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I'd like to feature this article on the main page, but the lead section needs to be rewritten. It utterly fails to convey what the novel is about (remember - a general description is not a spoiler), or why it is important. →Raul654 22:19, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
The following was recently anonymously added to the article. Because it is anonymous, with a dubious citation, and because this topic is so subject to hoaxes, I do not feel it can stay there without better citation. If it's true, it's fascinating, and with clear citation something about this would be very welcome. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:54, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I tried to do it, but it got deleted by you or someone else. Sorry. I'll write an academic article on it or something.--Chris B
I think this may be correct; a place called `Uqbara on the Tigris is mentioned in this PDF paper. - Mustafaa 04:20, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Chris emailed me the following much more thorough set of remarks.
Chris: have you seen Brill 1889 yourself? If not, what exactly have you seen? The reason I'm asking is that this would be such a possible topic for a hoax: the key is going to be to pin down a reference that can't be a post-Borges forgery.
Is there someone who is a more established editor who has access to Brill 1889? If this is real, then of course the bulk of this belongs in the article, but with all due respect, I am extremely suspicious on this, because I have seen so many Uqbar-related forgeries, including even by respectable academics. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:17, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I checked Brill 1889 (Ibn Khordadhbeh) in the library here, myself. I also have a copy (the complete set of BGA) back home. I have used it before, and I have translated parts of it from Arabic and cited them in my research publications (for example, my 1984 article 'The Plan of the City of Peace', on Central Asian Iranian influences on the design of the 'round city' at Baghdad in the eighth century, published in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, if you want to know; long before I ever read the Borges story, or I would've paid more attention back then). It is a very famous, very important work, and the edition (a serious critical edition, with apparatus criticus) is rock-solid (as was its great editor and translator, De Goeje), and was and is very widely cited in Islamic studies. There is no possibility of a hoax or forgery in this case, or in the case of Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun. If there is anyone more famous than DeGoeje among early Arabists, it is probably Slane, whose dictionary of Koranic Arabic is still the 'Bible' for Islamicists. Borges may be a great writer, but no, he did not influence these works or their editors or translators, or their publishers (Brill, which celebrated its 300th aniversary a couple of decades ago? I don't think so...), who would get positively snotty if you ever suggested such a thing. (I knew the former Islamic studies editor at Brill, who recently retired after several decades of work and of service to the field of Islamic studies.) I should also mention that no one would be likely to notice, or to put the above two things together; certainly there is no link between them in the E.I. I found them only because of the many excellent indices that Brill has put out for the E.I. (also available on CD ROM for a tidy sum and more easily searchable; I only wish I could afford it). Sorry I posted a vague note first and got your suspicions up. What I would really like to see is Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun; I wonder what other good stuff is in there that Borges might have borrowed. And a good Berber dictionary would be great too. The E.I. article cites Khatib al-Baghdadi's history of Baghdad too (a fascinating work), and they have it in the libarary at my university here, but it's a different edition and has No Index (I checked); no way I'm going to waste time trying to find anything in an Arabic text by scanning it! (Btw, I looked at the story again and noticed that Borges does not explicitly say the mountains are in the North, though it is pretty clear that they should be based on the rest of his description of Uqbar, so I fixed my text above.) Anyway, I think this little bit of mirrored beauty is just another reflection of Borges's genius. -- Chris B (I don't know how to put my user name [Cibeckwith] here; I thought the system did it by itself, but it doesn't look like it.)
Please, everyone (Chris especially), check my work, make sure that this has been handled appropriately, I hope this has been done to everyone's satisfaction. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:41, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Check this out: the aforementioned town of Ukbara was indeed a birthplace of heresiarchs, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906! ( [1] supplies more details.) I think this has to be the source. - Mustafaa 00:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is it unreasonable to note that one of these two heresiarchs, Mishawayh al-Ukbari, followed the principle that "all coins are counterfeit, so one might as well use the one at hand"? - Mustafaa 01:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In the body of the article, you say that Tsai Khaldun is an obvious homage to ibn Khaldun, the historian, and maybe it is.
However, "tsai" is a Chinese (Cantonese?) word meaning "leafy green vegetables" and "khaldun" is Mongolian for "mountain". Could it mean "cabbage mountain"?
I see no relevance in the recent addition of a mention of The Gernsback Continuum to the article. Unless someone can make a case for why it belongs here, I intend to delete it. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:29, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
Recent addition to the article: "Andrew Hurley, one of Borges's translators, notes that a Spanish speaker would pronounce the last two words of this sentence in roughly the same way as an English reader would 'a ha ha ha mleurgh' — the sound of the author laughing and sticking his tongue out at the reader." While this sounds plausible enough, there is no citation, and it is MKVF's first contribution to the Wikipedia. Does someone have a citation? If not, I am going to delete this from the article as unverifiable. I'd be more than glad to have it there with a citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:45, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
(Emphasis mine.) Note that this particular quote only has an off-hand mention, is in a specially-prepared story and does not mention any sort of taste organ (three reasons why it's not very suitable for the article), but this does make it reasonable that Hurley made a more extensive quote elsewhere — presumably not online. JRM 14:22, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)Unassuming, mute, the words on the page do not, despite some mad author's fevered dream after a night of wine and oysters, mix and mingle when the book is closed, do not rearrange themselves into unreadable and untranslatable lines such as O time thy pyramids or axaxaxas mlö (which can only be pronounced as the author's cruel, mocking laughter) that the translator must translate in the morning. —Andrew Hurley, The Zahir and I
Two reasons: A) The spoiler warning doesn't look nice (and I think lead sections shouldn't feature spoilers to begin with) & B) There is some needless repetition in the current version.
