When I first decided to study history, my undergraduate adviser, Stephan Bourque, asked me what subjects I was interested in. I said "Roman Empire, WWII, and Napoleonic Period." He told me that if I wanted to study the Roman Empire, I'd have to learn a bunch of dead languages and WWII was so overcrowded, so I chose the Napoleonic Period.
In the course of my research, I've had to read a bunch of handwritten letters. While it has taken me years of practice to get fairly good at it, every once and a while I come across someone's writing which is just, well illegible. Here is an example of a letter from the Balli de Suffren, the French naval commander who gave the British so much trouble in the Indian Ocean during the American Revolution.
This crap is like freaking Linear B. It was so bad that most of the letters had to be transcribed/deciphered by his contemporaries. Thankfully, these copies are attached just behind the originals. However, there is the occasional one that isn't already transcribed and I have to try and decipher it. What do you think this letter says?
5 comments:
It's an early menu for Paris-Fried-Chicken !
It's his secret recipe that Napoleon stole to create his PFC empire. ;) :D
That is horrible. I can make out about every 20th word.... I think.
Reminds me why I decided archival history was a bad idea.
I seriously believe it is more things like this that determine how history is written - the accessibility of archives determine what subjects people do more than where interests lie, legibility of documents more than people's personal agendas. ;) :D
Today was a long day.
I pooed myself after breakfast, then ordered the cabin boy to "swab my poop deck!" He didn't understand. So I told him there was some pudding in my pants.
Yum!
Then some sailing and possibly shooting at stuff. Whatever.
Yours,
... guy.
P.S. "Swab my poop deck!" Ha!
,:-P~ -Jason
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