Rosetta Project: My Maya Akkadian experience (Part 1 and 2)

First, this post is a compilation of both the first half and second half of my Rosetta learning experience. Some parts are labelled and specifically discuss on part of the project. Others are mixed.

Akkadian is tedious. When I found out we were assigned Akkadian, I found some basic information online regarding the grammar and symbols Source, but not enough to make sense of the lines and triangles on the clay tablet. Thus, I enlisted the help of Dr. Stratford, a BYU Professor and expert in Akkadian. I set up a meeting with him, and Erin met with him as I was unable to go at the time that worked for him. He provided as valuable information, informing us that the group had written the text in the wrong direction and gave us a guide of the symbols, which helped us to efficiently translate the cuneiform Akkadian, to the syllables, to English when we met as a group that night. These symbols then represent other syllables that have to be translated to English. Did I mention tedious? I wish we had included the syllabic translation of Akkadian on our Rosetta Stone, because it added another complicated dimension. The second half of the project Holland, Erin, Mike and I met at Mike's apartment to put all of our information together and resources together into the lovely "Rosetta Stone" pictured above.

I learned many things during this experience:

•  Make sure your source is accurate. If not, it will add additional complications.


• It fascinates me that these lines and triangles actually communicate something as it just looks like geometric configurations to me.  However, if these triangles are misplaced, it doesn't actually mean anything. If you are unfamiliar with the language, it can take a while to realize this. 

We not only had to deal with an unfamiliar language, but also with the mistakes of the group who wrote Akkadian. (This is understandable as it was a learning experience for them too.) Erin shared with us that Dr. Stratford had told her that the cuneiform text should be written horizontally–left to right. However, the Akkadian group had written their word vertically, top to bottom. . We wrote it correctly on our Rosetta Stone. I wonder how many mistakes and misinterpretations have been made throughout history. . . ?

Handle Your Medium with Care: 
The tablet broke while in class moments after we got it. Thankfully we had the modern technology of photographs and the internet so that we did not have to carry our broken slab of clay around throughout the entire translation process and risk losing this valuable information. This photo was an effective way to share the tablet so that we could all work on the translation process simultaneously in different places. Imagine how little information we would have today if the mediums were as fragile as this piece of clay. . .

This is the Akkadian clay tablet we received to translate. Notice the faint crack on the right hand side.
Yes, it broke into two pieces. Thankfully, it was still legible. Lesson learned: Some mediums need to be handled with more care than others.

• I learned the medium matters–especially when writing in an unfamiliar language. 
• At first, we underestimated the amount of space each of these symbols would need and started off with a brush tip pen. After a few symbols, we quickly realized that writing this way would take up the majority of the wood. Thus, we had to adjust our technique. Thankfully we were prepared and bought 2 pieces of wood. he wood pictured to the right became our "practice" piece. Mike conveniently had microscopically fine (.2) tipped pens, that we used to create the Akkadian symbols.

• Languages don't translate directly. 
• When it came to translating it into Maya, we had to simplify and only use the key words of the Akkadian phrase. . .  This shows the complexity of languages and how difficult it is to converse the same message in different languages. Each has their own rules for grammar, spelling, significance, etc.

PART 1
Reflecting on the first part of this project, translating our original Maya stone was much easier because I was more familiar with the language and the culture. Everyone in our group had been studying at least some aspect of the Maya civilization too, so we brought all our knowledge together regarding the civilization. The site we used to translate our original stone from English to Maya I, and a few other people, had used in past blog posts. Thus, because we had previously done research on the subject, it was much easier to do the first part of the project than the second part of the project. However, there was less work to divide up amongst all of the members in the first part, which in some ways was frustrating. However, as a group we decided that those who contributed less on this part (because honestly, there were not enough legitimate assignments to go around), would be the leaders of the next portion.  I contributed the source that we used to translate the English phrase to Maya and took the lead on translation for the second part. Regarding the medium, we tried to find bark cloth, which was more authentic than the balsa wood. However, although commonly sold in the 50s and 60s, it is a rare item today. Thus, with the lack of time, we opted for the semi-authentic balsa wood.


Connecting Part 1 and 2:

Although I admit at first I was skeptical of the seemingly tediousness and obscurity of this project, I see how it magnifies the learning objectives for this class and thus proved to be a useful  and positive learning experience.

• History: We learned historical ways to express written language from other civilizations–The Maya civilization and the Akkadian civilization.
• Knowledge Institutions: Writing is an institution in itself. Each language has its own complicated grammatical structure that is fundamental to understand in order to communicate accurately. We relied on the expertise of Dr. Stratford for guidance who we only had access to because of the knowledge institution of BYU.
• Communicating Knowledge: We learned how to write multiple phases in an ancient language. We communicated a message that would have been written in these past civilizations in modern day.
• Knowledge Skills: This project obviously required collaboration as no one could do it on their own. As I previously discussed, the first part was easier as everyone in my group brought together their knowledge on the same subject. The second half was more complex as we had to start from scratch with Akkadian. However, we were still able to utilize the talents of particular group members such as Holland and Will's artistic abilities. Their fine work produced authentic looking hieroglyphs and Akkadian symbols.
• Sharing Knowledge: With both parts of the project, we got to present our hard work with the class and discuss our experiences with other groups. Also, We could not have translated Akkadian in just a few days without the expertise help of Dr. Stratford. Thankfully, he was willing to share his vast academic knowledge with us and teach us the basics of the Akkadian structure to help ease the burden of translating a foreign, ancient language.