A possible alternative:
If no-one objects, I'll change the lead section in a few days. Kea 18:50, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Why is false document listed in the "see also" section? The work is certainly not an example of a false document: a postscript set seven years in the future at the time of its publication would have prevented anyone for mistaking it for real. It seems no more a false document than any other fictional story with a first person narrator. If someone can justify why this should be linked to, let's try to get it into the article, because the relevance is not self-explanatory. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:27, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Berkeley did not "deny the reality of the world." He merely asserted that an object, as it appears, loses its appearance when it is no longer appearing to an observer. 152.163.100.11 17:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington
Borges mentions Schopenhauer many times in his fables, especially in A New Refutation of Time. However, in Tlön, etc., his reference to that philosopher seems to have been irresponsibly fabricated. He wrote that Schopenhauer "...formulates a very similar doctrine in the first volume of Parerga and Paralipomena." This doctrine of " pantheistic idealism" is that there is only one subject and that this one subject is every being in the universe. I have searched this volume and can find no such doctrine. On the contrary, Schopenhauer asserted that each individual observing animal is a unique subject, having its own point of view of the objects that it experiences. 152.163.100.11 12:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)Toby Shandy
Cut from article " Boris Baruq Nolt – non-fictional, caballist referenced by his anagrammatic name in the title of the story." This was cited only with a blind URL: http://remi.schulz.club.fr/perec/secret2.htm. Someone had commented in an HTML comment, "I can find no references to this alleged person that are not linked directly to this story. Is there some independent confirmation that such a person ever existed or is this just a prank? This linked article merely refers to an "imaginary" Bulletin that alludes to Borges's story." Exactly. This is almost certain a (dry) joke. I would need to see a much better citation before I'd agree that this belongs in this (featured) article. - Jmabel | Talk 03:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
A minor quibble: how exactly is this man's name spelt? In my book of Borges poems he is listed as a translator with the first spelling; the Wikipedia article gives it likewise. However, on this page both of the other spellings are used. As there is obviously a contradiction on the page (or the remarkable coincidence of three such similarly-named men who are all Borges scholars), I wish to fix it. I simply ask first whether there is some other Reed of whom I am ignorant. Adso de Fimnu 02:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Just an idle observation:
The one in the article seems dead - here's one which works [3] but I don't know if it's the same translation. Haukur 11:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I found this sound in another region of Tlön (Urkh, Jectbus u Klang). I think it can be interesting to hear how music sounds, when when it's subjectivity is detracted (c.f. language). Mr. Bogres (Urkh, 1957) took a well known, subject-based, piece of music ("Raindrop"-Prelude Chopin op. 28 no. 15 Db-Major) and demonstrated this process.
Bernhard Schleiser, Hamburg - Germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.144.61.175 ( talk) 05:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC)
Today I reinserted the link to the "subject-retracted" version of the Chopin-Prelude.
Waiting for discussion: Bernhard Schleiser —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
84.144.65.151 (
talk)
10:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Borges also mentions in passing the duodecimal system (as well as others), but never elaborates on the fact that this is inherently a refutation of the changeability of things due to nomenclature - a number may be renamed under a different counting schema, but the underlying value will always remain the same.
Would the same value expressed through different numbers not simply make the value a hrön? An entity called into existence through a (possibly misunderstood, hence the shift in counting systems becomes possible) belief in its existence or the shadow of the memory of its existence? As per Borges,
... la operación de contar modifica las cantidades y las convierte de indefinidas en definidas. El hecho de que varios individuos que cuentan una misma cantidad logran un resultado igual, es para los psicólogos un ejemplo de asociación de ideas o de buen ejercicio de la memoria.
Thus, to a Tlönite, decimal 12 and duodecimal 10 are not really the same; one (ultimately both) only exists because it is expected or willed to exist. Their consequences (as far as "consequences" exist on Tlön) are the same; the same entity they are not. Dysmorodrepanis ( talk) 15:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The section Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius#Real and fictional places now suggests that Tlön could have come from a Polish word. I'd argue that this speculation, as well as the Berber one, should be removed, since no published source has offered this connection. WP:NOR. EdJohnston ( talk) 16:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Would it be worth noting that this is probably actually Borges's own position? I recall in one essay he claims a superior bestiary to his Book of Imaginary Beings would be one composed of theological speculations - the triune Christian god, etc. -- Gwern (contribs) 19:05 17 June 2008 (GMT)
Per this edit, someone linked to a fictional world created by Mark Rosenfelder. Such a world is properly treated in Rosenfelder's own article, but there is no reliable source provided to show any connection to Borges. (Per WP:SYN, It's not appropriate for us to be the first to draw a connection between these two authors). I suggest that this reference doesn't belong here. EdJohnston ( talk) 23:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the license and copyright of the work? Aren't the links to the full online text violating Wikipedia rules? If not, should someone move it to Wikisource? 91.132.141.80 ( talk) 15:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
"Only a small extrapolation"---this is poorly phrased. Does it mean that it's not a stretch from the Borges quote to the conclusion that he's talking about the spread of totalitarianism? Or that it is a stretch---a major point drawn from small evidence? I'd argue the former, that it's a major point of the story, quite in keeping with Borges' political views and with contemporary philosophical takes on totalitarianism's Big Lie: such ideologies, to stay alive, must constantly reinforce their adherents' beliefs in imaginary enemies, internal and external, that justify the subjugation or even denial of the individual. For example, Borges here anticipates Nineteen Eighty-Four's "doublethink." Gribbles ( talk) 17:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Under 3.2 "Ubar" is missing. Given its "lost city" element and its pillars, it clearly belongs. Here's the Wikipedia reference to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubar 97.125.47.242 ( talk) 20:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
To hell with wiki guidelines; this way of presenting the idea of that story is completely contradictory to its intent. Is there a better place to do what the Tlonist did with the edition of the Anglo-American Cyclopedia then wiki????? One generation should be enough!! Also, it should be made a principle to put false references in all Borges - related articles.—This unsigned comment was added by 83.131.130.232 ( talk • contribs) 17 March 2006.
