Mark Pallen's video: Origin of Species in Dub HD: I-nternational Grandeur

Rationale for the track This track celebrates the closing words of Origin of Species while simultaneously highlighting the international and universal nature of Darwin’s insights. The closing words are repeated in over a dozen languages, which represent much of the planet’s linguistic diversity (Darwin himself noted the parallels between linguistic and biological evolution): The melody is a theme taken from Offenbach’s Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld (the same piece later contains the melody usually associated with the Can Can). Lyrics “With a book, as with a fine day, one likes it to end with a glorious sunset” Charles Darwin, Letter 164. to T .H. HUXLEY . Down, 1863. “There is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved.” Closing words of Origin of Species “I-nternational Grandeur” “I-nternational!” A Rasta-style play on words, emphasising the word “I”, see W ikipedia article on Rastafrianism for use of the term “I” in Rastafarianism “Darwin no fi one time, fi one country , but fi all time, fi all country!” Darwin is not for one time or one country, but for all time, for all countries (echoing Ben Johnson’s description of Shakespeare) Big it up fi Darwin inna Euopean stylee, seen! Let’s emphasize it for Dawrin in a European style French Read by M ickael Desvaux Translation obtained from http://site.ifrance.com/hibouq/Sci-et-tec/biologie/N ature/Darwin/T abledesmatieres.html T ranslator unknown German Read by K laus Fütterer Spanish Read by Jorge Camaano Romanian Read and translated by Emil Toescu Finnish (translated by A.R. Koskimies 1917) Read by Jouni Jaakkola We thank Susanna Valanne with help in finding the translation Russian The "Origin of S pecies" in R ussian is available at http://charles-darwin.narod.ru/origin-content .html. The translator's name is not shown. The Russian version was originally published in Moscow in 1939 by the USS R Academy of Sciences. Read by Andrey K arlyshev “Mek wi forward ‘pon Africa” Let’s move forward to Africa! W est Africa Ga [translated and read in Ga, by Martin Antonio] South Africa Xhosa [translated and read in Xhosa by Maphasa A TIoti (popularly known as KK)] “Bring in mi Asian bredren-dem and sistren!” Bring in my Asian brothers and sisters. N ote plural marker “-dem” in Jamaican Creole for animate nouns Hindi Read and translated by Vibhor Gupta Chinese Translated by Xin Yao and his students Read by Lihong Zhang Arabic Translated by Salwa El-Awa Read by Rasha Y ounis Hebrew Translated by Ilan Rosenshine and his students Read by Uri Gophna Dub it up for Darwin Dub it up, dub it up! Give ‘im more, give ‘im less, give ‘im brawta! [brawta is a Jamaicanism meaning “a little extra”] Various samples from previous readings follow in the dub section Take it away! Esperanto Translated by Cleve Lendon (with minor modifications from Mark Pallen). Read by Mark Pallen Available online from http://www4.vc-net.ne.jp/~klivo/origino/ “There is grandeur ....” Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together fi Charles Robert Darwin, 1809-1882 Notes on the V ideo NASA movies of Earth and Mars and same text in different languages throughout. Martian images speak to the hypothesis that life may have originated there and then spread to Earth. See http://arxiv .org/pdf/astro-ph/0403049 Video starts with Jamaican sunset by Dominic White. Images of Dominic White. Images of possible Martian bacterial fossils from meteorite ALH 84001 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALH_84001). Images of Paris. Fractal movie showing Mandelbrot set. Images of Berlin. Images of anthrax bacilli as visualized by German microbiologist Robert Koch. Haeckel’s Pedigree of Man (see above). Romanian churches. Map of Romania. Screen grab of wikipedia in Romanian. Phylogram illustrating descent of Romance languages, especially Romanian. Jamaican landscape. Images of Jorge Camaano reading Darwin in Spanish. Finnish flag and landscape. Images of Masai Mara. Ghanaian people, places, tree. Martin Antonio reading Darwin in Ga. Cape Province landscape from NASA. Screen grab of Xhosa page from Wikipedia. Southern African animals and fossil hominid. Ancient Hindu temple. Hindi characters for “Charles Darwin”. Taj Mahal. Great Panda. Chinese characters for evolution. Satellite view of Iraq; boat on Euphrates river. W estern or W ailing wall in Jerusalem .Desert cactus (origin of the term Sabra for native born Israelis). Martian fly-though featuring V alles Marineris and Olympus Mons. Church organ. Then multiple images of Darwin and the Origin leading to grand finale.