This is the Rongorongo script of Easter Island. Rongorongo lacks an accepted decipherment but is generally presumed to encode an earlier stage of Rapa Nui, the contemporary Polynesian language of the island. It is possible that it represents an independent invention of writing. 1/ Hundreds of tablets written in Rongorongo existed as late as 1864 but most were lost or destroyed in that period and only 26 of undoubted authenticity remain today; almost all inscribed on wood. Each text has between two and over two thousand glyphs (some have what appear to be compound glyphs). 2/

Oy. Forget about being a "rabbi", if you had even a kindergarten level knowledge of Hebrew (or Judaism for that matter) you'd know that this is not old, not Jewish, not an amulet, and nothing to do with kabbalah (which you grotesquely mischaracterize). It's a crude mishmash of… https://t.co/3IJjWrqnIp https://t.co/U7OBn124MNtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

https://twitter.com/aprajitanefes/status/1677677404247162880

One of many previous threads on these fakes.

https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1454786424268537857

Oi u luzi chervona kalyna - Oh, the Red Guelder Rose in the Meadow - is the anthem of 🇺🇦 Ukrainian resistance to Russian oppression.

Written in 1875, it was adapted by Stepan Charnetsky in 1914 to honor the Sich Riflemen of the First World War. 1/
twitter.com/i/web/status/1… The red guelder rose or viburnum of the song ('kalyna' in Ukrainian) - a shrub that grows four to five metres tall - is referenced throughout Ukrainian folklore. It is depicted in silhouette along the edges of the flag of the President of Ukraine. 2/

Bought this this morning at our regular Sunday market in Bon-Encontre.

This bread is called a 'tortillon', and has been made since the late 17th century ONLY in this one tiny village just outside Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne, ONLY on Sundays and holidays in the month of May. The tortillon celebrates the feast days of Notre-Dame de Bon-Encontre in May.

The flour is blanched and then boiled in hot water, before being baked in a wood oven. It's traditionally eaten with sausages and white wine. 2/

This is the 2001 first edition of the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-styled Türkmenbaşy, President of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006, intended to serve as the "spiritual guidance of the nation" and the "centre of the Turkmen universe". 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1… The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture in a gradual but increasingly all-pervasive way. Niyazov first placed copies in all the nation's schools and libraries - but by the end of his reign, an exam on its teachings was an essential element of the driving test... 2/

Huge excitement here at the Incunabula Library - 26th April is OLD PERMIC ALPHABET DAY! 🥳🎉 🍾 Old Permic script (Важ Перым гижӧм), sometimes also called ANBUR, was used to write medieval Komi, a Uralic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. 2/

"Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia" - a 1984 report by the semiotician Thomas Sebeok for the US Human Interference Task Force on the problem of marking radioactive waste sites, some of which will be dangerous for over 100 000 years. 1/
static1.squarespace.com/static/5668df8… After an introduction to semiotics and other digressions, Sebeok comes to his proposed solution: what he calls "Folkloric Relay" & the "Atomic Priesthood". The first involves the use of artificially created myth - perhaps something along the lines of "this ground is cursed". 2/

This is all that remains of Zoli the Clown, a Jewish little person, once the most famous circus performer in Hungary, who perished, alongside 560 000 other Hungarian Jews, in the Holocaust.

Today, on Yom HaShoah, we should remember him.

This is his story. 1/ Zoltán Hirsch, "Zoli the Clown", was born on 6 Feb 1885, the third child of a family of Jewish merchants. Until the age of three he was treated for Rickets disease due to his small size. Later, his family moved to Pécs, where he became captivated by the world of the circus. 2/

On #YomHashoah: Zvi Kolitz's "Yosl Rakover Speaks to God", set in the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto, a calligraphic manuscript commissioned by a French Jew, with his note on the flyleaf: "To the 26 members of my family who died after deportation 1942-1945". 1/ In "Yosl Rakover", written in Yiddish by Kolitz in 1946 and set In the final days of the Warsaw Ghetto, Rakover, a pious Jew challenges God "And so, my God, before I die, freed from all fear, beyond all terror, [...], I will allow myself to call you to account one last time." 2/

AN OCCITAN CHARTER

A donation to the Nunnery of St. Pierre-de-Salvétat [Monastère de filles de La Salvetat-les-Montdragon].

Written in Albigensian dialect [langue albigeoise, a local variant of the Languedocien dialect].