I wrote this. Look, I had no intention to sound as anthagonistic as this, I see now, certanly sounded; im a great fan of literature by Borges, and have frequently been inspired by this story. But when seeing an article, admittadly generally great and informative, about Tlon, in an encyclopedia, and ironically not seeing a single information in it fabricated, simply irritated me quite a lot. Well, if an article about recursion links to recursion, then at least some false references should exist in an article about Tlon. :D -- Aryah 21:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
"Bioy Casares had dined with me that night and talked to us at length about a great scheme for writing a novel in the first person, using a narrator who omitted or corrupted what happened and who ran into various contradictions, so that only a handful of readers, a very small handful, would be able to decipher the horrible or banal reality behind the novel."
This passage comes from the opening of the book, and plays no role in the development of the storyline. Spoken by a narrator in a mind boggling fiction by a genius, i couldn't help but be suspicious that this was a hint towards something in the structure of the story itself (separate from the whole tlon mystery going on inside the world of the book).
I've only read the story once, and didn't notice any obvious contradictions in the narrative. Has Borges just driven me mad with paranoia? or did i totally miss what i was keeping an eye out for?
Writting articles about writers or their literary works in the style of the works themselves might be welcomed at Uncyclopedia, however, it's not appropiate for this "serious" encyclopedia.-- Rataube 18:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Forget about "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog." Now I've read this story, I'll never trust anything I read on PAPER again, either! Damn You Borges! I think I'm evaporating....
Literary: I think the article misses some references to other Borges' tales. I recall a sentence where it's said that all books in Tlon contain a single plot but with all it's possible variations. That's the same idea he develops in "El jardin de los senderos que se bifurcan", published in the same volume (Ficciones). The idea of an encyclopedia containing a whole world resembles the "La biblioteca de Babel", where the library contains the whole world too. I think I may be missing many other of the thematic connections with this tale and the others. A section about the tale and the rest of his work would be nice. Anyone wants to try? We should mention the figures of the laberynth, the mirrors and the theme of the infinity too.-- Rataube 17:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Also I think is pretty misleading: "In the context of the imagined world of Tlön, Borges describes a school of literary criticism that arbitrarily assumes that two works are by the same person and, based on that, deduces things about the imagined author." The most obvious interpretention is that the Tlonists are challenging the very idea that two books can be written by the same person, since there is no identity between a person and the same person later in time. It's just the same way, the nine coins lost and the 9 coins found later on can't be the same coins. A person is not the same person five minutes later, therefore there are never two things than by the same person, and there are never two books written by the same author. It seems to me more like a continuation of the 9 coins example, a philosophical issue, rather than the questioning of any literary criticism school. Of course the other interpretation is not necessarily wrong, but unless someone explains which school Borges is allegadely describing (Romatic critics maybe? mmm), and who produced that interpretation, it's too loose and I'm not sure it should go in the article.-- Rataube 17:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this should go here, but "Buenos Aires at this time was more of an intellectual center than it is in the early 21st century" doesn't seem too NPOV to me. Buenos Aires is, in fact, an intellectual and artistic center in Latin America, and widely respected as one throughout the world. It leads in the performing arts, with acts as De la Guarda and world-renowned authors and directors. The University of Buenos Aires is on par with its european counterparts, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The so-called New Argentine Cinema has been the object of critical acclaim in most film festivals. Nevertheless, it's influence is poorly received in english-speaking countries, perhaps because of the linguistic stretch, but hinting at deeper problems in academic and cultural exchange. Eventhough I'm removing the cited sentence, it shows the limitations of NPOV, as it usually is USA-POV. As often, and probably unavoidably, occurs, neutrality is just hidden ethnocentrism. 201.250.194.147 06:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Sebastián
If my comment in the section above is correct, I believe the section on literary themes should be altered. The second paragraph of the story in which the conversation with Bioy Casares is reported may indeed prefigure Nabakov's Pale Fire, but I think it is much more directly a reference to The Invention of Morel, which was written at about the same time. Zardoz37 ( talk) 13:20, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
"hold an extreme form of Berkeleian idealism, denying the reality of the world."
Berkeley never, ever "denied the reality of the world." That is a total misreading of him. GeneCallahan ( talk) 23:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
The author of this article asserts that,
This story is not the only place where Borges engages with Berkeleian idealism and with the related 20th century philosophy of phenomenology. Phenomenology privileges psychical phenomena over physical phenomena and "brackets off" objective reality as unknowable.
I would tend to differentiate far more strongly between Berkeley's idealism and phenomenology, and I believe that to describe the latter as a "related" philosophy is misleading, since phenomenology is not derived either in whole or in part from Berkeley's thought but from Husserl, Brentano, and so on in its transcendental form, and from Heidegger in its existential and hermeneutic form. Also I would suggest that characterising phenomenology as privileging psychical phenomena over physical phenomena is also misleading, since phenomenology does not draw the abstract psychological distinctions implied, dealing rather with direct intuitions of phenomena as they appear in the life-world. As such, I think phenomenology has been wrongly attributed here as something very idealistic and abstract, when it is in fact an extremely existential and worldly approach. Phenomenology only brackets objective reality because it is a purely descriptive discipline, not a prescriptive or explanatory discipline; as there is no intention of giving accounts as to 'why' phenomena appear, only 'in what way' or 'as what', it has no need of a criteria of objectivity. Also, it should be noted, that Phenomenology names a varied collection of different phenomenological approaches, and that not all of them, or even the majority, would consider objective reality as unknowable.
