Dudes rock.

852dude@852dude.bsky.social · yesterday

Bro. People are cool as fuck.

Niya Prakrit, a Central Asian Gāndhārī dialect, was the administrative language of Shanshan (3–4 c. CE). N. Schoubben shows the strong Iranian (Bactrian) influence, but rejects a “Tocharian C” substrate, and argues Kushan officials shaped it. #openaccess www.harrassowitz-ver...

Y'know I used to play a lot of RPGs as a kid and then I got probably one of the best bits of advice my dad gave me which was to focus on real things over made up bullshit, which led me to focus on real-world prehistory and historical linguistics... and then nowadays this bullshit fucking happens.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 4d ago

Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’

"Such a formidable word as Staatsschuldenverwaltungshauptkassenoberrechnungskommissar can be most faithfully rendered by Kokusai-Seiri-Kyoku-Kaikei-kwancho [国債整理局会計官長]." 🥴 < Nitobé 1927 Japanese Traits and Foreign Influences @ archive.org/details/japa...

not to be confused with quesadilla

This is something I'd like to see vigorously investigated instead of endless 'is college woke!?' pieces in The Atlantic and the NYT - because my sense is this is correct, humanities courses subsidize more expensive fields. But that prompts further questions about decisions being made to cut them.

Gregory A. Hargreaves@bordergroves.bsky.social · 6d ago

Numbers update: The history class I’m about to teach this semester has a 10% larger enrollment and university tuition is also 10% higher than two years ago. My class will generate about $160,000 of revenue for the university. My pay will be under $7K or approximately 4%. Humanities fund uni sport

Two year anniversary of when I first posted this comic

In my life time? Gladiator, 300, Troy, and Alexander all come to mind and all since the year 2000. What happens each time is people say it will save the study of ancient history, it is loved for a bit before the next big thing happens: all while ancient history depts across the world shut.

Robert Borden Stan Account@bordenstan.bsky.social · last wk.

When in your life is there ever going to be this much public fascination and investment in a story so ancient and fundamental? There is an audience out there which is primed to hear more about this and find a whole new interest in it who are seeing you mock a passionate adaptation as slop for rubes.

One of these days I'm gonna sit down and watch The Phantom Menace for the second time since I saw it exactly once in the theatre and I will find it a revelatory experience.

Birds Are Dinosaurs@birdsaredinosaurs.bsky.social · last wk.

I shit a lot on the Phantom Menace, but it did accurately predict how most journalists would react to fascism

Stumbling through head-over-heels through the Albanian internet trying to figure out whether some Greco-Albanian periodicals published in 19th century Alexandria have ever been digitised while still not *really* knowing how to read this stuff has been one way to spend my evening, I guess.

Greek verbs always have nice surprises: (ὀρύσσω, deep into the entry) "of a wrestler, dig into, gouge a tender part, τὠφθαλμώ Ar. Av. 442, cf. Pax 899, Philostr. VA 8.25; gouge out, ὀφθαλμὸν ὤρυττέν τις ὥσπερ ἰχθύος Antiph. 119." ==> Ready for anything the day may bring. 😎

I wrote a Lycophron joke but nobody knew what it meant.

Magistra Cohen (she/her)@magistracohen.bsky.social · 4w ago

I wrote a Polyphemus joke but nobody laughed.

So weird being an out of work Hellenist watching all of this.

Mateusz Fafinski@calthalas.bsky.social · 2w ago

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

Early evening bliss at Reg B level.

The Odyssey is myth. It can take a beating. Unlike your 300s or Gladiators or Bravehearts or the like, "historical accuracy" is not a relevant parameter here. "Doing interesting things with the text" is.

Doing an inventory of my CDs that have been sealed away in storage boxes since I moved to Britain in 2011 and EYYY I was wondering where those ended up.

Currently picturing all the long-time John Milton stans quietly fuming that they can't reach this level of cultural saturation for their poet.

"READ KROPOTKIN!" Ah, Copenhagen...

188 μήδεα δ᾽ ὡς τὸ πρῶτον ἀποτμήξας ἀδάμαντι /mɛ́ːde̞a d ʰɔːs tò̞ prɔ̂ːto̞n apo̞tmɛ́ːksaːs adámanti/ And when at first having cut off the genitals with the adamant | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – | – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ |

lolsob

Robert Komaniecki@komaniecki.bsky.social · 3w ago

This utter muppet of a conservative Canadian politician in New Brunswick forgot to remove the LLM text from his floor speech and read it out loud.

187 Νύμφας θ᾽ ἃς Μελίας καλέουσ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν. /númpʰaːs tʰ ʰàːs me̞líaːs kaléɔːs e̞p apéːro̞na gaîan/ And the Nymphs whom they call the Melians on the boundless earth | – – | – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – |

Behold, a man.

Me: I wonder what Holger Pedersen was up to just before he went to Korfu to do fieldwork on Albanian... Ah yes, he's casually writing to Karl Verner about how he's just formulated what's nowadays called the RUKI rule in Slavic.

A është ky djathë? Jo ky nuk është djathë, ky është një gur. "Is this cheese? No this is not cheese, this is a stone." (Albanian, Camaj 1984: 12)

Someone who recently followed me but has disabled quote posts recently posted this KotH dub into Tocharian and I don't know what to do with this knowledge.

King of the Hill in Tocharian (Fandub)

YouTube video by Anson

youtube.com

Just going to say here, I think I've said this before, a 'historically accurate' version of the Odyssey is not possible because the Odyssey does not take place in a historical setting - it takes place in a fantastical pastiche of four centuries, mixed in with gods and monsters.

Watcher Guru@watcher.guru · 3w ago

JUST IN: Elon Musk says Grok will make a "full-length movie" of The Odyssey that is "historically accurate" by the end of this year.

Look I'm glad Homerists are having fun with it, but I'm disappointed that Indo-Europeanists didn't get nearly as much attention when the Fassbender-Robot got his head torn off while reconstructing some PIE sentences to communicate with some rather aggressive aliens in Prometheus (2012).

the most realistic scene in Jurassic Park is when two scientists make a questionable decision — traveling to an undisclosed location with a strange man — on the promise of three years of modest funding