Tag Archives: funny

The Eisenbrauns Valentine’s Day Contest

Stumbling upon this from James McGrath’s “Exploring Our Matrix”, I nearly keeled over!

Apparently every year since 2008 Eisenbrauns, a publisher of great notoriety in Middle Eastern Studies, has held a contest where contestants compose valentines an ancient near-eastern languages, the winners receiving gift certificates for their books.

If I had only known about this earlier, I would have submitted one of my Syriac Heart pendants. 🙂

To read more, and see this year’s winners check out:

http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/VDAY2010 .

Next year we shall see!

Peace,
-Steve

Sunday Static #1

Ever overheard a snippet of Aramaic tongues at church and wondered if it were for real?

Have a friend that channels an ancient Israelite king or scrawls automatic writing in their sleep?

Here’s your chance to verify your unique contact with the divine.

Introducing the newest regular feature here at The Aramaic Blog:
Sunday Static.

Submit your best sounding out of the tongues you heard to the comment thread below, through the chat program on the right, or by email at Information@AramaicDesigns.com, and we’ll do our darndest to find its Aramaic match, to be published each Sunday. Just in time for some comic relief after morning services. Comic relief? Yes! Enjoy this week’s sample and inspiration for the feature:

What sounded like:
“Kuni no”
Overheard at church this morning. No specifics on the context.
In Western Classical Syriac it could mean:
“I am a pot,” “I am a grain mill hopper” or “I am a cognomen.”

(This submission, obviously, is a negative for genuine Aramaic.)

Keep in mind, we don’t take any stand one way or the other over whether speaking in tongues, channeling, or automatic are real phenomena. We don’t even claim to know whether any of the submissions we’ve received represent authentic contacts with the divine.

This feature ought to be reviewed with tongue firmly in cheek. It is perfectly possible that any submissions we received could actually be Aramaic, but many things can interfere with getting the proper translation for it on our end, namely the game of telephone between the hearing of it and its reaching us.

To give yourself the best shot of an accurate translation, fill us in on the context the example was heard in, what dialect of Aramaic you think it might have been in, mp3s if you can, or images of the writing (files will have to be emailed, of course).

It’s anonymous and one has nothing to lose, and if it *is* something in actual Aramaic, then you will know what it means.

-Steve

A Concordance… From the Future!


Cruising eBay I came across a listing that I can only assume was posted by Dr. Who:

Obviously it was published in 1926 (the database they used only had a 2-digit year field set to the wrong epoch), but that is certainly much more boring…

Anyways, expect some new posts coming soon. Aramaic Designs is developing some neat new stuff for Aramaic enthusiasts, and I’m curious as to what others may think.

Peace,
-Steve

The Manuscript Revealed!: Barack Obama’s Ancient Aramaic Birth Certificate

Born in Babylon? The jig is up! Read on…

I must admit that I am surprised at my readership. Although I can imagine a number of individuals (you know who you are) realizing the absurdity of the document and hesitating to admit it. 🙂

What you are looking at is the physical echo of a daydream, late one evening when I thought to myself:

Well, what if I took that YouTube video that has been circulating and smashed it together with the Kenyan birth certificate debacle?

In the wee hours of the night, refusing sleep, after translating and typesetting (both sloppliy), cutting and crinkling, the “artifact” was born:

The “ancient” document, itself, is a birth certificate for Barack Obama, placing his point of origin in Babylon at around 516-515 BCE.

Originally, I planned on sending a copy of it hand-inked on actual papyrus to the President, himself as a belated birthday gift, along with a cover letter explaining everything that went into it… but I figured that it might not be in good taste… (and at the same time might get me on some lists… or not but who knows? If there are I’m probably already on them. 🙂 ).

In either case, I hesitated and decided to share it on here with everyone else instead, so that ancient language buffs may enjoy a bit of a chuckle.

(Incidentally, if you’re interested in a copy of it, send me an email.)

Peace,
-Steve