In summary: Phenomenology is very much distinct from Berkeley's idealism, has altogether a different basis, and should not appear so proximately related to his name. Lethal humour ( talk) 20:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
68.173.125.51 ( talk) 06:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the following sentence: "'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' has the structure of a detective fiction set in a world going mad." First of all, there is no "crime," so describing what happens in the story as resembling detective fiction wears the idea of the detective genre thin to the point of non-existence. And while the idea of "a world going mad" may be vaguely applicable to the end of the story, it hardly seems useful as a characterization of what the story is about. 850 C ( talk) 15:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
The article uses the word "Mlejnas" for Tlön's partner-world in Uqbaran mythology. The version I have (Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley, cop. Penguin Putnam Inc. 1998) uses "Mle'khnas". Which is the proper spelling? Noaqiyeum 02:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The original Spanish text (at least in the editions I've examined) has "Mlejnas." "Mle'khnas" may represent Hurley's attempt to transliterate the sound of the Spanish jota. 850 C ( talk) 19:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
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Proposing the uqbar be merged into this article. It looks like that article has some history as a hoax and is now limited to simply being about the fictional place in this story. Unless I'm missing something significant, there certainly are not sufficient sources about Uqbar as a topic sufficiently distinct from this story such that it should have an independent article. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
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Is the phrase "Axaxaxas mlö" at all connected to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras who is notable for his observations on the moon, eclipses and other cosmic phenomena?-- Mr. 123453334 ( talk) 06:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Old talk (roughly, through 2004) is archived at:
Trucoto ( talk) 17:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)==Translating the title from Latin==
Pardon the extreme weakness of my grasp of Latin, but doesn't Orbis Tertius mean "third world"? If so, shouldn't that be stated somewhere in the article? Difficult though it may be to believe, some literate people have an even feebler grasp of Latin than I do and won't guess that. Michael Hardy 00:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, "orbis tertius" cannot translate to "the third circle" or "the third world/planet". At least not from Latin. Vincenzo.romano ( talk) 07:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
"Orbis" is genitive from orbs-orbis so the translation is "of the circle/world/planet". Then "tertius" is a male nominative adjective from "tertius-tertia-tertium" and the translation could be "the third (man)", not even "the third (thing)" as that would be neutral as in "tertium". So, among the best translations you can put "the third (man) of the planet", but definitely not "the third planet". Vincenzo.romano ( talk) 07:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Vincenzo romano is utterly, utterly wrong. Any Latin dictionary will tell you that "orbis" is both the nominative and genitive of the noun. There are many other Latin nouns of this type: canis ("dog"; should that be "cans", Vincenzo? Does that look like good Latin to you?), "classis" ("fleet, class"; "classs"? Not unless you're a drunk teenager!). Tertius is a masculine nominative adjective modifying the masculine nominative noun "orbis". "Third world" is a proper translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.213.141 ( talk) 02:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
The third planet from the Sun is the Earth, so it may be a veiled way to say that "el mundo será Tlön" as he wrote in the last paragraph of the story ("the world will be Tlön"). Also it may be read as a third iteration, reflected as well in the enumeration given as the title of the story: the first was Uqbar, the second is Tlön (referenced from the Uqbar entry in the encyclopedia), and the third will be "Orbis Tertius": "Los cuarenta volúmenes [de la primera enciclopedia de Tlön] serían la base de otra más minuciosa, redactada no ya en inglés sino en alguna de las lenguas de Tlön. Esta revisión de un mundo ilusorio se llama provisoriamente Orbis Tertius" ("The forty volumes [of the first Tlön encyclopedia] would be the base for a more detailed work, written not in English but in one of the Tlön languages. This revision of an illusory world is called temporarily Orbis Tertius"). As Tlön takes the world (the third planet from the Sun) in the end, the third iteration is the Earth converted to Tlön, Orbis Tertius is more than just rewriting the Tlön encyclopedia to a idealistic language: is about rewriting the whole world existence in Tlön terms Trucoto ( talk) 17:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
I found this entry confusing...are Tlön & Uqbar separate fictional worlds? Or are they the same world? Or is one a part of the other? 69.125.134.86 ( talk) 00:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "airy-clear over dark-round" or "orange-faint-of-sky."
was replaced by
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "round airy-light on dark" or "pale-orange-of-the-sky." [1]
Arguably, it's just as good a translation of the Spanish, but I don't believe that it comes from the cited source. There are several published translations of "Tlön…" floating around, and I suspect that someone chose a different translation without changing the citation. - Jmabel | Talk 17:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
References
The phrase "una reimpresión literal, pero también morosa, de la Encyclopaedia Britannica" does not translate to "a literal if inadequate reprint". "Moroso" in Spanish ( https://dle.rae.es/morosidad) means that it took too long, because the pirate copy ("Anglo American Cyclopaedia") is from 1917 while the original ("Encyclopeadia Britannica") is from 1902. Trucoto ( talk) 17:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
The references to the text of the story in this article contain page numbers that are meaningless since no specific translation is cited. Whatever translation is being used seems to be a strange one; I don't understand why anyone would render "morosa" (literally, "delayed") as "inadequate". (The translation in Labyrinths has "delinquent"; Collected Fictions has "laggardly".) 2601:C6:4100:F980:E9E2:B094:1EB3:F374 ( talk) 13:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I'd like to feature this article on the main page, but the lead section needs to be rewritten. It utterly fails to convey what the novel is about (remember - a general description is not a spoiler), or why it is important. →Raul654 22:19, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
The following was recently anonymously added to the article. Because it is anonymous, with a dubious citation, and because this topic is so subject to hoaxes, I do not feel it can stay there without better citation. If it's true, it's fascinating, and with clear citation something about this would be very welcome. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:54, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I tried to do it, but it got deleted by you or someone else. Sorry. I'll write an academic article on it or something.--Chris B
I think this may be correct; a place called `Uqbara on the Tigris is mentioned in this PDF paper. - Mustafaa 04:20, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Chris emailed me the following much more thorough set of remarks.
