Translating part II

So, after my previous adventure, the second half of translating was not nearly as exciting, but we got done what we needed to.

Most of our group congregated in my apartment armed with carving utensils, an Assyrian dictionary, wireless phones and laptops to bring about our beautiful tablets.  I already had the clay, water and newspaper ready to provide the materials that needed to be carved into and the means to not make a complete mess of my kitchen table.  I hung back for most of the project because I had spent so much time working on the last one and many of my group members needed the opportunity to experiences carving into clay and translating texts.
Alex copied the Chinese

Emily carved in the English

Kody wrote down half of the Assyrian translation

And then Emily and I wrote down the second half

It was interesting to see how differently the languages are structured.  English especially uses lots of idioms to express ideas.  These idioms don't necessarily transfer over to other languages and we had to find ways to word an idea differently to make it work in another language.
As Emily remarked, I am very glad that we have paper and don't have to write in clay all the time.  Our letters do not transfer over into that medium very well.  The materials available definitely shaped the symbols they used to write.  For the Mesopotamians, straight lines and wedges are what worked best, for Ogham and carving into rocks, lines worked best, in modern America, tiny script of curves and lines that fill up the page work best.  We use the materials we have available and make the best of it.  I'm just glad that I don't have to memorize the hundreds of symbols necessary to be literate in Akkadian, Assyrian or Chinese.