Now here's a little something to confuse. I believe the Zoidberg shirt was thrown in to confuse as I was tipped off that it was written in Hebrew. If that is the case, the Hebrew language (and alphabet) have already been discovered and thus needn't be deciphered.
Although here was a thought from Samuel Rivier
you know that hebrew thing on zoidberg's shirt in nov 14th episode with the slurm? It doesn't say slurm on there. I did some decoding, and I have a few possibilities. The first letter is somewhat a rhomus shape with a small tail, corresponding mainly to samekh (s), but also possibly mem (m, the two are almost indistinctable) and to a lesser extent teth (t.) and a long-shot pe (p or f).
The second letter is an upside-down inverse L with a tail at the front. It corresponds to daleth (d, resh (r), and at the end of a word, kaph (k), as well as in a long-shot lamed (l).
The next is a stick with what appear to be two tails at the front, like an inverse f. This corresponds to vav (v or w), zayin (z), and at the end of a word, nun (n). None of these have two tails, but there is an apostrophe-like letter yod (y, j, i) that can combine with another letter to this. The possibilities are still the same, but perhaps this comination can form a u sound?
The fourth letter is like the second but with a prolonged virtical tail at the front. It is, without question, lamed (l), but if you want to stretch it it can be any of th letters possible for the second one.
The last letter is a w shape, and two letters correspond. The first is a w with a dot on the top right (shin, sh or s^) and the second is a w with a dot on the far left (/sin, /s). If you look closely at the shirt, you can make out the dot at the far left, so the last letter is without question or doubt, /sin.
To possibly make this shirt say slurm, the last letter would have to be an m, which, at the beginning and end of a word, is still a box. There is no other way to make an m. So to decipher this, we need to get some combinations in that make sense. I will leave this to you and your viewers or readers or whoever the hell goes to this site :)
Here are different opinions on the above statement.
From Blake:
On your "alien alphabets" page, there's some discussion of
Zoidberg's "Slurm" shirt in Hebrew. The suggestion is that the shirt
doesn't say "Slurm" because the Hebrew letters don't match: the first
letter is not an "s", the second not an "l", etc.
In fact, the letters match up perfectly -- because Hebrew is written from
right to left. Thus, from right to left, the letters are shin, lamedh, vau,
resh, mem -- definitely spelling "Slurm" (or, perhaps, "Schlurm").
From Jon Mars:
Regarding Samuel Rivier's comments about the Hebrew lettering on
Zoidberg's shirt in Episode 13 - Fry & The Slurm Factory: It does INDEED
spell out SLURM... Mr. Rivier has seemingly forgotten that the Hebrew
language is read from right to left. Keep up the good work.
From Raizin:
About the Hebrew writing in the Slurm factory. Your informant
was almost right in decoding it, except he forgot the important detail that
Hebrew is read form right to left, not left to right.
Therefore, the first letter is a shin, the w-like letter on the right which
could stand for a "sh" or "s."
The next letter, the vav, the line on the left of the shin, usually makes a
"v" sound, but the little dot next to it turns it into a vowel and means it
actually makes an "oo" sound.
After that is the resh. This is pretty straight-forward in that it makes
an "r" sound.
The last letter is a final mem, meaning it's a mem that only comes at the
end of a word. The mem makes a "mm" sound.
Put it all together, and it spells "Shloorm"... or "Slurm!"
From Rinchwind:
About the hebrew writing on Zoidberg's shirt in episod 13, the
writing was probably ment to be
slurm, but it is actualy a typo and it read's
more like shlorm.
But these are very acurate hebrew letters
from right to left it reads shin (sh) lamed (l)
vav (o) raish (r) mem (m)
Being from Israel I should know these things...
From Brian Blovett:
Just a little bit about the hebrew word on the shirt in the Slurm
episode:
The word is ideed "Slurm". The person who's comments appear in your "Alien
languages" page forgot that a vav with a dot to the right is in fact a "u"
vowel when
the dot is about halfway up the letter. If the dot were above the letter,
it would be an
"o" (as in "home") vowel.
So reading from right to left, we have sin (s), lamed (l), (u), resh (r),
and final mem
(m)... SLURM! Incidentally, that shirt reminded me of several shirts I've
seen with
"Coca-Cola" written in hebrew.
From Jeffrey S. Kobal:
Mr. Rivier has some of his facts straight, but is missing a few key pieces
of information, not the least of which is the fact that Hebrew reads from
right to left. His description of the "first letter" is actually the LAST letter in
the word, and the "last letter" is the FIRST. The five Hebrew letters are, reading
from right to left: Sin Lamed Vav Resh Mem (most of which he un-confidently
identified in reverse order).
The Vav is often used as a vowel in Hebrew, usually as a long O sound,
which would make the word be pronounced SLORM, which is about as
close as you're going to get with a Hebrew depiction of Slurm.
Welp, that raps up season 1 episodes, and alien alphabet (minus the j). We'll just have to look forward to season 2 of the alphabet, hopefully next week. Until then....good job all...it was fun.
