Re: Archiving language information (was Re: Saving endangered langs (was Re: Extrapolating languages))

Paul Bennett wrote at 2003-12-26 17:04:17 (-0500)
 >
 > Additional PS: Didn't I read in some science magazine about a
 > project to mark Nuclear Waste sites with big stone monoliths,
 > deeply carved with warnings in six popular languages (ISTR English,
 > Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Chinese and Arabic)?

Yes (or at least, you could very well have read of such a thing.  I
don't possess detailed dossiers on your daily activities over the past
several years.)  It's more likely that the languages in question were
as above but with French rather than Russian, as these would then be
the official languages of the UN, and I have found some references to
this.  The problem is actually rather more interesting than that,
though.  The materials at some of these sites will remain dangerously
radioactive for millennia, so a written message (even if you can make
it last that long) isn't enough;  the languages in which it is written
will have become extinct.

I think what I read about this before is here:
http://www.prod.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/techlib/access-control.pl/1992/921382.pdf
but I don't have time to download it or comment more today.

 |  This is not a place of honor.
 |  No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
 |  Nothing valued is here.
 |  This place is a message and part of a system of messages.
 |  Pay attention to it!
 |  Sending this message was important to us.
 |  We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
 |  What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us.
 |  This message is a warning about danger.
 |  The danger is in a particular location. It increases towards a center.
 |  The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
 |  The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
 |  The form of danger is an emanation of energy.
 |  The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place
 |  physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

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