From:hakan akcura <hakcura@gmail.com>Date:09.Oct.2007 15:26Subject:Open inquiry and invitation to Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt and Mr. Recep Tayyip ErdoganTo:
Fredrik Reinfeldt <registrator@primeminister.ministry.se>, R. Tayyip Erdogan <rte@akparti.org.tr>
Even though it is 30 years late, maybe…?
Open inquiry and invitation to Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt and Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt,
Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
USA launched the unmanned probes Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977, and Voyager 1, on September 5, 1977 and sent them deep into space. This is the 30th anniversary of this meaningful journey toward deep in space.
Golden Record
Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University.
Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music.
Messages
“Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time,” says the translation of one of the greetings recorded on identical gold-plated phonograph discs mounted under engraved covers on the side of each Voyager. That message is in Amoy, a language spoken by millions of people in eastern China, and one of 55 languages included on the record.
“Greetings to our friends in the stars. We wish that we will meet you someday,” says a translation of the Arabic language greeting.
Some other messages don’t sound quite as eager about getting together. The one in Rajasthani, a language of northwest India, translates to “Hello to everyone. We are happy here and you be happy there.”
The English-language message among this set says, “Hello from the children of planet Earth.”
Voyager 1, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, has already become the most distant of all human-made objects. Every day, it flies another million miles ( 1.6 million kilometers) farther from the Sun. Voyager 2 is about 80 percent as far away as its twin.
They are still returning scientific information from the outer reaches of the Sun’s domain almost every day. Their durable electric power supply, generated from the heat of radioactive plutonium, will allow them to continue making measurements and radioing them home for about 20 more years. That may be long enough for at least Voyager 1 to still be operating when it passes the boundary between the solar wind from the Sun and the interstellar wind from death-explosions of other stars.
Even after the power supply runs too low to operate instruments and transmit data to Earth, the Voyagers will continue silently speeding away from the Sun and Earth. Many thousands of years from now, each will eventually become closer to other stars than they are to the Sun.
A committee headed by the late Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University chose what to put on the Voyager “golden record.” The group had only about six months to decide on the contents and to gather the recordings.
Some choices, such as the multiplicity of languages, suggest that the message is as much for Earthlings as for aliens. A single language would be easier for an unearthly intelligence to decipher, if one ever acquires the record. A diversity of tongues aboard a craft leaving the solar system emphasizes the shared global significance of the endeavor.
Besides the multilingual greetings, each record also has music, ranging from Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven to Melanesian panpipes, and from a Navajo night chant to a Beethoven symphony.
Other sounds of Earth on the record include both natural noises, such as a rainstorm and a chimpanzee, and human-created ones, such as a train and a kiss.
Pictures can be encoded into information on a record. The Voyager golden record 116 pictures. One document stored as an image is a greeting from Jimmy Carter, who was president at the time of the launch.
Part of Carter’s text says, “We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 million stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some – perhaps many – may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:
“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
Swedish and Turkish language messages
When it was observed that the Turkish and Swedish messages were obviously recorded by the personal acquaintances of the committee and without officially contacting the governments of these countries…
Inquiry
If one day these messages would find their counterparts and if they will be listened to, the Turkish and Swedish messages will be spoken with the content, accent and articulation I just mentioned.
What exactly do you think about these subjectively recorded messages and the way that the contents of these messages determined most probably by the people who read them?
I attached the greeting samples from other extinct and living languages, and can we honestly talk about the personal-national characteristics when we take place like this unserious manner within such a meaningful content?
How would you like the messages in your native language take place on this golden record instead of these messages?
Invitation
I am a contemporary artist from Turkey and who chose to live in Sweden for the last 3 years.
On the 30th anniversary of Voyager 1 and 2’s launches, the only reason that I direct these questions about the quality and content of these messages to you as the currently office holding prime ministers of the native countries of these languages is related with who and what I am.