La Salvetat-les-Montdragon, Tarn, 7 February 1261. 1/ Salvetat-les-Montdragon. 2/

Runestones can be maps, as well as text. The Ancient Norse used roadside runestones to indicate directions to the nearest church, mead-hall or slaughter-ground. Until the advent of GPS, Swedish motorists still used them on long trips to decide where to stop for lunch. Of course not all runestones contained useful restaurant directions, but Swedish motoring magazines highlighted those that did, so that motorists could plan their trips accordingly.

When we speak of the "Frisian language", we almost always mean West Frisian - but there are two other Frisian language families, North Frisian & East Frisian.

West Frisian has just under half a million speakers, North Frisian has 10000 and East Frisian has about 2000. 1/ West Frisian is spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland. North Frisian is spoken in the German district of Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein. The only surviving variant of East Frisian, Sater Frisian, is spoken in Saterland in the Lower Saxon district of Cloppenburg. 2/

Old Prussian - not, as you might expect a Germanic language, but rather a now extinct Baltic one - survives in printed form in three extremely rare Lutheran catechisms printed in Königsberg in 1545, 1545 and 1561 respectively, of which the third is by far the most extensive. 1/ Here is the Lord's Prayer in Old Prussian, from the first of the 3 printed Lutheran catechisms, printed in Königsberg in 1545. 2/

Abu Bakr Effendi’s "Bayân al-Dîn" written in a modified Arabic script and published in Istanbul in 1877, was the first substantive book printed in the Afrikaans language.

These are, AFAIK, the first ever digitized images of this rare book to have been placed online. 1/ Arabic has been used to transliterate local languages almost everywhere Islam has flourished (as, for the same reasons, has Hebrew).

What's significant about Arabic-Afrikaans though is that its use PREDATED the codification and writing down of Afrikaans by Dutch speakers. 2/

The Incunabula Library is pleased to announce this morning a major new acquisition in the field of Runic Literature. Iceland, 1347 AD. 2/

Alex West @siwaratrikalpa's doctoral thesis is now available to download on OA. Alex's thesis is a new edition and study of Bujangga Manik, a narrative poem in Old Sundanese, a language of West Java in what is now Indonesia. The poem survives in only a …rlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/31…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… The text dates to around 1480 – before the Islamisation of Sunda, before the establishment of the first European colonies in Southeast Asia in 1511, and before the impact of the Columbian Exchange. It is one of only a few witnesses to this period in Indonesian history. 2/

The Yao manuscripts called "guo shan bang" are translated by Alberts as "Passport for Crossing the Mountain". They are also called "Yao charters."
These fascinating docs trace the origin of the Yao people from Panhu, the mythical dragon-dog who transformed into a man. 1/ This is not a religious text. It is, rather, a charter issued under the Southern Sung emperor Li-tsung (Lizong) in 1260. It confirms twelve Yao clans in the possession of their lands and recalls the legend of their divine ancestor, P’an-ku (Pangu) or P’an-hu (Panhu). 2/

Three giant, morally bankrupt corporations - Heineken, Nestle, Auchan - not only continue to do business in Russia, but have actually expanded their operations there, and/or directly supplied the Russian military.

If you have the choice to buy alternative brands, you should. Last year Heineken launched 61 new products on the Russian market, roughly one every 6 days. In a statement yesterday - a full year after the invasion - they promised to exit Russia at some undefined future date when they find a suitable buyer for the business. #BoycottHeineken

Exceptionally important new 15-part thread by Alexey Navalny @navalny outlining his vision for Russia's future, and stating *unambiguously* that Russia must withdraw to the 1991 borders of Ukraine (ie leave Crimea entirely) and pay reparations to Ukraine for wartime destruction.

https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627631862704136193

Navalny makes the obvious point - seldom stated so clearly though - that Russia is a vast and sparsely populated country with an aging population - the last thing it needs is new territories, it needs to focus on developing the territories it already has.

Roald Dahl - 2001 authorized Puffin edition vs 2022 authorized Puffin edition.

telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/1… Roald Dahl, 2001 vs 2022 editions:
In James and the Giant Peach, the Cloud-Men have become Cloud-People, Miss Sponge is no longer “the fat one”, Miss Spider’s head is no longer “black” and the Earthworm no longer has “lovely pink” skin but “lovely smooth skin”.

Two 19th century French rebus plates - can you read the text? 🧐 The first plate.