I can't read it. I can't scan it...

[oggbashan]

I bought an old letter on eBay.

I had bid on a couple of items from the seller and I looked at what else was being offered. I put in a low bid and was surprised to win, but now I have the letter.

It is dated 1716AD and is a letter written at the Royal Court of Jaipur (in India). Of course it isn't in English and is in an Indian script.

I thought that I could scan it and post it for someone else to decipher. My scanner, that I haven't used for months, won't connect to my new computer and I can't find a driver on the net. The original driver CD was ruined by being too close to a hot transformer and has bent/melted...

So now I have a letter I can't read.

It's frustrating.

Og

PS. It's probably nothing more than an invitation for tea and cakes...

 

[Weird Harold]

It is dated 1716AD and is a letter written at the Royal Court of Jaipur (in India). Of course it isn't in English and is in an Indian script.

I thought that I could scan it and post it for someone else to decipher.

As I understand it, you should NOT scan or copy documents of that age -- something about the bright light of the scanner/copier reacting with the iron-gall ink to bleach it out.

The recommended way to digitize such documents is with a high-resolution digitial camera under natural lighting conditions (No Flash).

 

[oggbashan]

As I understand it, you should NOT scan or copy documents of that age -- something about the bright light of the scanner/copier reacting with the iron-gall ink to bleach it out.

The recommended way to digitize such documents is with a high-resolution digitial camera under natural lighting conditions (No Flash).

Thanks. I'll try that tomorrow. It's dark here now.

It has already faded significantly and the writing, in whatever script, is clumsy and seems to be in columns. Perhaps it's a laundry note or a shopping list.

Og

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Thanks. I'll try that tomorrow. It's dark here now.

It has already faded significantly and the writing, in whatever script, is clumsy and seems to be in columns. Perhaps it's a laundry note or a shopping list.

Og

If the writing is 18th century it's probably in Sanscrit. You may have to take ti to Oxford to be decifered, Ogg.

 

[oggbashan]

If the writing is 18th century it's probably in Sanscrit. You may have to take ti to Oxford to be decifered, Ogg.

I could use my eldest daughter's contacts. She studied at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and has some erudite Indian friends.

However she hasn't yet managed to decipher my two possible ancient Burmese cartoon pictures - they are silk screen printed and one metre by one and a half metres.

Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, Latin, Classical Greek, ancient French, High and Low German, Spanish etc are all possible within the immediate family. I have local contacts for Mandarin and Cantonese and other friends for Arabic, Tigrayan and some Ethiopian dialects. For the Indian sub-continent I have to rely on friends of friends.

It is amazing what knowledge can be found within a community if you look for it.

And there are always the resources of the AH once I can make an image of the letter.

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

Thanks. I'll try that tomorrow. It's dark here now.

It has already faded significantly and the writing, in whatever script, is clumsy and seems to be in columns. Perhaps it's a laundry note or a shopping list.

Og

I seem to recall that Chinese script is generally in columns (not newspaper columns) if I have my vague history correct there was quite a lot of trade etc between India and the orient, perhaps there is a link with early writing.

I remember visiting a 'grand' house just north of Bridlington quite a few years ago and my wife (completely out of character) dared to open the drawer of a bureau and found a simple accounts book in the original. It was a list of costs of household purchases. It was fascinating.

 

[trysail]

Might it be written in Arabic or Farsi or Pashtu? The Moghuls were originally from Ferghana (east of Samarkand, i.e. Central Asia) in what is now Uzbekistan/Afghanistan. Their conquest of Hindustan was largely complete by 1605. I am under the impression that their native tongue remained the language of court until the dynasty was effectively destroyed by the British reaction to the 1857 Uprising.

(A mere two months ago, I finished William Dalrymple's The Last Moghul; The Fall of A Dynasty, 1857 and Diana & Michael Preston's The Taj Mahal, both of which were fascinating).

 

[oggbashan]

Might it be written in Arabic or Farsi or Pashtu? ...

Thank you for that and the other information.

It certainly isn't like any Arabic script I've seen but 18th century handwriting can be difficult in any language.

Og

 

[Equinoxe]

I would say that it's very unlikely that the letter is in Arabic, since that was never widely spoken in India, or Pashtun, which was never more than a regional language of the far northwest, and that it's about as likely to be in Sanskrit as a letter from the British court in the 18th century would be in Attic Greek.

The two most likely languages would be Persian or Hindi-Urdu. If it doesn't look like the Arabic script, it's probably Hindi.

 

[oggbashan]

Here it is.

I hope the attachments will be readable...

Og

 

[damppanties]

I hope the attachments will be readable...

Og

The script is Devnagiri, Og - the base for Hindi and Sanskrit. I can't make out which it is because it's too teeny. You'll need to take closer pics. Oh, and one more thing. The letters are upside down in the pics. The line is on top with the letters hanging off it.

