large for clarity.
The headstone in question is to be found in Whitton North Lincolnshire.
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3
The floor is open...
Thanks in advance for the help
Slan,
D.
A learned friend of mine is leaning towards a pidgin Greek but I am having difficulty seeing that. I was wondering if this is some obscure cuneiform which is made up of various scripts and languages.
I have had to link to the pictures because I needed to keep them very large for clarity.
The headstone in question is to be found in Whitton North Lincolnshire.
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3
The floor is open...
Thanks in advance for the help
Slan,
D.
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
W.B.Yeats
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
W.B.Yeats
- Nanohedron
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Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps. - Location: Lefse country
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- s1m0n
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Those are gorgeous letterforms, at any rate. The sexton clearly had a good eye. Were there any other stones around the same date with the same look to the letters, even if in English?
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
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- scottielvr
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Brilliant, IB. Well done. You've saved me, and I'm sure others, a helluvan eyestrain.Innocent Bystander wrote:What I see looks like:
Liffe bow short
Eternity bow long!
Memento Mori!
Or, with a Lincolnshire Accent,
Life be short,
Eternity be long!
Memento Mori (Remember Death)!
You take good stock of that now, mind!
* applauds *
...would anyone care to speculate on the rationale for making a headstone inscription so difficult to read? I find it quite puzzling. I suppose the mingling of Latin and local dialect, as well as the challenging lettering, reflects an interesting...sense of humor?
- rh
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reminds me a bit of this font ("Courthand") from Scriptorium
http://www.fontcraft.com/scriptorium/fontlist.html
http://www.fontcraft.com/scriptorium/fontlist.html
- Cynth
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That is really helpful. This is so interesting but I was getting nowhere on learning some more about it. I never would have believed it was English . Good thing we have an innocent bystander!rh wrote:reminds me a bit of this font ("Courthand") from Scriptorium
http://www.fontcraft.com/scriptorium/fontlist.html
Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium. ~ Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence.----Seneca
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Well done IB!
SO we have:
Liffe how short
Eternity how long!
Memento Mori!
I've done research on newspapers from the 1700s, "liffe" is an accepted spelling of life.
Ooh, ooh! It's not bow, it's how! Compare with the second letter of "short"Innocent Bystander wrote:What I see looks like:
Liffe bow short
Eternity bow long!
Memento Mori!
SO we have:
Liffe how short
Eternity how long!
Memento Mori!
I've done research on newspapers from the 1700s, "liffe" is an accepted spelling of life.