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The Rosetta Rinse

The Archives of Sanhel were varied, but fascinating. Some of the museum objects were repetitive, and oddly so: hundreds of kentoon specimens, with their multiple wings. Probably a thousand sandeets. Only a specialist would be able to recognize or even derive meaning from the slight variations in sandeet skin colorations, ventricle counts, etc.

But the Rosetta Rinse Tubular Artifact was one of a kind.

Its role in clarifying many language mysteries of the vanished Erth planet cannot be overstated. Its primary gift, of course, to the scholars of the Kantrian Intergalactic Study Council (KISC) was in providing meanings for multiple words in the unknown Erthly tongues.

We should note, however, that the controversies and interpretations that spin off of this one discovery may exceed the actual knowledge gained.

The upside, of course, is the key role that the Rosetta Rinse played in unlocking many word meanings and parts of speech in the unknown languages of Erth, the Franchish, the Germansk, the Itali, the Spanisch. Since we have so many words in the Known language, English (at least a thousand), scholars were fairly easily able to detect their synonyms in the unknown languages, and figure out at least portions of many previously unrecognizable texts.

Just the first sentence (known by all, but still worth mentioning):

“Infuse your style with shine that reflects the real you”

Was the key to understanding many words and also sentence structures in its translated sentences, which also appear on the flexible tube (or bottle):

"Insuffliez a votre chevelure la brillance qui reflete votre vraie nature"
"Resalta su estilo con el brillo que te refleja a ti mismo"
"Verleihen Sie Ihrem Styling Glanz, der das Beste von Ihnen ans Licht bringt"
"Completa il tuo stile con une lucentezza che riflette il tuo vero io"

These sentences are now central in any undergraduate level intergalactic language study course. Few go on to investigate the meaning of the subsequent sentences in English:

"Get a daily dose of soy proteins and shea butter to help strengthen and moisturize"
"Helps protect against sun damage"

It is well that such sentence structures are reserved for graduate study, suffused as they are with deep, tragic meaning. It is considered unhealthy for younger students to spend time dwelling on the negative aspects of what we understand, based on these sentences, to be the impending doom of this planet, due to some slowly-increasing yet unidentified solar event, for which the Rosetta Rinse was, scholars believe, some sort of temporary antidote.

It is significant that such an object, picked up apparently by accident during a routine automated galactic probe stop on the Erth planet prior to the as-yet-unidentified planetary extinction event, should prove to be so crucial to our understanding of the former planet Erth.

The understanding gained, however, is more or less merely linguistic, since the words we know in English shed light on the apparently similar words in the unknown languages and have rendered them, in many cases, less obscure.

These connections are more or less clear in many cases since, for example, it is obvious that the word “style” in English must mean the same thing as “estilo,” “Styling,” and “stile” in the examples seen above, though the use of “chevelure” in the Frenchish sample continues to puzzle (but more on that controversy later).

These word equivalencies are not the great source of curiosity in the text, however. The controversies are of a larger scope.

Consider that we know that the key English phrase “Infuse your style with shine that reflects the real you” literally means that the user of whatever was in the Rosetta Rinse Tubular Artifact was somehow going to enhance their behaviour (style) with shine (some sort of reflective element) that reflects the real you (one’s actual essence, or soul).

The standard interpretation of this phrase is that the user of the unknown contents of the bottle would somehow increase their personal force, or the strength of their inner being.

How any substance, contained in such a package, could effect such a change, is a great mystery, of course. Many of our contemporaries point to this sentence as a reminder that even ancient, defunct civilizations such as the Erth peoples had technologies that we, with all of our technological prowess, do not understand,

This of course is the source for all of the pseudo-shine products that we see in the unofficial "instantaneous" Kantrian planetary markets, despite all of the stringent bans.

Less time is spent on the next two sentences, as stated:

"Get a daily dose of soy proteins and shea butter to help strengthen and moisturize"
"Helps protect against sun damage"

but there are intriguing mysteries here as well. It is known, in the first example, that the “soy” word refers to a food product, as does the “butter” word. The only known use of the "shea" word is in the grainy archival photo taken of the “Shea” stadium building in the United States quadrant. Most scholars conclude that the butter food product was manufactured in the Shea Stadium. There is no conclusive proof, but there is no reason to doubt the conclusion, either.

What is curious about the “daily dose” sentence is the admonition to “moisturize.”

Most scholars consider that a subtle reference or rather a bridge to the grim message in the next sentence regarding the need to protect against sun damage. The Erth creatures were apparently forced to constantly replenish bodily fluids in an increasingly overheated atmosphere.

The Rosetta Rinse artifact, therefore, must be appreciated not only as the linguistic key to aspects of the unknown Erth languages but also as both a practical tool and a permanent artifact of the philosophical stance of an entire race, defiant in the face of impending doom, such as the advent of a superheating sun, which, apparently, ultimately consumed the planet. That the inhabitants fought that change, and attempted to delay it with spiritually based tools such as the Rosetta Rinse, is a source of great inspiration to most if not all Kantrians.

From that reverence comes the honored and secure placement of the Rosetta Rinse in its own highly secure display in the innermost circle of the Archives of Sanhel.

That reverence is not diminished by the small but virulent group of cosmolinguists who, latching onto the Franchish word “chevelure” claim that the word refers to some unknown bodily feature on the Erth beings, and that the Rosetta Rinse is merely some sort of personal grooming product.

The overwhelming evidence, however, from the Known language, and its repetitions in most of the other versions, is that the word “style” is an aspect of behavior, not of appearance, and so such denigrations do not dominate or even rarely affect the public’s affection for the Rosetta Rinse Tubular Artifact, which, indeed, remains the single most popular museum attraction in the entire Archives of Sanhel facility.