Chris: have you seen Brill 1889 yourself? If not, what exactly have you seen? The reason I'm asking is that this would be such a possible topic for a hoax: the key is going to be to pin down a reference that can't be a post-Borges forgery.
Is there someone who is a more established editor who has access to Brill 1889? If this is real, then of course the bulk of this belongs in the article, but with all due respect, I am extremely suspicious on this, because I have seen so many Uqbar-related forgeries, including even by respectable academics. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:17, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I checked Brill 1889 (Ibn Khordadhbeh) in the library here, myself. I also have a copy (the complete set of BGA) back home. I have used it before, and I have translated parts of it from Arabic and cited them in my research publications (for example, my 1984 article 'The Plan of the City of Peace', on Central Asian Iranian influences on the design of the 'round city' at Baghdad in the eighth century, published in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, if you want to know; long before I ever read the Borges story, or I would've paid more attention back then). It is a very famous, very important work, and the edition (a serious critical edition, with apparatus criticus) is rock-solid (as was its great editor and translator, De Goeje), and was and is very widely cited in Islamic studies. There is no possibility of a hoax or forgery in this case, or in the case of Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun. If there is anyone more famous than DeGoeje among early Arabists, it is probably Slane, whose dictionary of Koranic Arabic is still the 'Bible' for Islamicists. Borges may be a great writer, but no, he did not influence these works or their editors or translators, or their publishers (Brill, which celebrated its 300th aniversary a couple of decades ago? I don't think so...), who would get positively snotty if you ever suggested such a thing. (I knew the former Islamic studies editor at Brill, who recently retired after several decades of work and of service to the field of Islamic studies.) I should also mention that no one would be likely to notice, or to put the above two things together; certainly there is no link between them in the E.I. I found them only because of the many excellent indices that Brill has put out for the E.I. (also available on CD ROM for a tidy sum and more easily searchable; I only wish I could afford it). Sorry I posted a vague note first and got your suspicions up. What I would really like to see is Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun; I wonder what other good stuff is in there that Borges might have borrowed. And a good Berber dictionary would be great too. The E.I. article cites Khatib al-Baghdadi's history of Baghdad too (a fascinating work), and they have it in the libarary at my university here, but it's a different edition and has No Index (I checked); no way I'm going to waste time trying to find anything in an Arabic text by scanning it! (Btw, I looked at the story again and noticed that Borges does not explicitly say the mountains are in the North, though it is pretty clear that they should be based on the rest of his description of Uqbar, so I fixed my text above.) Anyway, I think this little bit of mirrored beauty is just another reflection of Borges's genius. -- Chris B (I don't know how to put my user name [Cibeckwith] here; I thought the system did it by itself, but it doesn't look like it.)
Please, everyone (Chris especially), check my work, make sure that this has been handled appropriately, I hope this has been done to everyone's satisfaction. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:41, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
Check this out: the aforementioned town of Ukbara was indeed a birthplace of heresiarchs, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906! ( [1] supplies more details.) I think this has to be the source. - Mustafaa 00:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is it unreasonable to note that one of these two heresiarchs, Mishawayh al-Ukbari, followed the principle that "all coins are counterfeit, so one might as well use the one at hand"? - Mustafaa 01:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In the body of the article, you say that Tsai Khaldun is an obvious homage to ibn Khaldun, the historian, and maybe it is.
However, "tsai" is a Chinese (Cantonese?) word meaning "leafy green vegetables" and "khaldun" is Mongolian for "mountain". Could it mean "cabbage mountain"?
I see no relevance in the recent addition of a mention of The Gernsback Continuum to the article. Unless someone can make a case for why it belongs here, I intend to delete it. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:29, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
Recent addition to the article: "Andrew Hurley, one of Borges's translators, notes that a Spanish speaker would pronounce the last two words of this sentence in roughly the same way as an English reader would 'a ha ha ha mleurgh' — the sound of the author laughing and sticking his tongue out at the reader." While this sounds plausible enough, there is no citation, and it is MKVF's first contribution to the Wikipedia. Does someone have a citation? If not, I am going to delete this from the article as unverifiable. I'd be more than glad to have it there with a citation. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:45, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
(Emphasis mine.) Note that this particular quote only has an off-hand mention, is in a specially-prepared story and does not mention any sort of taste organ (three reasons why it's not very suitable for the article), but this does make it reasonable that Hurley made a more extensive quote elsewhere — presumably not online. JRM 14:22, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)Unassuming, mute, the words on the page do not, despite some mad author's fevered dream after a night of wine and oysters, mix and mingle when the book is closed, do not rearrange themselves into unreadable and untranslatable lines such as O time thy pyramids or axaxaxas mlö (which can only be pronounced as the author's cruel, mocking laughter) that the translator must translate in the morning. —Andrew Hurley, The Zahir and I
Two reasons: A) The spoiler warning doesn't look nice (and I think lead sections shouldn't feature spoilers to begin with) & B) There is some needless repetition in the current version.
