Saturday 19 September 2009

The Storeey ov Rescyoo Man by Joshua J

An early illustration of Rescue Man, from January 2008:
A transliteration into Standard Australian English - for those who cannot read "Joshie-ese" fluently - is provided at the bottom of this post. For those who would prefer to do their own translating work, I have provided a transcription of the text below the image of each page.

Hints for translation:

Joshua's most common error in writing is to mix up certain letters that look very similar. In this passage, he has often replaced b with d and p with d or q. Sometimes, other letters are reversed, so a short j is probably actually intended to be an i; t and l often suffer this fate as well.

Most words are spelt incorrectly (being honest!) but usually according to a basic understanding of the rules of Phonics. Translators may try reading the words out loud and thinking about what other sounds might be represented by a given grapheme. Hence story is spelt with eey after the r. I think the first e was added to "make the O say its name". The second e was added because ey is a common ending used to represent the final E sound, as in key and monkey.

All text copyright Joshua J, September 2009.The storeey ov rescyoo man.
1 in hud worcin tawn a
dadey was deen in The hasdtl
vay nam him rescyoo man.
2 rescyoo man growi up.
rescyoo man livd inu a
qee has he didin get trets he
wos a helfe boo.
3 rescyoo man.
he went for his forst flit
it wos fun ver wos a qoll
in frunt ov him he bumqd

in too it he had too go too
hosdtt.
4 in hosdtl.
he had cut his hed cut ii dan
too his scul he had too get it
stichd vay gavd him sum
medsen so it dident hort he
fel a slep.
5 The sooquhiro.
rescyoo man went a rand
The tan it was pesfl he

see a sin vat seb satby
soop hiro rasing.
The rasing.
he bilt his hsip The ras
bging ot dube wun
6 The a wood
a goodee wun badee testu
hol ezee haw ese itis wos
Too cil The bades reseyoo
man cilb him.

can we conplet The
necst chapter tmoro.

[The following words had been erased and written over with the above question.]
7 The chapdr of bef.
The bade rodots sent bi
The cilu The ume reseyoo-
man bibent no Wot
to stop vem va got
aut ver guns

[To be continued???]

The following translation of the original story by Joshua J is provided with every care for accuracy and absolutely no assurance of inerrancy. While spelling errors have been corrected, the only grammatical corrections have been standardisation of some capitals and addition of punctuation marks where the author indicated sentence breaks were intended. The erased section has been included in its appropriate sequence.

The story of Rescue Man.
1 In hard working town a
baby was born in the hospital.
They named him Rescue Man.
2 Rescue Man growing up.
Rescue Man lived in a
poor house. He didn't get treats. He
was a healthy boy.
3 Rescue Man.
He went for his first flight.
It was fun. There was a pole
in front of him. He bumped
-
into it. He had to go to
hospital.
4 in hospital.
He had cut his head, cut it down
to his skull. He had to get it
stitched. They gaved him some
medicine so it didn't hurt. He
fell asleep.
5 The superhero.
Rescue Man went around
the town. It was peaceful. He
-
see a sign that said Saturday
super hero racing.
The racing.
He built his ship. The race
began. Another won.
6 The award.
A goody won. Baddy tested
how easy how easy it is was
to kill the baddies. Rescue
Man killed him.
-
7 The chapter of death.
The baddy robots sent by
the killer. The army Rescue
Man didn't know what
to stop them. They got
out their guns
-
Can we complete the
next chapter tomorrow?

Just in case you are wondering, Rescue Man has been Joshua's alter-ego for some time. This post tells how it all began.