A cat legend

In article , William
Hamblen wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:14:49 -0400, Singh
wrote:

I'm afraid that we Westerners have become jaded in one such area: we have
become conditioned to believe that God sounds like Charlton Heston.

Everybody knows that Moses sounded like Charlton Heston.


No, no, no! Mel Brooks. "I bring you 15...ooops...crash...Ten
Commandments!"

In article , William
Hamblen wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:14:49 -0400, Singh
wrote:

I'm afraid that we Westerners have become jaded in one such area: we have
become conditioned to believe that God sounds like Charlton Heston.

Everybody knows that Moses sounded like Charlton Heston.


No, no, no! Mel Brooks. "I bring you 15...ooops...crash...Ten
Commandments!"

In article ,
(Klinger) wrote:

(Klinger) wrote in message
. com...
Singh wrote in message
...
Have you ever looked at a tabby cat's face and noticed the mark above
the eyes that looks like an M? There is a legend about this that some
call the Mark of Mohammed, and was probably brought into Europe by
merchants who traded with Arabs and the Arabic-speaking peoples of
North
Africa.


I told my husband and he joked with me that it should have been the
Arabic M-letter, but I figured that this legend came into Europe
through
Spain, via the Moors and traders who dealt with Muslim merchants.

Your husband's reaction was the first thing that came to my mind
reading the story, which I'd never heard before. I mean,
hello?-Mohammed lived in sixth/seventh century *Arabia*-the odds are
overwhelming that he never even laid eyes on the letter "M". (plus,
the conventional wisdom is that he was illiterate, but most
non-muslims probably wouldn't know that). Frankly, the story seems to
reflect an ignorance of history and a kind of cultural
self-centeredness that can only be described as staggering. Sort of
like a story about how Confucious got peeved because people kept
calling him "Confused".

Just to be clear, let me say that my reaction to the story isn't meant
in any way to be a reflection on the OP. The story is cute; but as I
said my immediate reaction was that even allowing for the suspension
of belief it doesn't make sense historically.

It might have some basis that evolved. Many years back, when I was the
network architect for the Library of Congress, one of my projects was an
attempt to build a terminal for all the languages (around 800) and
alphabets (about 140) we cataloged. Given this was mid- to
late-seventies, the technology just wasn't there.

While I can't read content in any nonroman alphabets, I did learn the
visual appearance/display characteristics of many. Most people assumed
our biggest problem would be Chinese, with about 100,000 ideographs in
scholarly use. It wasn't, because Chinese characters are built up from a
much more manageable set of graphic elements called radicals.

The big problem was with cursive languages, in which you don't know what
form of a letter to display until its successor is typed. When you write
in cursive script, you don't consciously think of the rules for writing
an "r" connected to an "e", rather than an "r" at the end of a sentence.
Most languages have a printed form that makes this a non-issue, but,
among others, the written forms of Semitic languages including Hebrew
and Arabic [1] are completely cursive.

Anyway, I've forgotten most of the alphabets, but there is an
interesting amount of commonality among completely different alphabets.
The "L" sound is written as an "L" in English, as the Lamedh character
in Hebrew, and a similarly named character in Arabic. It doesn't look
quite like an L, but it does have similarity in being angular. ISTR
there are also some similarities in M and N like characters.

So, it's possible the legend started with an Arabic character, and the
closest Roman letter is M. Perhaps someone here is literate in Arabic,
Hebrew, Farsi, Pashtu, or some other script of this family, and can
comment.

In article ,
(Klinger) wrote:

(Klinger) wrote in message
. com...
Singh wrote in message
...
Have you ever looked at a tabby cat's face and noticed the mark above
the eyes that looks like an M? There is a legend about this that some
call the Mark of Mohammed, and was probably brought into Europe by
merchants who traded with Arabs and the Arabic-speaking peoples of
North
Africa.


I told my husband and he joked with me that it should have been the
Arabic M-letter, but I figured that this legend came into Europe
through
Spain, via the Moors and traders who dealt with Muslim merchants.

Your husband's reaction was the first thing that came to my mind
reading the story, which I'd never heard before. I mean,
hello?-Mohammed lived in sixth/seventh century *Arabia*-the odds are
overwhelming that he never even laid eyes on the letter "M". (plus,
the conventional wisdom is that he was illiterate, but most
non-muslims probably wouldn't know that). Frankly, the story seems to
reflect an ignorance of history and a kind of cultural
self-centeredness that can only be described as staggering. Sort of
like a story about how Confucious got peeved because people kept
calling him "Confused".

Just to be clear, let me say that my reaction to the story isn't meant
in any way to be a reflection on the OP. The story is cute; but as I
said my immediate reaction was that even allowing for the suspension
of belief it doesn't make sense historically.

It might have some basis that evolved. Many years back, when I was the
network architect for the Library of Congress, one of my projects was an
attempt to build a terminal for all the languages (around 800) and
alphabets (about 140) we cataloged. Given this was mid- to
late-seventies, the technology just wasn't there.

