Re: Anne Lister's coded diaries

On 7/7/2024 9:55 AM, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

   Ar an seachtú lá de mí Iúil, scríobh Athel Cornish-Bowden:
   > [...] In the case of Hebrew I was inclined to believe [PTD]. Possibly
  > unwise, as our world expert on writing had apparently forgotten that
  > Armenian doesn't use the Roman alphabet. He attacked me once for writing a
  > name with -ian at the end, whereas he wanted -yan (or vice versa, I don't
  > remember), apparently unaware that -ian and -yan are written in exactly the
  > same way in Armenian. Consider Միկոյան (Mikoyan) and Խաչատրյան
  > (Khatchaturian).

PTD knew close to nothing about (spoken or written) Chinese, and yet.........
                    He did know a few esoteric factoids.
                           (e.g.,  about the 2 chars for Butterfly)

 Slightly relatedly, the Iranian president-president-elect Pezeshkian, پزشکیان،
has a transparently Armenian surname, with “pezeshk” the native Persian word
for physician. Wikipedia reports he is Azeri and I imagine he is Shia, my
working guess is that one of his ancestors converted to Islam after the point
that surnames became obligatory.
 The Persian Wikipedia article lists him as a heart surgeon first, lots of
respect for physicians in that country.
 

sometimes i have this movie mixed up with another one
                                      in whch a big German guy appears.
The movie "Elevator to the Gallows" (French: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud)
Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet)
            Tavernier is a French occupational surname meaning innkeeper.
  i had ths surname mixed up with another one that
                            sounds  Persian or Iranian
Where does the name Travaglini come from?
Italian:         patronymic or plural form of a nickname from a diminutive of travaglio 'anguish, worry, distress' applied for a distressed person or from travagliare 'to work' applied for a hard worker or fatigued person.