A possible alternative:
If no-one objects, I'll change the lead section in a few days. Kea 18:50, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Why is false document listed in the "see also" section? The work is certainly not an example of a false document: a postscript set seven years in the future at the time of its publication would have prevented anyone for mistaking it for real. It seems no more a false document than any other fictional story with a first person narrator. If someone can justify why this should be linked to, let's try to get it into the article, because the relevance is not self-explanatory. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:27, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Berkeley did not "deny the reality of the world." He merely asserted that an object, as it appears, loses its appearance when it is no longer appearing to an observer. 152.163.100.11 17:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington
Borges mentions Schopenhauer many times in his fables, especially in A New Refutation of Time. However, in Tlön, etc., his reference to that philosopher seems to have been irresponsibly fabricated. He wrote that Schopenhauer "...formulates a very similar doctrine in the first volume of Parerga and Paralipomena." This doctrine of " pantheistic idealism" is that there is only one subject and that this one subject is every being in the universe. I have searched this volume and can find no such doctrine. On the contrary, Schopenhauer asserted that each individual observing animal is a unique subject, having its own point of view of the objects that it experiences. 152.163.100.11 12:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)Toby Shandy
Cut from article " Boris Baruq Nolt – non-fictional, caballist referenced by his anagrammatic name in the title of the story." This was cited only with a blind URL: http://remi.schulz.club.fr/perec/secret2.htm. Someone had commented in an HTML comment, "I can find no references to this alleged person that are not linked directly to this story. Is there some independent confirmation that such a person ever existed or is this just a prank? This linked article merely refers to an "imaginary" Bulletin that alludes to Borges's story." Exactly. This is almost certain a (dry) joke. I would need to see a much better citation before I'd agree that this belongs in this (featured) article. - Jmabel | Talk 03:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
A minor quibble: how exactly is this man's name spelt? In my book of Borges poems he is listed as a translator with the first spelling; the Wikipedia article gives it likewise. However, on this page both of the other spellings are used. As there is obviously a contradiction on the page (or the remarkable coincidence of three such similarly-named men who are all Borges scholars), I wish to fix it. I simply ask first whether there is some other Reed of whom I am ignorant. Adso de Fimnu 02:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Just an idle observation:
The one in the article seems dead - here's one which works [3] but I don't know if it's the same translation. Haukur 11:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I found this sound in another region of Tlön (Urkh, Jectbus u Klang). I think it can be interesting to hear how music sounds, when when it's subjectivity is detracted (c.f. language). Mr. Bogres (Urkh, 1957) took a well known, subject-based, piece of music ("Raindrop"-Prelude Chopin op. 28 no. 15 Db-Major) and demonstrated this process.
Bernhard Schleiser, Hamburg - Germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.144.61.175 ( talk) 05:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC)
Today I reinserted the link to the "subject-retracted" version of the Chopin-Prelude.
Waiting for discussion: Bernhard Schleiser —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
84.144.65.151 (
talk)
10:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Borges also mentions in passing the duodecimal system (as well as others), but never elaborates on the fact that this is inherently a refutation of the changeability of things due to nomenclature - a number may be renamed under a different counting schema, but the underlying value will always remain the same.
Would the same value expressed through different numbers not simply make the value a hrön? An entity called into existence through a (possibly misunderstood, hence the shift in counting systems becomes possible) belief in its existence or the shadow of the memory of its existence? As per Borges,
... la operación de contar modifica las cantidades y las convierte de indefinidas en definidas. El hecho de que varios individuos que cuentan una misma cantidad logran un resultado igual, es para los psicólogos un ejemplo de asociación de ideas o de buen ejercicio de la memoria.
Thus, to a Tlönite, decimal 12 and duodecimal 10 are not really the same; one (ultimately both) only exists because it is expected or willed to exist. Their consequences (as far as "consequences" exist on Tlön) are the same; the same entity they are not. Dysmorodrepanis ( talk) 15:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The section Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius#Real and fictional places now suggests that Tlön could have come from a Polish word. I'd argue that this speculation, as well as the Berber one, should be removed, since no published source has offered this connection. WP:NOR. EdJohnston ( talk) 16:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Would it be worth noting that this is probably actually Borges's own position? I recall in one essay he claims a superior bestiary to his Book of Imaginary Beings would be one composed of theological speculations - the triune Christian god, etc. -- Gwern (contribs) 19:05 17 June 2008 (GMT)
Per this edit, someone linked to a fictional world created by Mark Rosenfelder. Such a world is properly treated in Rosenfelder's own article, but there is no reliable source provided to show any connection to Borges. (Per WP:SYN, It's not appropriate for us to be the first to draw a connection between these two authors). I suggest that this reference doesn't belong here. EdJohnston ( talk) 23:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the license and copyright of the work? Aren't the links to the full online text violating Wikipedia rules? If not, should someone move it to Wikisource? 91.132.141.80 ( talk) 15:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
"Only a small extrapolation"---this is poorly phrased. Does it mean that it's not a stretch from the Borges quote to the conclusion that he's talking about the spread of totalitarianism? Or that it is a stretch---a major point drawn from small evidence? I'd argue the former, that it's a major point of the story, quite in keeping with Borges' political views and with contemporary philosophical takes on totalitarianism's Big Lie: such ideologies, to stay alive, must constantly reinforce their adherents' beliefs in imaginary enemies, internal and external, that justify the subjugation or even denial of the individual. For example, Borges here anticipates Nineteen Eighty-Four's "doublethink." Gribbles ( talk) 17:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Under 3.2 "Ubar" is missing. Given its "lost city" element and its pillars, it clearly belongs. Here's the Wikipedia reference to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubar 97.125.47.242 ( talk) 20:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
To hell with wiki guidelines; this way of presenting the idea of that story is completely contradictory to its intent. Is there a better place to do what the Tlonist did with the edition of the Anglo-American Cyclopedia then wiki????? One generation should be enough!! Also, it should be made a principle to put false references in all Borges - related articles.—This unsigned comment was added by 83.131.130.232 ( talk • contribs) 17 March 2006.
