From: "Jay D. Dyson" <jdyson@techreports.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: Defcon Stuff <dc-stuff@dis.org>
Cc: "Patrick T. Berry" <pberry2@bellsouth.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 11:06:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Navajo on Voyager (was "Re: Win 95/98 exploits")

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On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Patrick T. Berry wrote:

> Government workers were sent out to find the english translation of the
> Navaho greetings on the gold records attached to Voyager spacecraft,
> upon interviewing well over a hundred Navaho, all of whom laughed at
> hearing the recording, none would translate, only shaking their heads,
> until an elder finally said, "it says 'don't trust these people, they
> will steal your land, also!' " 

	Given that Voyager originated here, I did some asking around.  The
answer I got back was a resounding, "That's bogus!"

	It turns out that Navaho is not even one of the languages on the
Gold record sent out on Voyager.  The languages that *are* on Voyager are:

	Sumerian	Arabic		Urdu		Italian
	Ila (Zambia)	Akkadian	Romanian	Hindi
	Nguni		Nyanja		Hittite		French
	Vietnamese	Sotho		Swedish		Hebrew
	Burmese		Sinhalese	Wu		Ukrainian
	Aramaic		Spanish		Greek		Korean
	Persian		English		Indonesian	Latin
	Armenian	Serbian		Portuguese	Kechua
	Japanese	Polish		Luganda		Cantonese
	Dutch		Punjabi		Nepali		Amoy (Min dialect)
	Russian		German		Turkish		Mandarin Chinese
	Marathi		Thai		Bengali		Welsh
	Gujarati	Kannada		Telugu		Oriya
	Hungarian	Czech		Rajasthani

	Now, given my unfamiliarity with Navajo dialects, it's possible
(however unlikely) that one of the more obscure languages named above is a
Navajo dialect.  If there is any dispute, I'll be sure to check out "Earth
Murmurs" which is a book entirely about the contents of the gold record
which accompanied Voyager.

	Further information is available via:

	http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/lang.html

   (                                                            ______
   ))   .-- "There's always time for a good cup of coffee" --.   >===<--.
 C|~~| (>-  Jay D. Dyson - jdyson@techreports.jpl.nasa.gov  -<) |   = |-'
  `--'  `--- Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore. ---'  `-----'

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