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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: JanSeifert on Tuesday 12 March 24 10:38 GMT (UK)
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Hi,
I hope someone may be able to help me with this puzzling piece of text.
The text goes:
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previous side
… villages though not large are very numerous. they are almost all
passed(?)
<new page>
passed(?) of temples of a spiral shape and circular structure and several
of the poongus or priests deped <sic, clothed> in yellow garments were seen loitering…
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This was copied by a clerk after 1830 (I have no proper info on that), and - so it seems - word by word without regard to sentences or meaning. As seen in »deped«, which is obviously »clothed« (d=cl, e=o, p=th, ed. all of this are common mistakes in the text).
Could »passed« be »possessed«? Or is there some other hidden meaning I cannot fathom as English is not my mother tongue?
Thank you very much.
Jan
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Looks like a transcription, probably by OCR (Optical Character Reader)?
You need to find the original text.
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Would be interesting to see more of the handwritten account.
I wondered if deped could be cleped but that doesn't make sense as it means called. I also wondered if it could be a strange abbreviation of draped but the 1st E worries me. Very strange!
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deped could be a misreading/miscopying of dressed, with a long + short s, which the copyist misread as a p, and then also omitted the r.
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deped could be a misreading/miscopying of dressed, with a long + short s, which the copyist misread as a p, and then also omitted the r.
That's very plausible!
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This was copied by a clerk after 1830 (I have no proper info on that), and - so it seems - word by word without regard to sentences or meaning. As seen in »deped«, which is obviously »clothed« (d=cl, e=o, p=th, ed. all of this are common mistakes in the text).
Would the copy have been made in India and/or by someone whose native tongue wasn't English? That could easily account for some of the problems with the text. The nearest English words to "deped" would be 'depend' or perhaps 'dipped' or 'deepened', none of which make sense here, but Bookbox's suggestion of 'dressed' is a good one.
Could »passed« be »possessed«? Or is there some other hidden meaning I cannot fathom as English is not my mother tongue?
My first thought on reading it (and before I read your suggestion here) was that 'possessed' would fit the context. It's a bit literary or old-fashioned now - mostly, rather than "the villages were possessed of temples" we'd just say "the villages had temples".
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Perhaps the text refers to the Jyotirlinga temples?
The Jyotirlinga temples in India, are dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is believed that at these temples Lord Shiva appeared as a column of fire or the lingam of light. Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotra says there are 12 such Jyotirlingams in India, and that every devotee of Shiva must visit these temples. But what piques my curiosity is the progressive spiral shape around which these temples are situated.
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Thank you for the swift replies!
This is part of a longer diary of a travel from India to Ava (Burma, today Myanmar) and on via Arakan back to Calcutta. As I transliterate this kind of texts for years now, most of the mistakes I can easily recognise. In that regard I am quite sure that deped was a wrongly copied clothed (I had much worse mistakes. Also one never knows if the strange language originates from the copied text or from the interpretion by the copyist. But I am more and more sure that copying was a word by word business regardless of the text itself. I have transliterated an original diary earlier where you could recognise the impact of »tiffin and a little toddy in the evening« on the ability of the writer to produce legible and comprehensible sentences.)
Its just the small places, where my limited knowledge of English and old fashioned language make me stumble. In so far thank you for supporting »possessing«.
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Looks like a transcription, probably by OCR (Optical Character Reader)?
You need to find the original text.
The transcription is mine. And the picture is my enhanced copy of the original.
:)
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Perhaps the text refers to the Jyotirlinga temples?
The Jyotirlinga temples in India, are dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is believed that at these temples Lord Shiva appeared as a column of fire or the lingam of light. Dwadasa Jyotirlinga Stotra says there are 12 such Jyotirlingams in India, and that every devotee of Shiva must visit these temples. But what piques my curiosity is the progressive spiral shape around which these temples are situated.
No, its most certainly a description of buddhist stupas. The area is along the Ningthee (=Chindwin).
:)
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deped could be a misreading/miscopying of dressed, with a long + short s, which the copyist misread as a p, and then also omitted the r.
That is an interesting reading of the word. I will keep it as an alternative in the notes.
Thank you.
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Could the word be 'draped'
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Thinking that too :)
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Thanks again for all the help! Then again: »deped« was not really my problem. The meaning of whatever word this is is clear. My main issue was »passed«.
