This is probably thoroughly inappropriate as a topic during Lent, but it is just too cute to pass up.
For my morning and evening offices, I follow the lectionary in the 1662 BCP. This morning's Old Testament reading was from Genesis 41, in which Joseph inteprets Pharoah's dream to be the prophecy of a famine.
In the KJV, verse two reads: "And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow."
I knew, of course, that we were talking about oxen, or cattle, here, but I had never seen the word "kine" before.
So I googled it and found the following:
Bovine Linguistics
A while back I made the discovery that cattle aren't as dumb as most people think. After many years of careful field observation, I determined that they speak a simple language, and actually have a vocabulary of over 100 words (they just get a real kick out of saying "moo"). Below is a rough gloss of Kine, the language of cattle. Note that this is one specific dialect (Wisconsin-Holstein) and that there may be substantial variations by region or breed.
Read it all here.
Any word when the Kine version of the Daily Offices will be available?
ReplyDeleteIn 2000, though still very much an Evangelical Protestant, I was very disturbed at some of the theologies being promilgated. I wrote this as the heading of a peice on "Sola Scriptura"
ReplyDeleteBovine Droppingsin the Place of Prayer
Many are the sacred cattle
wandering through the sacred halls
in the awesome sacred precincts
of the sacred church of God,
many sacred cattle leaving
evidence upon the sacred floor
where their sacred feet have trod.
Many cows, much evidence
in which upon the floor there grows
a strange and various vegetation,
nourished by what has been left,
and fertilized, and rank with life
of many types and many shapes
whose weirdly formed
and wildly branching limbs
boldly bear a strange
and psychedelic fruit
which when partaken makes men mad
and banishes good sense
and turns discourse into blather
which doesn’t end.
ed pacht
Moo' mom xoonoo muumm
ReplyDeletexuuh memoo mo' huuh moo
ReplyDeleteWhat a hoot! (As you see, I don't speak bovine.)
ReplyDeleteaccording to the vocabulary in the link provided, Albion, apparently commenting on my poem said (If I interpret correctly)
ReplyDeleteAfter the religion commitee vote
probably in reference to Dar-Es-Salaam. I responded, perhaps a little rudely, with the same referent,
cow defecating on soiled grass flatulates -- nonsense
ed pacht
No, Ed, I was answering D Bunker's question.
ReplyDeleteOops, sorry about that. However, it works both ways nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteed
muumm uuuh'nuum mom-moohm
ReplyDelete(may the vote be pleasing to the Religion-Monarch--GOD--the horatory subjunctive seems to be a nuance lacking in Cow-speak). roox nuux (humour is sweet grass)!!!!
Isn't this rather a load of bull?
ReplyDeleteWell, it's better thsn the bull that seems to be coming out of other quarters.