The page sort of underplays the importance of these artifacts. Bark notes are one of the few primary sources for study and reconstruction of the language of that time—as in, what little is known, we greatly owe to these notes. Meanwhile, afaik there are like a handful or two of places where notes were found, and the total number of notes is on the order of a thousand-and-something, often in ruinous state: if the letters are even discerned, still cracks in the notes sometimes interfere with the scratches of the writing. Children's learning notes are uniquely helpful because they lay out some of linguistic features right there: e.g. the alphabet. (It's possible that Onfim's are the only such notes—dunno for sure but I remember Zaliznyak saying they were a pleasant surprise.)
Novgorod Republic was a Slavic state of its own, and IIRC the Novgorod dialect was one of the main dialects of Old East Slavic, informing the later differences between northern and southern dialects.
Also, most notes aren't literature but letters of trading, marriage arrangements and such. So they don't tend to expound at length—and while afaik colloquial usage is very helpful for reconstruction, there's still not much of it. Consider that poetry especially helps with reconstruction, since it directly reflects pronunciation.
Btw, for Russian-speakers interested in the history and workings of the language, and linguistics in general, I recommend Zaliznyak's lectures and interviews available on YouTube. He was great at spreading the scientific view, on the backdrop or relatively scarce popular scientific journalism and noisy, harmful and politicized folk etymology.
That’s a problem with Wikipedia articles. Historical and social topics tend toward beige deserts of insight. The neutral point of view discourages attempts towards writing bearing intellectual synthesis and insight.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Wikipedia. It’s rather Wikipedia is a dull read. Duller than it’s sources typically and regularly duller than what a quick Google turns up.
Wikipedia is perhaps a minimum viable HN submission. But it doesn’t bring expert opinion with it. Wikipedia articles are often 100x ideas with 0.01 execution.
I disagree, I appreciate the just-the-facts approach which leads to brevity and clarity. It may not lead to a complete understanding (such as the info provided by your parent comment), but chances are that following links in Wikipedia will find a lot of the same info.
I feel a lot of science writing appeals to emotion and has to overplay their subject matter to get readers, burying many interesting or relevant details deep in a long article. Wikipedia may be dry, but it avoids that.
Of course, different people like different styles, so some people learn better or enjoy narrative and story, others want dry facts. But it’s not a problem with Wikipedia.
These kind of things capture my mind so much. It's so easy imagining being that boy drawing something, compared to many other great-men historical artefacts.
A similar, but much more recent example, is the graffitiesque engraving by (the young) Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius in a stone pillar at the his local cathedral [0]/[1] in the end of the 1700's.
See also the Viking graffiti in Hagia Sophia (apparently, the Byzantine Emperors liked to keep an elite guard of Viking warriors, known today as the Varangian Guard):
In the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there's great graffiti carved into the stone from British soldiers in Egypt to fight Napoleon.
I listened to a podcast that interviewed Barbara Tversky, a psychology researcher specializing in spatial reasoning.
She mentioned at one point an explanation of this is that your sensory/motor neurons are not evenly mapped across the surface of your body. That is, your brain devotes far more sensory neurons to your fingers than say, your back. The "resolution" is higher in certain important areas, and this might explain why kids' drawings almost universally have giant hands with fingers, and giant heads, and de-emphasize things like the torso.
I don't think this has anything to do with childhood. It's just a matter of illustrating the shape. Fundamentally, most people don't so much draw things as crudely diagram them.
Technically, they are not in Ukrainian (well, not in what we call Ukrainian today), but in Old Slavonic.
> Господи
Which is actually written as г҃и (but without a visible titlo in case of 142).
> всякої біди
More like "вьсѧкоѧ бѣдѣ" (but I'm not sure, that's just how it looks like to me)
But, yeah, anyway, most people who know modern Slavic languages that use Cyrillic scripts should be able to comprehend some of the writings. While the languages have evolved, lots of words (or, at least, their stems) are recognizable. Although there's always a danger of false cognates.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
HN has matured as much more than just "hacker news". Everything that is interesting as a place here and I hope it continues to be like that for a very long time.
Slavic had a number of alphabets. They drastically differs, compare Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts.
