Oh, go ahead and click if you need it bigger.There are currently 2 unsolved PizzaQs involving Semitic languages.
One, a detail of a wood sculpture of a Qur'an passage, is ... well, maybe hopeless.
EXCEPT that when it was set as a puzzle on the photographer's website, SOMEBODY (about the 40th person who tried) guessed the answer correctly!
So don't despair. Keep trying.
But this one, my new pump tatt, two lousy words in Hebrew, clearly spelled, writ large ... Even in the first post, it was just reeking with clues.
The top word would be immediately familiar to any modern Israeli adult. Possibly this word *isn't* a common word in ancient (Biblical) Hebrew. But it's very common in modern Israeli secular spoken and written Hebrew.
The bottom word -- much more globally portable and famous, and was probably first an Arabic word, still today very familiar all over the Middle East. Same word is very commonly transliterated into the Roman alphabet and so is a well-known word all over Western Europe and North America. Betcha Cyrillic knows it very well, too.
Hint Hint notice also the visual design and color of the tatt Hint Hint Clue Klew.
To really rub it in, I copied these two words from an image of a big-ass banner that was hanging in broad daylight on a street, probably in Tel Aviv. In that original, each letter was probably 2 meters tall.
This is simply NOT a shy or an obscure thing.
Now I'll throw in the Hebrew/Ivrit alephbet just to make it Kindergarten simple.
So where are the vowels? Does this say Ooooo Ayyy? Or Eeeeee Ahhh?
In modern Hebrew, and likewise in Yiddish, which uses this same alephbet, only the Little Kiddies need vowels. Grown-up people just KNOW what the proper vowel sounds are.
I don't know why the IT Guy from the USA state shaped like the palm of the right hand hasn't claimed his pizza. It's just New Year's, I don't think it's Yom Kippur yet.
But SOMEBODY should be able to figure this out. It's just about as easy as the Dr. Evil PizzaQ.
6 comments:
since you're insisting on a guesstimate, i'm assuming it's one of the qul's. qul huwallaho ahad, qul awoozo birabil falaq, or qul awoozo birabin naas. most likely, the first guess since it reads allah and the starting of ahad in the second word right after (arabic is read right to left). but then again, it's just a guess. you would probably be able to google them as sura ikhlas, sura falaq or sura nas.
after sura fatiha, these three are hammered into every muslim kids brain without them ever realizing what any of it means.
The Hebrew is "Gush Hashish," which I guess means "Hashish Block." (Not block in the sense of "a big chunk of something,' but as in 'a group of things.')
The banner you saw might have been from this organization.
Now, where's my kosher pizza?
Hmmm, I very arrogantly assumed the Qur'an puzzle would be a very straightforward walk in the park, but abbas is giving me his guesses in transliterated Arabic, and the Answer on the Dubai guy's website was something like 12.13 ... the Sura and Aya numbers. So kindly be patient while I try to translate one system about which I am totally ignorant into another system about which I am totally ignorant.
I *really* need to get a better grip on Arabic. I guess I'm just embarrassed to go to the many kindergarten-level intro websites (some that speak each sound when you press the letter or word) with my Luke Skywalker lunchbox.
STEVE THE IT GUY FROM the USA state shaped like the palm of the right hand (sorry about the Appalachian game, guy) wins the Hebrew Pizza! My new tatt says GUSH HASHISH.
Gush Hashish is a sort of Merry Prankster offshoot/affiliate of that Green Leaf Party. The joke in their name is that Gush Shalom is a very well known (if numerically insignificant) political party in Israel, muy peacenik/shalomnik/lefty. So yeah, Gush means Bloc, but what its original/Biblical Hebrew meaning was ... well, remember, you are talking to Huckleberry Finnstein here.
I guess there's a second pun to Gush Hashish -- block of hash, bloc of hash lovers.
The government can laugh off the colorful antics of the Gush Hashish fringies, but they have to pay more attention to the Green Leaf party, which is not clownish, and blends its pro-cannabis message with a very serious and popular Environmental platform. You don't want these people on your back, you have to toss them a compromise or two.
I'll be cruising back to AA eventually, you pick the pizzeria, I'll buy.
As mentioned, Bekaa Valley Lebanese Hashish is the centerpiece of the NGO Vleeptron / moNGO Middle East Peace Plan.
Laugh all you want -- but how much worse could my plan be than the Roadmap? Condoleezza Rice is in Israel again to wave her magic wand and bring Shalom/Salaam to the region. Uh-huh.
Oh, the Arabic origin ... this was the stuff the famous ancient order of the Assassins -- the Hashasheen -- used to party with when they weren't off on an assassination job. I'm pretty sure the Hashasheen were from what's now Lebanon, and the Bekaa agricultural fields were already in full flower.
vleeptron dude said, "I'll be cruising back to AA eventually, you pick the pizzeria, I'll buy."
Thanks, vleeptron dude!
Seeing as how the nearest kosher pizza is roughly 45 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, I won't hold you to that.
It's not a bad drive. Seeing as how my home is also 45 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, I make that drive twice daily to get to work.
So if you want to make the drive, my pizza joint of choice is Jerusalem Pizza in Southfield, Michigan.
oh please hold me to it, it is another reason to draw me back to the dreamy civilized megabrilliant oasis of AA. Even if its football team ... well, never mind.
meanwhile, more about this Gush Hashish business, and the NGO Vleeptron Middle East Peace Plan, at new post
http://vleeptronz.blogspot.com/2007/09/up-from-ftid-comment-sewers-beneath.html
Also ... speaking of kosher food ... ask me about The Federal Prison where the US Government Sends All The Jews.
mmmmmmm ann arbor and food are synonmous. with a town with zingerman's and blimpy's and anthony's and grizzly peak and zola's and knight's and what not, i could go and eat there every weekend. (i sometime's do). heh.
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