Snail Musings

Inhossni Xxurtjat!

Hmm, haven't blogged since about forever, what with being sent to work in the frozen north and my wife then being ill for a fortnight.
In the meantime my websurfing has followed a linguistic turn. Perhaps this was inspired by getting a comment on Snail Musings from Nic Dafis, someone I (shock horror) don't actually know personally.
I can recommend Nic's excellent Morfablog, with musical enthusiasms, film reviews and timely snippets of webby goodness on the theme of linguistic identity. Of course, it may be difficult if you don't read Welsh, and Google has no Babelfish capability for yr hen iaith.
Welsh is however catered for by this handy language identifying tool, pointed out by Languagehat. I'm sure you could use this for serious purposes, but I tried it out with the inscription on the Gates of Moria, and learnt that it is not really Sindarin but is written in Welsh. I was more surprised to learn that the inscription on the ring is in Turkish. Or indeed that the secret language of the Fremen is Finnish, and that Klingons speak Maltese.

And speaking of Maltese, Inhossni Xxurtjat! is the text on the 'I'm feeling lucky' button on Maltese Google. I wonder what it means. (The Klingon Google button says jIDo', which is presumably an injunction to destroy the relevant webpage).