NaNo 2011 - 50 most important words when aliens invade

This is the situation: the aliens are going to invade. They do NOT speak English. But there IS the possibility that some of them and some of us will have some words in common. What do we want those words to be? I mean, we can probably do without things like 'Which way to the sauna?' and 'Is this cantaloupe organic?' We want to concentrate on the IMPORTANT words.

For reasons known only to me and/or my Muse, the words in question will be in Esperanto. However, words do translate and I'm open to suggestions in any language. (However, if you write your comments in Thai I won't be able to use them. But the writing's really pretty so go ahead, write it in Thai.)

Now, I think we all know what the number one most important words are: Ne pafu (don't shoot) And the second most important words: Kie estas la necesejo (where is the toilet)? But I'm open to suggestions for the rest.

50 Most Important Words when Aliens Invade
1. ne = no, not
2. pafi/pafu = to shoot/shoot
3. kie = where
4. estas/esti = is/to be
5. necesejo = toilet
6. bonvolu = please
7. sinjoro = sir, Mister
8. mastro = master
9.

NaNo 2011 - Will the Earth Survive?

It's NaNoWriMo time again! NaNoWriMo? No, it's not the Esperanto word for collective bargaining. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, where amateur writers push themselves to the insane daily wordcount limits reached by most prolific published novelists.

My very first NaNo story was an alien invasion story called Viridian. I didn't finish the story, but the experience did cause my conversion from Neopaganism to Christianity, which in my mind counts as a BIG win.

This time I'm thinking about doing a new version of this long dead novel, junking all the characters but keeping some essential things about the aliens, who are now not the Viridians, but the Bacoun.

Why are the Bacoun invading us? Because the native population on the previous world they invaded are dying out, and the Bacoun culture is based on the idea that the Bacoun are the masters of a servant-race who do the boring jobs like growing the food and building the spaceships.

The Bacoun have always been rather isolated from other species of the galaxy by their language. It consists of two parts, the actual spoken syllables and telepathic tones which enhance/change the meaning--- a little like the tones in the Chinese language. But the telepathic tones of the Bacoun language can only be perceived by other Bacoun, and so most Bacoun must depend on the rare members of their species who have been trained from infancy as interpreters.

But the Bacoun may have a hard time coping with the frightening mind powers of the inhabitants of the Earth --- a people noted by their hundreds of highly complex languages and their strange ability to learn new languages in adulthood--- something the Bacoun and the species known to them are biologically incapable of doing.

I haven't quite decided how the story will end but I have one rule--- it can't be the kind of ending where we drive off the bad aliens and things go back to normal. Things will NEVER be back to normal. The Bacoun will be a new fact of life on Earth, the question is how we will manage to deal with it.

My new project: Reading Leviticus in Esperanto

I've actually been blogging a lot lately. Just not here. One other thing I am doing is participating in a project to read the entire Esperanto translation of the Bible onto mp3 files on the internet.

Esperanto is an invented language (created in 1887) used for international communication and spoken by 2-4 million people around the world. The Old Testament of the Esperanto Bible was translated by Esperanto's creator, L. L. Zamenhof, who was Jewish. There is also a New Testament.

The Esperanto Bible is not just used by Christians who speak the language. It's also used as a language learning tool. The mp3 files we are making will make the Bible even more attractive to the non-religious Esperanto speaker or student. I hope the Lord will touch many hearts through this project.

My page for the project is Audioboo/nissa_amas_katoj. As you will see, I've already gotten started in the book of Leviticus. I chose it because it's an under-appreciated book of the Bible. There is a Bible study on it starting here.

The leader of the project is Ken Caviness. His page is Audioboo/keneto. He's doing the book of Acts lately.

Please, we need a lot of prayer warriors who will pray for this project. Please pray, and pass the word on to other Christian friends.

Esperanto factoid: at Christmas and Easter the pope traditionally gives an 'Urbi et Orbi' message. At the end, the pope greets the people in many languages. Pope John Paul 2 started including Esperanto in these greetings--- perhaps in part because Vatican Radio has a twice-weekly Esperanto language service.

Esperanto: to learn more, go to my blog in Esperanto and related languages, kaj la hundo iris kun ili. Don't worry, there's English. Sometimes.

There's also a link in the sidebar to a website called 'Lernu' which gives free Esperanto lessons, not just for English speakers but in a great many languages.

Happy Birthday to Who?

Amanda Borenstadt shared this with me on my birthday yesterday. The Doctor and Weird Al--- totally the best present I got! Way better than the mammogram that my new doctor's office inflicted on me on the day (that's why you should never get poor, they schedule your appointments without asking you and then get huffy when you say you have plans....)

Jimmy Akin on last 2 Doctor Who episodes

Jimmy Akin.org: Doctor Who: The God Complex and Closing Time

Here are my thoughts on the two most recent episodes of Doctor Who:

1) The God Complex: WORST. EPISODE. EVER.

It wasn't the most poorly produced. The production values on numerous first generation Doctor Who episodes were far worse.

It wasn't the most un-scary episode ever. In fact, it was quite creepy.

It wasn't the stupidest episode ever. There have been far more stupid ones.

And it wasn't the most poorly scripted episode ever. Many aspects of the script were far tighter and better crafted than in other episodes.

What it was was the most offensive Doctor Who episode ever.

Read more....

Since I didn't have the energy to blog about Doctor Who lately I thought I'd share something from someone who did.....