I wrote this. Look, I had no intention to sound as anthagonistic as this, I see now, certanly sounded; im a great fan of literature by Borges, and have frequently been inspired by this story. But when seeing an article, admittadly generally great and informative, about Tlon, in an encyclopedia, and ironically not seeing a single information in it fabricated, simply irritated me quite a lot. Well, if an article about recursion links to recursion, then at least some false references should exist in an article about Tlon. :D -- Aryah 21:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
"Bioy Casares had dined with me that night and talked to us at length about a great scheme for writing a novel in the first person, using a narrator who omitted or corrupted what happened and who ran into various contradictions, so that only a handful of readers, a very small handful, would be able to decipher the horrible or banal reality behind the novel."
This passage comes from the opening of the book, and plays no role in the development of the storyline. Spoken by a narrator in a mind boggling fiction by a genius, i couldn't help but be suspicious that this was a hint towards something in the structure of the story itself (separate from the whole tlon mystery going on inside the world of the book).
I've only read the story once, and didn't notice any obvious contradictions in the narrative. Has Borges just driven me mad with paranoia? or did i totally miss what i was keeping an eye out for?
Writting articles about writers or their literary works in the style of the works themselves might be welcomed at Uncyclopedia, however, it's not appropiate for this "serious" encyclopedia.-- Rataube 18:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Forget about "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog." Now I've read this story, I'll never trust anything I read on PAPER again, either! Damn You Borges! I think I'm evaporating....
Literary: I think the article misses some references to other Borges' tales. I recall a sentence where it's said that all books in Tlon contain a single plot but with all it's possible variations. That's the same idea he develops in "El jardin de los senderos que se bifurcan", published in the same volume (Ficciones). The idea of an encyclopedia containing a whole world resembles the "La biblioteca de Babel", where the library contains the whole world too. I think I may be missing many other of the thematic connections with this tale and the others. A section about the tale and the rest of his work would be nice. Anyone wants to try? We should mention the figures of the laberynth, the mirrors and the theme of the infinity too.-- Rataube 17:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Also I think is pretty misleading: "In the context of the imagined world of Tlön, Borges describes a school of literary criticism that arbitrarily assumes that two works are by the same person and, based on that, deduces things about the imagined author." The most obvious interpretention is that the Tlonists are challenging the very idea that two books can be written by the same person, since there is no identity between a person and the same person later in time. It's just the same way, the nine coins lost and the 9 coins found later on can't be the same coins. A person is not the same person five minutes later, therefore there are never two things than by the same person, and there are never two books written by the same author. It seems to me more like a continuation of the 9 coins example, a philosophical issue, rather than the questioning of any literary criticism school. Of course the other interpretation is not necessarily wrong, but unless someone explains which school Borges is allegadely describing (Romatic critics maybe? mmm), and who produced that interpretation, it's too loose and I'm not sure it should go in the article.-- Rataube 17:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this should go here, but "Buenos Aires at this time was more of an intellectual center than it is in the early 21st century" doesn't seem too NPOV to me. Buenos Aires is, in fact, an intellectual and artistic center in Latin America, and widely respected as one throughout the world. It leads in the performing arts, with acts as De la Guarda and world-renowned authors and directors. The University of Buenos Aires is on par with its european counterparts, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The so-called New Argentine Cinema has been the object of critical acclaim in most film festivals. Nevertheless, it's influence is poorly received in english-speaking countries, perhaps because of the linguistic stretch, but hinting at deeper problems in academic and cultural exchange. Eventhough I'm removing the cited sentence, it shows the limitations of NPOV, as it usually is USA-POV. As often, and probably unavoidably, occurs, neutrality is just hidden ethnocentrism. 201.250.194.147 06:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Sebastián
If my comment in the section above is correct, I believe the section on literary themes should be altered. The second paragraph of the story in which the conversation with Bioy Casares is reported may indeed prefigure Nabakov's Pale Fire, but I think it is much more directly a reference to The Invention of Morel, which was written at about the same time. Zardoz37 ( talk) 13:20, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
"hold an extreme form of Berkeleian idealism, denying the reality of the world."
Berkeley never, ever "denied the reality of the world." That is a total misreading of him. GeneCallahan ( talk) 23:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
The author of this article asserts that,
This story is not the only place where Borges engages with Berkeleian idealism and with the related 20th century philosophy of phenomenology. Phenomenology privileges psychical phenomena over physical phenomena and "brackets off" objective reality as unknowable.
I would tend to differentiate far more strongly between Berkeley's idealism and phenomenology, and I believe that to describe the latter as a "related" philosophy is misleading, since phenomenology is not derived either in whole or in part from Berkeley's thought but from Husserl, Brentano, and so on in its transcendental form, and from Heidegger in its existential and hermeneutic form. Also I would suggest that characterising phenomenology as privileging psychical phenomena over physical phenomena is also misleading, since phenomenology does not draw the abstract psychological distinctions implied, dealing rather with direct intuitions of phenomena as they appear in the life-world. As such, I think phenomenology has been wrongly attributed here as something very idealistic and abstract, when it is in fact an extremely existential and worldly approach. Phenomenology only brackets objective reality because it is a purely descriptive discipline, not a prescriptive or explanatory discipline; as there is no intention of giving accounts as to 'why' phenomena appear, only 'in what way' or 'as what', it has no need of a criteria of objectivity. Also, it should be noted, that Phenomenology names a varied collection of different phenomenological approaches, and that not all of them, or even the majority, would consider objective reality as unknowable.