Now we (I'm Russian) in Russian use Cyrillic script which was heavily modified since invention.
Seems like Onfim use Cyrillic script but many letters was made obsolete (like Yus).
So, Onfim speak Slavic language and use Cyrillic script.
Novgorod bark notes are among primary sources for research on old Slavic language. In the very first paragraph there are two links to the page that explains what Old Novgorod dialect is.
I thought the text looked almost legible. (I.e. Germanic.) But it was just an illusion because scratching in birch naturally will look rune like. Apparently Onfim used Cyrillic letters, but spoke a Germanic language. So my wrong guess was still sort of right but by accident. :-D
The page sort of underplays the importance of these artifacts. Bark notes are one of the few primary sources for study and reconstruction of the language of that time—as in, what little is known, we greatly owe to these notes. Meanwhile, afaik there are like a handful or two of places where notes were found, and the total number of notes is on the order of a thousand-and-something, often in ruinous state: if the letters are even discerned, still cracks in the notes sometimes interfere with the scratches of the writing. Children's learning notes are uniquely helpful because they lay out some of linguistic features right there: e.g. the alphabet. (It's possible that Onfim's are the only such notes—dunno for sure but I remember Zaliznyak saying they were a pleasant surprise.)
Novgorod Republic was a Slavic state of its own, and IIRC the Novgorod dialect was one of the main dialects of Old East Slavic, informing the later differences between northern and southern dialects.
Also, most notes aren't literature but letters of trading, marriage arrangements and such. So they don't tend to expound at length—and while afaik colloquial usage is very helpful for reconstruction, there's still not much of it. Consider that poetry especially helps with reconstruction, since it directly reflects pronunciation.
Btw, for Russian-speakers interested in the history and workings of the language, and linguistics in general, I recommend Zaliznyak's lectures and interviews available on YouTube. He was great at spreading the scientific view, on the backdrop or relatively scarce popular scientific journalism and noisy, harmful and politicized folk etymology.
> The page sort of underplays the importance of these artifacts. Bark notes are [...]
The page is not about bark notes in general. It links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_bark_manuscript and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Novgorod_dialect. All those things are very important, but they are better placed in those specialized articles rather than one boy's biography.
underplays the importance of these artifacts
That’s a problem with Wikipedia articles. Historical and social topics tend toward beige deserts of insight. The neutral point of view discourages attempts towards writing bearing intellectual synthesis and insight.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Wikipedia. It’s rather Wikipedia is a dull read. Duller than it’s sources typically and regularly duller than what a quick Google turns up.
Wikipedia is perhaps a minimum viable HN submission. But it doesn’t bring expert opinion with it. Wikipedia articles are often 100x ideas with 0.01 execution.
I disagree, I appreciate the just-the-facts approach which leads to brevity and clarity. It may not lead to a complete understanding (such as the info provided by your parent comment), but chances are that following links in Wikipedia will find a lot of the same info.
I feel a lot of science writing appeals to emotion and has to overplay their subject matter to get readers, burying many interesting or relevant details deep in a long article. Wikipedia may be dry, but it avoids that.
Of course, different people like different styles, so some people learn better or enjoy narrative and story, others want dry facts. But it’s not a problem with Wikipedia.
1 reply →
These kind of things capture my mind so much. It's so easy imagining being that boy drawing something, compared to many other great-men historical artefacts.
A similar, but much more recent example, is the graffitiesque engraving by (the young) Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius in a stone pillar at the his local cathedral [0]/[1] in the end of the 1700's.
[0]: https://old.liu.se/berzelius?l=sv [1]: https://www.facebook.com/linkopingsdomkyrka/photos/a.4234860...
See also the Viking graffiti in Hagia Sophia (apparently, the Byzantine Emperors liked to keep an elite guard of Viking warriors, known today as the Varangian Guard):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_So...
In the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there's great graffiti carved into the stone from British soldiers in Egypt to fight Napoleon.
I love how universal children's drawings are. when you're small, everyone looks like long legs with a head on top
And hands and feet with explicit fingers and toes that are large, too, at some point.
I've always wondered what the developmental psych is behind that. Maybe their perspective of adults?