Jan
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Another challenge for me, I am afraid:
my transliteration goes-
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present shape and from (form) had been given before the petrification had taken place
and it is difficult to conceive how much (such) a number so much resembling each
other should have been obtained by chance from the River, and yet this must
have been the case, for we know of no Process exept that effected through
the Agency of water by which this conversion of wood into stone scites
bear the first impression left upon the mind in viewing the etope (stone?) certainly
is that the change has occured Since the blocks were fixed in their present
position, but it is impossible to believe it.- the view of the surrounding Country
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Can anyone make sense out this block of text? There is ommitted punctuation for sure here.
Thanks!
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and one more ??? (the scribe had a bad day it seems).
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than four miles distant, but I was unable to visit them. the whole area
indeed looks very much like the bed of an ancient crater, when1 sum-
mit had been Completely removed, the only open side of which is
that next to the River, and resembles in some degree Doctor Danbery’s (Danbury’s?) des-
cription of the basins in Amergue, sand however almost amounting to a
Coarse grit thickly interspused (interspersed) with quartose (quartzose) pelibbs (pebbles) ?? the ex-
tra soil and I saw Nothing in the Course of my short walk denoting
volcanic Agency. Just before I set out the Tazee of Shombegnew arrived in
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I think the missing word is in the vicinity of »constitutes« or »comprises« but I am not very sure.
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"scites" possibly abbreviating stalactites
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From the first one:
Another challenge for me, I am afraid:
my transliteration goes-
»
present shape and from (form) had been given before the petrification had taken place
and it is difficult to conceive how much (such) a number so much resembling each
other should have been obtained by chance from the River, and yet this must
have been the case, for we know of no Process exept that effected through
the Agency of water by which this conversion of wood into stone scites
bear the first impression left upon the mind in viewing the etope (stone?) certainly
is that the change has occured Since the blocks were fixed in their present
position, but it is impossible to believe it.- the view of the surrounding Country
In the difficult section, "this conversion of wood into stone" and "the first impression left upon the mind" are both the subjects of their clauses, and they make so little sense as written that I almost wonder if a line has been missed out in the copying. But alternatively:
"scites" - I've no idea. My first thought was that it's a noun attached to 'stone', but I can make a bit more sense of what follows if it's a verb meaning 'occur' or 'take place' - but I still don't know what. (I note Molly's suggestion - but if it is that, the clause needs a verb, hence missing line?)
"bear" - I can make better sense of what follows if it's "hear", but as a misspelling of "here".
"etope" - I think it ends with 's' rather than 'e', and I wonder if the whole word could be 'stops'. How would that fit the context? What exactly is it that's in the water getting turned to stone?
In the second one:
... Coarse grit thickly interspused (interspersed) with quartose (quartzose) pelibbs (pebbles) ?? the ex-
tra soil and I saw Nothing in the Course of my short walk denoting
volcanic Agency. Just before I set out the Tazee of Shombegnew arrived in
«
I think the missing word is in the vicinity of »constitutes« or »comprises« but I am not very sure.
You could well be right with 'pebbles' - confusion of 'b' and 'le' and vice versa.
The missing word looks like 'commotions', which can't really be correct. A verb is needed, and I agree with you on the kind of meaning it should have, but can't think of anything better.
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I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
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I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
I did too for a time, but the tall letter is crossed like a 't'.
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I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
I did too for a time, but the tall letter is crossed like a 't'.
Yes - but this is a document that has been copied from another document. So it could be a mistranscription. Slope makes sense if you consider the description of viewing petrifried wood which could be on a slope of a river bank for instance.
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Thank you for your suggestions so far. I thought I should give you a chance to get more context. I usually share nothing in such a preliminary state but for the sake of getting through I post here the two pages in question and my transliterations.
first page 126
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page 127
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the transliteration file is not immediately shown (at least not on my computer)
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I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
I do not see a »slope« fitting in the sentence here:
»…the first impression left upon the mind in viewing the stope certainly
is that the change has occured Since the blocks were fixed in their present
position,…«
From the context I would go for stone, as the topic is the petrified pieces of wood. »blocks« was used to not repeat the word stone, I'd say.
J.
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From the first one:
"bear" - I can make better sense of what follows if it's "hear", but as a misspelling of "here".
I like your suggestion there. Also: one has to keep in mind, that the punctuation is more or less missing. In that way a full stop behind »bear« is possible too.
