Appendix A: The Culhar’ Correspondence
[The Neveryón tales, of which Neveryóna (‘The Tale of Signs and Cities’) is the sixth, are based on an ancient text of approximately 900 words known as the Culhar’ Fragment or, sometimes, the Missolonghi Codex, which has been found translated into numerous ancient languages. Because of the Culhar’s incomplete nature as well as its geographical dissemination among so many cultures, it has been difficult to assign an even reasonably indisputable origin to it, either as to date, land, or language of composition. In 1974, however, a comparative retranslation of the text from the various languages in which various versions have been found was presented by a young, black, American scholar, K. Leslie Steiner, along with an extensive commentary. Steiner’s work is notable not only for its linguistic interest but also because of its mathematical side. The first collection of tales (Tales of Nevèrÿon, Samuel R. Delany, Bantam Books; New York, 1979) was clearly in dialogue with Steiner’s findings. That volume concluded with an Appendix, written by archeologist S. L Kermit, giving a general review of the Culhar’s history as well as the thrusts of both Steiner’s mathematical and interpretive work. Among the responses to both the tales and the appended monograph, one, addressed to Kermit, seems worth publishing (en appendice) along with the engendered correspondence, for the readers of the present (or indeed the absent) text.]
New Haven
February 1981
To S. L. Kermit:
I have just read your comments on the Culhar’, and Steiner’s translation of same, and I feel that some remarks are in order.
I have checked the literature, and the Appendix to Delany’s work seems to be your first foray into archeology or text redaction (unless you are the S. Kermit who wrote the annotations to the most recent edition of Dee’s Necronomicon, in which case my congratulations; it was a solid piece of work). I would suggest that before you make another attempt you learn something about the topics you discuss. Or rather, learn something more; you’re obviously not ignorant, but your knowledge fails you at a number of points. Some examples follow (page numbers from the current edition of Tales of Nevèrÿon, London and Hanover, 1993).
p. 247: ‘Proto-Latin.’ I haven’t any idea what you are referring to, unless it be archaic Latin. The prefix ‘proto’ is used to refer to reconstructions of early stages of languages, ‘early’ here being sometime before those languages were reduced to writing. Thus, you can’t have a text of a proto-language. If you do, it is an attested language, and no longer a construct. The proto-language which is the postulated ancestor of Latin is referred to either as proto-Italic or proto-Italo-Celtic, depending on your theoretical bias.
p. 247: ‘…4,500 B.C., or even 5,000 B.C., which put it [the Culhar’ Fragment] practically inside the muzzy boundaries of the neolithic revolution.’ The two scholars I asked agreed that the neolithic period was roughly 6500 B.C.,–3000 B.C. Thus your dates are about as solidly neolithic as is possible.
p. 248: You mention that Blegan found a Greek version [of the Culhar’] in the fourth level down at Hissarlik, i.e., at Troy VI. This is highly interesting, as it is the only evidence I know of that the Trojans spoke Greek. Given the location, an Anatolian language seems more likely. Nor is it possible that it was put there by the Greeks, since the numbering of the cities is done from the bottom up, and VI is older than VIIa, the historical Ilium. Any text in VI was in Troy before the Greeks got there.
p. 248: ‘The only ancient people who did not, apparently, know of the Culhar’ fragment were, oddly, the Attic Greeks…’ This is indeed odd, since it implies that the Ionic and Doric Greeks did, and if this is so, it is about the only thing the groups didn’t share. Greek culture of that period was a nearly seamless whole; we differentiate among them by the recorded dialect differences.
p. 251: ‘…the young engineer Michael Ventris…’ Ventris would probably be slightly wounded by this, as he was an architect.
251: ‘The parchment itself…most probably dates from the third century A.D., but it is also most probably a copy made from a much older source…’ You’re damned right it is! Linear B ceased to be used around 1200 B.C., with the fall of Pylos! This makes it just about dead certain that whoever copied it didn’t know the meaning of the characters. And by the way, Linear B didn’t have ‘letters.’ Letters are those graphic symbols used in an alphabetic system only. You can no more refer to syllabic characters as ‘letters’ than you could hieroglyphs.
251: ‘…written in the same ink…’ How can you tell?
p. 251: ‘…transcriptions of block-letter Greek inscriptions, that sculptural language written on stone in upper-case letters…’ First, I have no idea what ‘block-letter’ is supposed to mean. Are you implying the Greeks also made cursive inscriptions on stone? And what is a ‘sculptural language’? I can give a good metaphorical reading for the phrase, but that doesn’t seem to be what you intend. Do you mean that it was the script used on stone? One presumes that the same script was used on parchment; however, no parchment texts have survived, Greece’s climate being wetter than Egypt’s. And ‘upper-case letters’? The Greeks had no lower case. No one did. Minuscule letters are a Byzantine development. The phrase ‘upper-case’ is thus empty of content.
p. 251: ‘Indeed, it is the only fragment of Linear B ever to be found outside of Crete.’ Garbage. Linear B is found on Pylos, not to mention at several sites on the mainland.
p. 251: Transpoté. Is this a direct transliteration of the Linear B text? Are you sure? Trans- is Latin! If the ancient Greeks (or whoever) were calling something trans-anything, then we are witness to a considerable revolution in archeology. A Greek name with the meaning you want would be Peripoté or Parapoté. And poté does not mean ‘never.’ Never. To do so, it must take a negative particle. And ‘across when’ is not a possible Homeric meaning. Homer simply doesn’t use it in that sense.
p. 252: ‘…Linear B was in use only in the very early stages of the neolithic palaces at Cnossos, Phaistos, and Mallia.’ Hold it right there. The phrase ‘neolithic palace’ is oxymoronic. A culture which can build a palace isn’t neolithic. Further, Linear B is from the late period of the palaces.
p. 259: Steiner retranslates ‘The merchant trades four-legged pots for three-legged pots’ as ‘The merchant (female) ceases to deal in three-legged pots and now deals in four-legged pots.’ Something tickled just over my brow line when I read that reinterpretation. I went and dug out the Culhar’ Fragment in Inscriptiones Graecae, where it is referred to as Kolharé. In the passage Steiner cites, the verb translated as ‘trade’ is αλλασσειν. This does indeed mean ‘trade.’ I can find, however, no evidence of its ever being used in Steiner’s sense. She might be thinking of μεταλλασσειν. While it would suit Steiner’s translation, however, it wouldn’t suit the earlier one. In short, there is no Greek verb which carries the ambiguity which trade does in English. I am wondering if Steiner was simply looking at an English version, without bothering to cross-check.
But I have gone on long enough. Your effort is praiseworthy, and with some revision can become a useful commentary.
sincerely,
(signed:) Charles Hoequist, Jr
New York
4 August 1980
Dear Charles Hoequist, Jr
Back in February, when your letter arrived, I dutifully forwarded it to the address for S. L. Kermit that K. Leslie Steiner had left with me before going off to take a guest-teaching position at the University of Bologna.