 

[oggbashan]

The script is Devnagiri, Og - the base for Hindi and Sanskrit. I can't make out which it is because it's too teeny. You'll need to take closer pics. Oh, and one more thing. The letters are upside down in the pics. The line is on top with the letters hanging off it.

Thank you, Dampy.

The original pictures are too large to upload to Lit. I'll try turning the original images around and posting selections.

Og

 

[oggbashan]

Thank you Dampy

I have tried, again, to reduce the size of the original photos while leaving them readable but I can't. The original document is so faded that the full size pictures are better than the document.

If anyone can help with Sanscrit or a Jaipur dialect I could email the original photos (the right way up!).

Any experts please?

Og

 

[Oblimo]

The script is Devnagiri, Og - the base for Hindi and Sanskrit.

Dang. Good call. I was going to email the pic to a classics-nut friend of mine, (after flipping the image 180), but then I realized he would only be able to identify if it were Vedic or classic Sanskrit--he's as clueless about modern languages in Devanagari as I am (and the man considers the High Middle Ages as "modern" )

The line is on top with the letters hanging off it.

Aw, man! That one fact is the extent of my knowledge of Sanskrit, and now I don't have the chance to show it off.

Word of warning, Og: By the 18th Century AD, there must've been dozens of languages using the Devanagari script.

 

[Oblimo]

The original pictures are too large to upload to Lit.

Can you u/l them to photobucket or flickr or somesuch? If not, feel free to email them to me and I'll put them on my site...although my classics and anthropologist friends don't know my secret porn identity, and I kinda need to keep it that way.

 

[damppanties]

Dang. Good call. I was going to email the pic to a classics-nut friend of mine, (after flipping the image 180), but then I realized he would only be able to identify if it were Vedic or classic Sanskrit--he's as clueless about modern languages in Devanagari as I am (and the man considers the High Middle Ages as "modern" )

I've seen the pics (un-resized, hugeass) and it isn't Hindi or anything I can understand. It has to be Sanskrit, or failing that, some lesser known Rajasthani dialect - as I told Og. But I'm leaning more towards Sanskrit.

Can you u/l them to photobucket or flickr or somesuch? If not, feel free to email them to me and I'll put them on my site...although my classics and anthropologist friends don't know my secret porn identity, and I kinda need to keep it that way.

I could upload them to my photobucket account if Og doesn't have one and if it's okay with him.

 

[Elenia26]

If it's Sanskrit I can read it but probably not well enough to translate. The script is the same as Hindi but the vocab is different. You'll have to take it to someone who speaks Sanskrit. Check your local university, there may be someone there.

 

[THROBBS]

I believe you will find that you have an early version of Leonardo's backward handwriting describing the world's largest ball of twine!
It was thought that the army that possessed it would be invincible.

Fantastic! You know, Da Vinci rarely wrote in Sanskrit?

 

[oggbashan]

I've seen the pics (un-resized, hugeass) and it isn't Hindi or anything I can understand. It has to be Sanskrit, or failing that, some lesser known Rajasthani dialect - as I told Og. But I'm leaning more towards Sanskrit.


I could upload them to my photobucket account if Og doesn't have one and if it's okay with him.

Yes please, Dampy. I tried photobucket. My computer just stalled when I tried to upload the pictures.

Og

 

[damppanties]

Trying again.

 

[Weird Harold]

Photobucket is resizing them to 640 x 480

Crop them down to just the document and try again.

There's about 25% - 30% wasted image around the edges -- With a bit of rotation the 480x640 version crops down to around 330x435 so the text would be proportionally that much bigger if the cropping had been done before photobucket resized it.

I cropped, resized and rotated the second image to use the maximum size for an attachment -- doing the same to an original should result in a much better 800x600 version.

 

[damppanties]

OK, here's the WH version of these.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/Arantula/jaipurup01a-1.jpg

and

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/Arantula/jaipurup02a-1.jpg

 

[Liar]

Sweet. Now we only need someone who can read it.

 

[oggbashan]

Sweet. Now we only need someone who can read it.

That would be nice, even if it is only a laundry list. It cost me less than the price of a pint of beer and I am getting value for money from it.

Thank you to Weird Harold and Dampy for their help.

I am totally incompetent at image manipulation despite several software programs, all more complex than the last, assuring me that everything is "simple"!

Og

 

[THROBBS]

OK, here's the WH version of these.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/Arantula/jaipurup01a-1.jpg

and

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/Arantula/jaipurup02a-1.jpg

AH! much clearer!
You can now see where Leonardo predicts that in a time long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, that a sinister force will use the giant twine ball technology to build... some sort of "star"... a "hurt star" I believe. (shown to the right of his giant ball of twine).

I wish I were not so busy this week. I have some enhancement applications and can probably increase the resolution to at least that of the original.