Know Any Dead Languages?
by Paul McGoldrick
Even after five years of Latin at school, in Rome I now have trouble reading the simplest inscriptions of one Pontiff or another declaring the wonderful works they expect to be eternally remembered for. That is arguably not as dead a language as Ancient Greek but when even the Italians have no comprehension of it, Latin is pretty well much up there, although academics will insist that a knowledge of such an ancient language helps us understand our modern ones. But, and I'm not sure whether it is to my regret or not, I know even deader communications languages.
No, I'm talking about Klingon, which I understand is actually a major growth language: I'm talking gruesomely-dead tech talk.
My first guilt (I think) is Morse Code. My reading of Code is certainly not as fast as it was years ago but I can still read the 12 wpm of the wireless handhelds used by airline personnel at airports - when they chatter away after they haven't been used for whatever programmed time it is. Once I was able to send at 45+ wpm with a paddle key and read solidly (from a good transmission fist) at 25+ wpm. Exactly how the brain knows that what you are sending is good code, when you can't read as fast as your wrist is moving, is rather beyond me even after all these years - but every operator knows it to be a fact, that you don't, can't, think about it; you just do it.
Morse is now officially dead, so those of us who continue to believe we know the language are probably as few and far apart as surviving Navajo code readers from the Pacific Theater of WW-II.
But there is worse. A major guilt which is difficult to carry around on my puny shoulders, a language understanding that is surely bizarre beyond comprehension - I still remember the vast majority of the Q-Codes. Did that just slide right over the heads of most readers? To be Q-Code savvy requires that not only did you come from the heady days of Morse Code but that you were also involved in at least amateur radio (for some of the Codes) and have either maritime or aeronautical experience. Obviously I was totally, completely indoctrinated that I can remember this stuff better than my times-tables.
To prove I wasn't fooling myself I started to write done Q-Codes as I thought of them, and then I worked alphabeticallyb to fill in the gaps. I started with the easy QRA-QUZ range that was used (or misused) by everybody and then moved into the specialized aeronautical ones (some of which were used maritime as well with port being synonymous with airport, etc.) and the first thing I realized was that the only still commonly-used aero Q-Code (in Europe at least) is QFE which is also one of the only codes that was subsequently allowed for voice transmission. [QFE is the pressure setting (in mm Hg, in metric countries) on the subscale for an altimeter (just plain "altimeter" setting - in inches - in U.S. ATC parlance.)]
The system of Q-Codes was instituted in London in 1912 at the Radiotelegraph Convention, but it has been a living, changing, arena ever since to keep up with the times. Some of the Codes were also adapted from over-air meanings to telegram billing inquiries and methods which I have no understanding of, and at this stage of the game don't wish to.
I had to look up about 25% of the codes - because even though I knew that they were valid codes I could not remember what the heck they meant - so this is not really Mensa material.
Check out my list and let
me know what other Codes I have forgotten: Just to know that I have forgotten
some - and there are gaps where I don't remember whether there was a valid
Code or not - is a great relief to my thinking that I was antediluvian,
or at least pre-SSB.