V2, Chap 15 (Sahha), I, p 460

[kelber at mindspring.com]

That's a really interesting connection, Richard.  It's certainly of interest to people on this list, and I can't imagine that it's a connection Pynchon would have failed to make if he knew about it.  So, to me, this is evidence that Pynchon was either unaware of the Maltese alphabet or unaware of the reduced Planck's constant.  On the other hand, it's really hard to believe that Pynchon wouldn't know about the Maltese alphabet, or would deliberately mis-represent a letter of the Maltese alphabet. It's counter to his sympathy for indigenous cultures, which is present even in this book.  Maybe the publisher didn't want to change the typeface?

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com>
>Sent: Feb 6, 2011 5:30 AM
>To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: V2, Chap 15 (Sahha), I, p 460
>
>Getting started a day early....
>
>A few words about the chapter title ("Sahha" [Sic]).  The word is
>meant to represent the Maltese valedictory interjection ("Cheers";
>"Bye";"Health") and it is misspelled.  Pynchon almost certainly knows
>its misspelled for reasons I'm about to explain.
>
>Maltese is a language spelled with an alphabet of 30 letters, some of
>which are the conventional Latin letters with diacritical marks.  One
>of these letters represents the sound called the "voiceless pharyngeal
>fricative" - this letter (which I can't represent in this posting
>unfortunately; you'll have to follow one of the links below to see how
>it looks) is customarily called "h with stroke."  The "sahha" of the
>chapter title should actually be spelled: "s-a-h with stroke-h with
>stroke-a".
>
>However, "h with stroke" also appears, very significantly, in quantum
>mechanics, when it's called "h-bar" and where it represents the
>"reduced Planck constant."  In this guise, it's fundamental to the
>measurements of black body radiation, photoelectric effect, and most
>famously as a measure of uncertainty in quantum systems.  In other
>words, the title of this chapter when correctly spelled looks, to the
>eye of a trained physicist, like some unknown term of quantum
>dynamics.
>
>Here's how to pronounce the word:
>http://www.forvo.com/word/sahha/
>
>On the Maltese language:
>http://www.omniglot.com/writing/maltese.htm
>
>On "H with stroke":
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%A6
>
>On the "Reduced Planck constant":
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_Planck_constant#Reduced_Planck_constant
>
>-- 
>Richard Ryan
>New York and the World
>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~