And of course, among all other languages only Turkish and Swedish messages were having this kind of extraordinary quality…
I invite you to record the answers of these questions vocally and have them sent to me, and then permit them to be exhibited –without any interference- with the original messages.
I sincerely carry the hope for both of you to hear my call in your busy schedule and will not be late to answer…
Respectfully,
Hakan Akcura
9 October 2007
Stockholm
Resources and useful links:
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/index.html http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/languages.html http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/swedish.html http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/turkish.html
Attachement:
Other messages
Sumerian language message translated to English is “May all be well”Urdu language message translated to English is “Peace on you. We the inhabitants of this earth send our greetings to you”.Italian language message translated to English is “Many greetings and wishes”.Ila (Lambia) language message translated to English is “We wish all of you well”.Akkadian language message translated to English is “May all be very well”.Romanian language message translated to English is “Greetings to everybody”.Hindi language message translated to English is “Greetings from the inhabitants of this world”.Nguni (Zulu) language message translated to English is “We greet you, great ones. We wish you longevity”.Nyanja language message translated to English is “How are all you people of other planets?”.Hittite language message translated to English is “Hail”.French language message translated to English is “Hello everybody”.Vietnamese language message translated to English is “Sincerely send you our friendly greetings”.Sotho (Sesotho) language message translated to English is “We greet you, O great ones”.Hebrew language message translated to English is “Peace”.Burmese language message translated to English is “Are you well”.
Sinhalese language message translated to English is “Wish You a Long Life”.
Wu language message translated to English is “Best wishes to you all”.Ukrainian language message translated to English is “We are sending greetings from our world, wishing you happiness, goodness, good health and many years”.Aramaic language message translated to English is “Peace”.Spanish language message translated to English is “Hello and greetings to all”.Greek language message translated to English is “Greetings to you, whoever you are. We come in friendship to those who are friends”.Korean language message translated to English is “How are you?”.Persian language message translated to English is “Hello to the residents of far skies”.Indonesian language message translated to English is “Good night ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye and see you next time”.Latin language message translated to English is “Greetings to you, whoever you are; we have good will towards you and bring peace across space”.Armenian language message translated to English is “To all those who exist in the universe, greetings”.Serbian language message translated to English is “We wish you everything good from our planet”.Portuguese language message translated to English is “Peace and happiness to all”.Kechua (Quechua) language message translated to English is “Hello to everybody from this Earth, in Kechua language”.Japanese language message translated to English is “Hello? How are you?”.Polish language message translated to English is “Welcome, creatures from beyond the outer world”.Luganda (Ganda) language message translated to English is “Greetings to all peoples of the universe. God give you peace always”.Cantonese language message translated to English is “Hi. How are you? Wish you peace, health and happiness”.Punjabi language message translated to English is “Welcome home. It is a pleasure to receive you”.Nepali language message translated to English is “Wishing you a peaceful future from the earthlings”.Russian language message translated to English is “Greetings! I Welcome You!”.German language message translated to English is “Heartfelt greetings to all”.Mandarin Chinese language message translated to English is “Hope everyone’s well. We are thinking about you all. Please come here to visit when you have time”.Marathi language message translated to English is “Greetings. The people of the Earth send their good wishes”.Thai language message translated to English is “We in this world send you our good will”.Bengali language message translated to English is “Hello! Let there be peace everywhere”.Welsh language message translated to English is “Good health to you now and forever”.Gujarati language message translated to English is “Greetings from a human being of the Earth. Please contact.”Kannada(Kanarese) language message translated to English is “Greetings. On behalf of Kannada-speaking people, ‘good wishes'”.Telugu language message translated to English is “Greetings. Best wishes from Telugu-speaking people”.Oriya language message translated to English is “Greetings to the inhabitants of the universe from the third planet Earth of the star Sun”.Hungarian (Magyar) language message translated to English is “We are sending greetings in the Hungarian language to all peace-loving beings in the Universe”.Czech language message translated to English is “Dear Friends, we wish you the best”.
hakan akçura 