In summary: Phenomenology is very much distinct from Berkeley's idealism, has altogether a different basis, and should not appear so proximately related to his name. Lethal humour ( talk) 20:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
68.173.125.51 ( talk) 06:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the following sentence: "'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' has the structure of a detective fiction set in a world going mad." First of all, there is no "crime," so describing what happens in the story as resembling detective fiction wears the idea of the detective genre thin to the point of non-existence. And while the idea of "a world going mad" may be vaguely applicable to the end of the story, it hardly seems useful as a characterization of what the story is about. 850 C ( talk) 15:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
The article uses the word "Mlejnas" for Tlön's partner-world in Uqbaran mythology. The version I have (Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley, cop. Penguin Putnam Inc. 1998) uses "Mle'khnas". Which is the proper spelling? Noaqiyeum 02:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The original Spanish text (at least in the editions I've examined) has "Mlejnas." "Mle'khnas" may represent Hurley's attempt to transliterate the sound of the Spanish jota. 850 C ( talk) 19:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
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Proposing the uqbar be merged into this article. It looks like that article has some history as a hoax and is now limited to simply being about the fictional place in this story. Unless I'm missing something significant, there certainly are not sufficient sources about Uqbar as a topic sufficiently distinct from this story such that it should have an independent article. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
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Is the phrase "Axaxaxas mlö" at all connected to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras who is notable for his observations on the moon, eclipses and other cosmic phenomena?-- Mr. 123453334 ( talk) 06:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Old talk (roughly, through 2004) is archived at:
Trucoto ( talk) 17:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)==Translating the title from Latin==
Pardon the extreme weakness of my grasp of Latin, but doesn't Orbis Tertius mean "third world"? If so, shouldn't that be stated somewhere in the article? Difficult though it may be to believe, some literate people have an even feebler grasp of Latin than I do and won't guess that. Michael Hardy 00:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, "orbis tertius" cannot translate to "the third circle" or "the third world/planet". At least not from Latin. Vincenzo.romano ( talk) 07:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
"Orbis" is genitive from orbs-orbis so the translation is "of the circle/world/planet". Then "tertius" is a male nominative adjective from "tertius-tertia-tertium" and the translation could be "the third (man)", not even "the third (thing)" as that would be neutral as in "tertium". So, among the best translations you can put "the third (man) of the planet", but definitely not "the third planet". Vincenzo.romano ( talk) 07:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Vincenzo romano is utterly, utterly wrong. Any Latin dictionary will tell you that "orbis" is both the nominative and genitive of the noun. There are many other Latin nouns of this type: canis ("dog"; should that be "cans", Vincenzo? Does that look like good Latin to you?), "classis" ("fleet, class"; "classs"? Not unless you're a drunk teenager!). Tertius is a masculine nominative adjective modifying the masculine nominative noun "orbis". "Third world" is a proper translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.213.141 ( talk) 02:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
The third planet from the Sun is the Earth, so it may be a veiled way to say that "el mundo será Tlön" as he wrote in the last paragraph of the story ("the world will be Tlön"). Also it may be read as a third iteration, reflected as well in the enumeration given as the title of the story: the first was Uqbar, the second is Tlön (referenced from the Uqbar entry in the encyclopedia), and the third will be "Orbis Tertius": "Los cuarenta volúmenes [de la primera enciclopedia de Tlön] serían la base de otra más minuciosa, redactada no ya en inglés sino en alguna de las lenguas de Tlön. Esta revisión de un mundo ilusorio se llama provisoriamente Orbis Tertius" ("The forty volumes [of the first Tlön encyclopedia] would be the base for a more detailed work, written not in English but in one of the Tlön languages. This revision of an illusory world is called temporarily Orbis Tertius"). As Tlön takes the world (the third planet from the Sun) in the end, the third iteration is the Earth converted to Tlön, Orbis Tertius is more than just rewriting the Tlön encyclopedia to a idealistic language: is about rewriting the whole world existence in Tlön terms Trucoto ( talk) 17:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
I found this entry confusing...are Tlön & Uqbar separate fictional worlds? Or are they the same world? Or is one a part of the other? 69.125.134.86 ( talk) 00:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "airy-clear over dark-round" or "orange-faint-of-sky."
was replaced by
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "round airy-light on dark" or "pale-orange-of-the-sky." [1]
Arguably, it's just as good a translation of the Spanish, but I don't believe that it comes from the cited source. There are several published translations of "Tlön…" floating around, and I suspect that someone chose a different translation without changing the citation. - Jmabel | Talk 17:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
References
The phrase "una reimpresión literal, pero también morosa, de la Encyclopaedia Britannica" does not translate to "a literal if inadequate reprint". "Moroso" in Spanish ( https://dle.rae.es/morosidad) means that it took too long, because the pirate copy ("Anglo American Cyclopaedia") is from 1917 while the original ("Encyclopeadia Britannica") is from 1902. Trucoto ( talk) 17:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
The references to the text of the story in this article contain page numbers that are meaningless since no specific translation is cited. Whatever translation is being used seems to be a strange one; I don't understand why anyone would render "morosa" (literally, "delayed") as "inadequate". (The translation in Labyrinths has "delinquent"; Collected Fictions has "laggardly".) 2601:C6:4100:F980:E9E2:B094:1EB3:F374 ( talk) 13:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)