Transcript: personal letter

[frangipani]

Below are excerpts from an incomplete transcript and translation of an audio recording made on one of the artifacts similar to phonograph cyclinders, playable on a mechanical device discovered earlier [note to assistant D2: cross-reference this]. The cylinder (preliminary catalogue no. SAS-1-1939-42) was stored in a sturdy wooden tube of unremarkable design, with a printed label in Jawi script pasted onto the cap of the tube. The bottom half of the label has been torn off, but a date is legible on what remained intact: 12 Muharram 1358 Hijrah (transcript). No other identifying markers were found.

Sound quality is fairly low but approximately three-quarters of the recording are intelligible. The speaker on the recording is an adult male, speaking in a language confirmed to be that of the Labuk Kadazan dialect; unfortunately the speaker utilised a number of words (loan words?) unknown to linguists C.P. and R.R.M.

Excerpt 1:

Ask your cousin if [s/he] is keeping the bambangan pickles near [his/her] [unidentified]. If [s/he] has, throw the pickles away. We will send more when the winds are right.

The hinava won't be as it is here, but wash [the?] fish in hot water. We wish we can send you good fish to where you are. Lime juice, salt, chilli as you like. Remember the sugar there is bad for your [kidneys?].

Excerpt 2:

Tomorrow [rhetorical, not literal?] you sail again into [unidentified] and bring your name to the place where all will know it. Don't trouble yourself to [jump?] upriver from the bay. Your mother and your father are young and years are short. Wherever you are, however long you take, we will wait for you at home. The time between the winds only gives you enough for this [unidentified] to find your hands, send you our affection.

Comments

[frangipani]

Could we decide, in all haste, what to name the audio cylinders? I have a bonfire's worth of these things on the preliminary catalogue and would like to move them to the permanent catalogue sometime this decade.

I am not entirely happy with the translation, but the linguists maintain that given the "unknown" words and the "odd formality" of the -- for lack of a better word -- letter, this is the best they can do. For now. Unfortunately, none of the cylinders catalogued so far contain any other recordings of the same language.

[horusporus]

'jump'? are we positing air travel here of some kind? (i mean, apparently there's space technology too, based on nyarlarthotep's documentation... idk if we're even talking abt the same.... universe, tbh)

[nyarlathotep]

12 Muharram 1358... that's 1939. That's almost a decade after the Barsūm Missive.

You know, I've got this huge pile of transcripts I've been wanting to look at again, and a list.