
A Yukaghir girl writes a love letter - megahz
https://historyview.blogspot.com/2011/10/yukaghir-girl-writes-love-letter.html
======
baobrain
Someone posted this in the comments:

> Utter nonsense. John DeFrancis debunked your interpretation of this drawing
> back in 1989. This is not a letter at all. It was a prop in a parlor game
> played by Yukaghari girls: one girl would sketch a drawing and the others
> would take turns trying to guess the story behind it.

> Geoffrey Sampson helped to propagate this myth in his book on writing
> systems first published in 1985. Sampson published a retraction in 1994.

While I could not find any verification in a cursory search, maybe we should
take this with a grian of salt

~~~
quasse
Good find. I did some more research on John DeFrancis and found his writings
on the topic. Pg 32 discusses the "love letter" being part of a semi-
ritualized party game. [1]

[1] _Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems_ :
[https://books.google.com/books?id=hypplIDMd0IC&pg=PA24&dq=is...](https://books.google.com/books?id=hypplIDMd0IC&pg=PA24&dq=isbn:0824812077+Yukaghir&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1n4r719zgAhWJn4MKHcdyCHIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=isbn%3A0824812077%20Yukaghir&f=false)

~~~
gumby
John DeFrancis was an amazing thoughtful and insightful linguist and was, as
you can see from this example, very happy to look into what he considered
bizarre claims (which he sometimes discovered were true). I'm a huge fan of
his work.

~~~
jka
Very impressive indeed; I only clicked the 'Visible Speech' link thanks to
reading your comment; the diagram illustrating the lineage / spread of the the
'Yukaghir Love Letter' is worth the click alone.

------
mcguire
John DeFrancis has a section on the Yukaghir love letter in his _Visible
Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems._ The provenance of the
"letter" is a bit obscure but it comes from a Russian political exile to
Siberia around 1892.

" _As the young people assembled for the dance, a girl might take a piece of
fresh birch bark and start carving with a very sharp knife. The others
gathered around and watched the progress of the carving. There was much
banter, and guesses were made as to who was being depicted and what was being
said. Incorrect guesses were met with derision by the carver, so that
eventually all present would arrive at an understanding of the contents._ "

[...]

" _In short, the notorious "love letter" and others like it are nothing more
than the semiritualized product of these Yukaghir party games. They must not
be thought of as real letters posted to someone who would read them as we do
our mail. The Russian observers make clear that the compositions were
primarily vehicles whereby young women could publicly express their feelings
on the single theme of love and separation in a socially acceptable form
before a small circle of friends..._"

[...]

" _The way in which the meaning of the Yukaghir "letter" was actually
transmitted, first to a small circle of intimates at the time of its creation
and later to a worldwide audience by a succession of scholars, most closely
parallels the way in which the meaning of a highly allegorical medieval
painting or of a Bayeaux tapestry originated and was transmitted over time.
This analogy suggests that the Yukaghir birchbark carving should be viewed as
an example not of writing but of anecdotic art whose message can be understood
only to the degree one is in contact with its creator, the situation or
culture that produced it, or someone who can interpret it for us._"

I strongly recommend DeFrancis, both this book and his book _The Chinese
Language._ He's an excellent writer and his take on the issues of writing in
general is fascinating and well thought-out.

------
pierrec
Apparently this just got flagged off the front page, which I think is
unfortunate. If anything, the fact that the interpretation is wrong makes the
discussion all the more interesting, and any discussion about possible complex
semasiographic systems, whether real or imaginary, is interesting. The fact
that you disagree with something is _not_ a valid reason for flagging
genuinely interesting content.

~~~
eindiran
I flagged the article because it is information that is (a) totally untrue and
(b) has been spread virally, even after it was debunked/retracted. Not
everyone who clicked the article read all the way to the bottom and saw the
comments there or clicked through to the comments here; we've now infected
more people with incorrect information, allowing this to spread further.

This information has been debunked since before the internet existed in any
modern sense, so posting the information enirely without errata has no excuse.
If this post had included errata that explained that the interpretation it
discusses is likely incorrect, then I would not have flagged it.

~~~
jbottoms
Shall we debunk the stick figure holding a square over a fire while 3 clouds
are above the fire?

------
microcolonel
Seems like the author of the letter takes special care to make sure her hair
is represented as longer than her rival's.

------
markdown
The letter/art is copyright Geoffrey Sampson. Imagine the gall it takes to
claim someone else's work as your own.

[https://i.kym-
cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/079/173/ed2...](https://i.kym-
cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/079/173/ed2.png)

------
hellofunk
I am the boy referenced in this letter, and while my first reaction was that I
wished my private correspondence with Betyltah had not been shared with the
world, I am admittedly surprised how close the article comes to interpreting
what happened between her and me.