So the sentence could go even in the way of: »…by which this conversion of wood into stone <verb> here[.] the first impression left upon the mind…«
J.
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From the first one:
"bear" - I can make better sense of what follows if it's "hear", but as a misspelling of "here".
I like your suggestion there. Also: one has to keep in mind, that the punctuation is more or less missing. In that way a full stop behind »bear« is possible too.
So the sentence could go even in the way of: »…by which this conversion of wood into stone <verb> here[.] the first impression left upon the mind…«
Another thought, which involves a gross misreading, is that 'scites bear' is actually 'takes place'. (s=t, ci=a, t=k; b=p, e=l, r=ce)
One of these confusions in a word might be easily spotted, but here it would mean having a whole lot of them all together. I wonder...?
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Another thought, which involves a gross misreading, is that 'scites bear' is actually 'takes place'. (s=t, ci=a, t=k; b=p, e=l, r=ce)
One of these confusions in a word might be easily spotted, but here it would mean having a whole lot of them all together. I wonder...?
I was wondering the same. It would be a (far-fetched?) solution that elegantly solves the sentence.
I also have a few other remarks:
impress of
except that
viewing the steps
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second page:
to give an opinion
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I also have a few other remarks:
impress of
except that
viewing the steps
Yes, these small mistakes happen all the time. But this is just the first step in my process, the rough transliteration. There are two more steps to iron out these mistakes ;D. But thank you for spotting them!
»steps« at that place in the sentece in my opinion would be too far from context. there were no steps mentioned elsewhere in connection with the temple.
J.
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...viewing the steps
»steps« at that place in the sentece in my opinion would be too far from context. there were no steps mentioned elsewhere in connection with the temple.
Having read the full transcription, I now wonder if mckha was right after all:
I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
I did too for a time, but the tall letter is crossed like a 't'.
Yes - but this is a document that has been copied from another document. So it could be a mistranscription. Slope makes sense if you consider the description of viewing petrifried wood which could be on a slope of a river bank for instance.
The temple is on a "hilldoh", which I think must be a hilltop. It's surrounded by something which is prevented from falling by these small palings made of petrified wood. For someone approaching and seeing them for the first time, "the first impression left upon the mind in viewing the slope" would make good sense.
It's most unfortunate that a word seems to have been missed out ("a little ... raised all round it") so we can't really envisage the scene. Or can we make "raised" into a noun that would fit the context?
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One of these confusions in a word might be easily spotted, but here it would mean having a whole lot of them all together. I wonder...?
But if you look closer and notice the clusters of mistakes on the two pages it does not seem too far fetched. The scribe was tired after a long day's work, the light bad &ca. The original too, that was copied by the scribe was a personal (field) diary by Pemberton, written under unknown circumstances (on the way) and could have been very hard to read. And scribes were not hired to understand the texts they had to copy. While it was done word by word. Meanings of the sentences were of less concern.
Could you make sense out of tresbage on p. 127? I concluded, it could be leafage – the only thing that made sense to me in the context?
J.
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The temple is on a "hilldoh", which I think must be a hilltop. It's surrounded by something which is prevented from falling by these small palings made of petrified wood. For someone approaching and seeing them for the first time, "the first impression left upon the mind in viewing the slope" would make good sense.
It's most unfortunate that a word seems to have been missed out ("a little ... raised all round it") so we can't really envisage the scene. Or can we make "raised" into a noun that would fit the context?
And the thing »raised« had to make the temple »remarkable«. Or do you think »raised« ist the marbled version of the word?
I will put it on my list for »a shot in the dark« reading (Pemberton was certainly not the only one ever visiting the place. There is a few more published texts about Ava from slightly earlier and later which I will check.)
J.
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Having read the full transcription, I now wonder if mckha was right after all:
I wondered if “etope”” was slope.
Now looking very close there are two small strokes on the right hand side of etope, striking out the crossing of the »t«?
j.
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Could you make sense out of tresbage on p. 127? I concluded, it could be leafage – the only thing that made sense to me in the context?
I think it's 'herbage' - and in this case written correctly. I wouldn't consider it to be an everyday word, but maybe it was more common then. Some of these more obscure words probably survived longer than they might have done because writers often used 'elegant variation', preferring unusual synonyms and circumlocution to simply using the most obvious word more than once.
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Thank you all! I think I can proceed for now. There will be more problems for sure. If I find out anything about the place I will post it here.
J.