While I can't read content in any nonroman alphabets, I did learn the
visual appearance/display characteristics of many. Most people assumed
our biggest problem would be Chinese, with about 100,000 ideographs in
scholarly use. It wasn't, because Chinese characters are built up from a
much more manageable set of graphic elements called radicals.

The big problem was with cursive languages, in which you don't know what
form of a letter to display until its successor is typed. When you write
in cursive script, you don't consciously think of the rules for writing
an "r" connected to an "e", rather than an "r" at the end of a sentence.
Most languages have a printed form that makes this a non-issue, but,
among others, the written forms of Semitic languages including Hebrew
and Arabic [1] are completely cursive.

Anyway, I've forgotten most of the alphabets, but there is an
interesting amount of commonality among completely different alphabets.
The "L" sound is written as an "L" in English, as the Lamedh character
in Hebrew, and a similarly named character in Arabic. It doesn't look
quite like an L, but it does have similarity in being angular. ISTR
there are also some similarities in M and N like characters.

So, it's possible the legend started with an Arabic character, and the
closest Roman letter is M. Perhaps someone here is literate in Arabic,
Hebrew, Farsi, Pashtu, or some other script of this family, and can
comment.

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...

No, no, no! Mel Brooks. "I bring you 15...ooops...crash...Ten
Commandments!"

ROTFLMAO!!!! Yeah, that was hilarious (didn't you always wonder what the
other 5 were?).

Oh, you say they were for cats??? Well, maybe something like this...

11. Thou shalt not hark up a hairball unless it be on thy slave's most
expensive furniture.
12. Thou shalt not eat the food offered to thee, of which there be an
abundance in thy slave's larder, but instread thou must demand the food that
has not been purchased by thy slave.
13. Thou shalt always lay thy body across the scrolls that thy's slave is
trying to read.
14. Thou shalt make sure that thy's slave is always provided with the
sustenance of the hindquarters of the rodents that plague thy property,
properly placed in thy slave's sandals.
15. Thou shalt not provide too much of the bedroll of which thy slave
shares with thee lest thy slave become too lazy and must be beaten about the
head and face with thy claws.

Hugs,

CatNipped

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...

No, no, no! Mel Brooks. "I bring you 15...ooops...crash...Ten
Commandments!"

ROTFLMAO!!!! Yeah, that was hilarious (didn't you always wonder what the
other 5 were?).

Oh, you say they were for cats??? Well, maybe something like this...

11. Thou shalt not hark up a hairball unless it be on thy slave's most
expensive furniture.
12. Thou shalt not eat the food offered to thee, of which there be an
abundance in thy slave's larder, but instread thou must demand the food that
has not been purchased by thy slave.
13. Thou shalt always lay thy body across the scrolls that thy's slave is
trying to read.
14. Thou shalt make sure that thy's slave is always provided with the
sustenance of the hindquarters of the rodents that plague thy property,
properly placed in thy slave's sandals.
15. Thou shalt not provide too much of the bedroll of which thy slave
shares with thee lest thy slave become too lazy and must be beaten about the
head and face with thy claws.

Hugs,

CatNipped

In article , Jeanne Hedge
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 22:19:03 -0400, Singh
wrote:



Kreisleriana wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:14:49 -0400, Singh
yodeled:



Seanette Blaylock wrote:

Takayuki had some very interesting things to
say about A cat legend:


I'm afraid that we Westerners have become jaded in one such area: we
have
become conditioned to believe that God sounds like Charlton Heston.

No, that's Moses. :P

I thought Chuckles did a dual role! Maybe it's just that I haven't heard
that
distinctly Western voice from above? I should look maybe for John Wayne?

No, he thought he was Ghengis Khan.

Didn't Mel Brooks propose a film about Cenghiz Cohen, or was that Monty
Python? :-)

In article , Jeanne Hedge
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 22:19:03 -0400, Singh
wrote:



Kreisleriana wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:14:49 -0400, Singh
yodeled:



Seanette Blaylock wrote:

Takayuki had some very interesting things to
say about A cat legend:


I'm afraid that we Westerners have become jaded in one such area: we
have
become conditioned to believe that God sounds like Charlton Heston.

No, that's Moses. :P

I thought Chuckles did a dual role! Maybe it's just that I haven't heard
that
distinctly Western voice from above? I should look maybe for John Wayne?

No, he thought he was Ghengis Khan.

Didn't Mel Brooks propose a film about Cenghiz Cohen, or was that Monty
Python? :-)

In article , Steve
Touchstone wrote:


The post may be totally OT, but I for one enjoy learning about your
faith. Of course, one of the things that make this group so good is
that we can post totally OT without a flood of complaints.


There is no topic onto which a cat will not climb while you are reading
the off-topic post, making it, by definition, on topic. Mr. Clark is
warming my trackball.

In article , Steve
Touchstone wrote:


The post may be totally OT, but I for one enjoy learning about your
faith. Of course, one of the things that make this group so good is
that we can post totally OT without a flood of complaints.


There is no topic onto which a cat will not climb while you are reading
the off-topic post, making it, by definition, on topic. Mr. Clark is
warming my trackball.