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nautron respoc lorni virch

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:42:11 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

Dear friends,

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, the narrator (Aronnax) describes a daily
ritual aboard the Nautilus in which the first officer of the ship scans the
horizon daily and then says "Nautron respoc lorni virch". Aronnax cannot
figure what language is being spoken, but he eventually concludes that the
phrase means "We have nothing in sight".

Of course, all students of Verne are aware that Verne originally intended
Nemo to be of Polish nationality, and that Verne left Nemo's origins a
mystery in this novel, and described him as a Hindu in Mysterious Island,
partly because his editor Hetzel vetoed the idea of Nemo being Polish.

It has, however, been argued that Verne intended Nemo to be a Hindu even in
20,000 Leagues. There is some evidence for this, but very little.

The mysterious phrase "naurton respoc lorni virch" is certainly not Polish,
but may be Sanskrit.

"Nautron" may be the Sanskrit word <nottaram.>, a common Sanskrit word
meaning "nothing further", "no more", or "nothing in addition" - a
contraction of <na> ("no", "not") and <uttarum> ("further"). The final <m.>
with a dot is not an M, but simply indicates the nasalization of the
previous vowel, and the first <a> is often elided. Thus it would be
pronounced essentially the same as "nautron".

The last word "virch" may be <dr.s'>, which means "sight". The letter <r.>
was originally a syllabic liquid, but is in modern times usually pronounced
RI or IR; the letter <s'> is the same as English "sh" or French "ch".

I can't make out "respoc lorni". But if the phrase is Sanskrit, what is
decipherable is that "Nautron . . . virch"/<nottaram. . . . dr.s'> means
"nothing further . . . sight." That would be half a translation, in any
case.

Tom McCormick

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Received on Mon 27 Feb 2006 - 05:42:26 IST

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