Fun fact: to write this paper, Knuth actually learned ancient Akkadian and Sumerian (at least enough to look up dictionaries):
> Most of the Babylonian mathematical tablets have never been translated into English. The translations above have been made by comparing the German of [3, 4, 5] with the French [8]; but these two versions actually differ in many details, so the Akkadian and Sumerian vocabularies published in [4, 8, 6] have been consulted in an attempt to give an accurate rendition.
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Fun fact: to write this paper, Knuth actually learned ancient Akkadian and Sumerian (at least enough to look up dictionaries):
> Most of the Babylonian mathematical tablets have never been translated into English. The translations above have been made by comparing the German of [3, 4, 5] with the French [8]; but these two versions actually differ in many details, so the Akkadian and Sumerian vocabularies published in [4, 8, 6] have been consulted in an attempt to give an accurate rendition.
Also see: https://www.artsy.net/article/ruse-laboratories-this-is-the-...
(Snow Crash reference)