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Re:Sumerian dog jokes, or the difficulty of translating dead... by jtbayly on Monday March 21, 2022 @11:02AM (#30754899)
A friend of mine was taking Akkadian or Sumerian (I can’t remember which) and described the wide range of possible correct translations of a text with a story from class.

One student said it was a receipt for the sale of a cow. The prof said that was one real possibility. Another said it was a love poem. Prof agreed again. :shrug:

But my favorite translation disagreement is from the Epic of Gilgamesh, I think, where one man insists the proper translation of a line is “the lords of the land of the blazing rockets.”

Re:Sumerian dog jokes, or the difficulty of translating dead... by xsmasher on Monday March 21, 2022 @09:00PM (#30761694)
> One student said it was a receipt for the sale of a cow. The prof said that was one real possibility. Another said it was a love poem. Prof agreed again.

Isn't this the plot of "Foucault's Pendulum?"