I listened to a podcast that interviewed Barbara Tversky, a psychology researcher specializing in spatial reasoning.
She mentioned at one point an explanation of this is that your sensory/motor neurons are not evenly mapped across the surface of your body. That is, your brain devotes far more sensory neurons to your fingers than say, your back. The "resolution" is higher in certain important areas, and this might explain why kids' drawings almost universally have giant hands with fingers, and giant heads, and de-emphasize things like the torso.
3 replies →
I don't think this has anything to do with childhood. It's just a matter of illustrating the shape. Fundamentally, most people don't so much draw things as crudely diagram them.
Pretty similar to the graffiti on St. Sophia of Kyiv walls
https://www.kaggle.com/yoctoman/graffiti-st-sophia-cathedral...
These graffiti are in Ukrainian. I can read some of them without problem.
119: Се писал Манеш (This written by Manesh)
142: Господи поможи рабу своєму Івану Пере (Lord, help your slave Ivan Pere)
145: Господи поможи рабу своєму Константину і ізбав нас от всякої біди (Lord, help your slave Constantin and save us from everything bad).
Technically, they are not in Ukrainian (well, not in what we call Ukrainian today), but in Old Slavonic.
> Господи
Which is actually written as г҃и (but without a visible titlo in case of 142).
> всякої біди
More like "вьсѧкоѧ бѣдѣ" (but I'm not sure, that's just how it looks like to me)
But, yeah, anyway, most people who know modern Slavic languages that use Cyrillic scripts should be able to comprehend some of the writings. While the languages have evolved, lots of words (or, at least, their stems) are recognizable. Although there's always a danger of false cognates.
That language is known as Old East Slavic or Old Russian in the scientific community. Please don’t force Ukrainian nationalism on others.
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Quite the artist.
I find it amusing that he couldn't manage to stay aligned with the edge of the "paper" on the left
(Also, pitchfork hands)
This sort of underlines how important writing is, even "trivial" writing. Want to help more people? Want to live forever? Write stuff down.
At first I was going to laugh at Onfim's inconsistent amount of fingers, but I realize just now that he probably couldn't count very well.
What is the rider doing to the figure on the ground? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/%D0%9E%D...
This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon#/m...
The article says "One of the drawings features a knight on a horse, stabbing someone on the ground with a lance"
It's not that long and worth reading!
I'd guess stabbing with a polearm.
hitting his enemy.
I fail to see how this is "hacker" "news".
What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I do find this post amazing, totally on-topic
1 reply →
HN has matured as much more than just "hacker news". Everything that is interesting as a place here and I hope it continues to be like that for a very long time.
Be the change you want to see, I guess. Feel free to submit the next yawnfest about Haskell or JavaScript frameworks and let the community decide.
Interesting history, like this here is, is a topic that appears regularly on HN.
I find things like this much more compelling than the history where you have to learn various dates of events by heart!
using the birch bark as an inkless writing material seems like a pretty good hack
In terms of data retention it's actually amazing.
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It seems people in old Novgorod didn't speak a Slavic language, but something they picked up from the Varangians.
Slavic had a number of alphabets. They drastically differs, compare Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts. Now we (I'm Russian) in Russian use Cyrillic script which was heavily modified since invention. Seems like Onfim use Cyrillic script but many letters was made obsolete (like Yus). So, Onfim speak Slavic language and use Cyrillic script.
Novgorod bark notes are among primary sources for research on old Slavic language. In the very first paragraph there are two links to the page that explains what Old Novgorod dialect is.
I thought the text looked almost legible. (I.e. Germanic.) But it was just an illusion because scratching in birch naturally will look rune like. Apparently Onfim used Cyrillic letters, but spoke a Germanic language. So my wrong guess was still sort of right but by accident. :-D
Edit:
but it is Slavic?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Novgorod_dialect
Can you please say where you found it was a Varangian dialect?
Edit 2:
https://www.history.com/news/vikings-in-russia-kiev-rus-vara...
Maybe an (incorrect) assumption because "Vikings" ruled Rus for a long time.
It is Slavic. As a Russian speaker I can understand some phrases of the text.
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That impression is incorrect.
Interesting but Eastern orthodoxy is boring...