Unicode Dicks(revk.uk)
revk.uk
Unicode Dicks
https://www.revk.uk/2018/10/unicode-dicks.html
109 comments
The most common use is probably as a determinative. Ancient Egyptian, much like many Semitic languages, omits the vowels in a word in writing. Determinatives are ideograms that disambiguate between several words with the same consonants but different meanings.
That's an interesting fact. As someone with no knowledge of how languages are formed it makes me wonder why have a written language that purposefully omits vowels if other characters would need to be introduced in their place for disambiguation? What was the point of removing vowels?
That's an interesting fact. As someone with no knowledge of how languages are formed it makes me wonder why have a written language that purposefully omits vowels if other characters would need to be introduced in their place for disambiguation? What was the point of removing vowels?
They didn't "remove vowels" as much as started out without them! We're talking times when writing itself was utter novelty, a curiosity performed by a handful of scribes primarily for accounting purposes, and of no great importance to daily life at all.
By contrast, cuneiform (of Sumer origin -- a traditional rival power to ancient Egypt) did have vowels.
A surprising amount of history—writing, speaking, war, splitting the world into objects, naming them, whatever—is pure chance, turned tradition, turned myth and legend. That's the power of beginnings.
By contrast, cuneiform (of Sumer origin -- a traditional rival power to ancient Egypt) did have vowels.
A surprising amount of history—writing, speaking, war, splitting the world into objects, naming them, whatever—is pure chance, turned tradition, turned myth and legend. That's the power of beginnings.
> By contrast, cuneiform (of Sumer origin -- a traditional rival power to ancient Egypt) did have vowels.
One caveat: As I understand things, Sumerian started out without vowels (or consonants), much like Chinese, but developed phonetic usage over time (unlike Chinese :( ). This has resulted in early texts being much harder to read than later texts.
One caveat: As I understand things, Sumerian started out without vowels (or consonants), much like Chinese, but developed phonetic usage over time (unlike Chinese :( ). This has resulted in early texts being much harder to read than later texts.
Chinese did develop phonetic usage. Most characters are phono-semantic compounds, where part of the character is a character whose meaning is related (e.g. 驴 [lǘ] (donkey) contains 马 [mǎ] (horse)) and the other part has a similar pronunciation (e.g. 吗 [ma] (auxiliary word marking questions) also contains 马).
Unfortunately, those characters are mostly pretty old and the pronunciations have diverged. So the situation is a bit similar to that of English, where the orthography is a good guide to Middle English pronunciation, but confusing for modern people. Linguists love that it enables them to reconstruct ancient pronunciations, of course.
Unfortunately, those characters are mostly pretty old and the pronunciations have diverged. So the situation is a bit similar to that of English, where the orthography is a good guide to Middle English pronunciation, but confusing for modern people. Linguists love that it enables them to reconstruct ancient pronunciations, of course.
I'm familiar with the Chinese writing system. :p
It's not similar to English at all. Compare this translator's note from https://www.amazon.com/Xunzi-Complete-Text/dp/0691169314/ :
> The other feature of this translation that warrants comment is the handling of rhymed lines. The Xunzi contains numerous rhymed passages... Both Watson and Knoblock often overlook them, as do many translations of the Xunzi into modern Chinese and Japanese and Korean... I consider the presence of these rhymes a feature of the text that is sufficiently noteworth to deserve being reflected conspicuously in the translation. Since the rhyming sections can easily be overlooked... I have chosen to make them conspicuous by translating rhymed passages in Chinese with rhymed sections of English...
> The identification of the rhymes in the Chinese text requires detailed knowledge of ancient phonology that I lack, and so I have relied on published studies of rhymes in the Xunzi by other scholars. Since their analyses may have missed some of the rhyming passages, and since there is ongoing scholarly debate about how to reconstruct the sounds of ancient Chinese in the first place, I do not claim to have identified every instance of rhyme in the text...
So:
- In Old Chinese, before the pronunciation divergence you mention, the form of a character is not a guide to its pronunciation. (Rather, the pronunciation of another character is often used as inspiration when inventing a new character. But the relationship of a new character to its component parts is not regular or predictable.)
- By inspection of text, it isn't possible even to tell the difference between text that rhymes and text that doesn't rhyme, much less to tell what the words sounded like.
- A scholar who is competent to translate text written in Old Chinese is completely incompetent to determine whether Old Chinese text rhymes or doesn't rhyme. That's an entirely different field of study.
- Even when a scholar has published a book devoted to identifying rhymes within a very famous text, it is considered likely that that book will have just plain overlooked a number of rhymed passages.
These are not symptoms of a writing system that reflects the sounds of the language. The information conveyed by the writing about the sound of Chinese is so close to zero that the difference is immaterial.
Go look at some English rhyming poetry, and ask yourself how easy it would be, if you didn't know English, to tell the difference between that and unrhymed prose.
It's not similar to English at all. Compare this translator's note from https://www.amazon.com/Xunzi-Complete-Text/dp/0691169314/ :
> The other feature of this translation that warrants comment is the handling of rhymed lines. The Xunzi contains numerous rhymed passages... Both Watson and Knoblock often overlook them, as do many translations of the Xunzi into modern Chinese and Japanese and Korean... I consider the presence of these rhymes a feature of the text that is sufficiently noteworth to deserve being reflected conspicuously in the translation. Since the rhyming sections can easily be overlooked... I have chosen to make them conspicuous by translating rhymed passages in Chinese with rhymed sections of English...
> The identification of the rhymes in the Chinese text requires detailed knowledge of ancient phonology that I lack, and so I have relied on published studies of rhymes in the Xunzi by other scholars. Since their analyses may have missed some of the rhyming passages, and since there is ongoing scholarly debate about how to reconstruct the sounds of ancient Chinese in the first place, I do not claim to have identified every instance of rhyme in the text...
So:
- In Old Chinese, before the pronunciation divergence you mention, the form of a character is not a guide to its pronunciation. (Rather, the pronunciation of another character is often used as inspiration when inventing a new character. But the relationship of a new character to its component parts is not regular or predictable.)
- By inspection of text, it isn't possible even to tell the difference between text that rhymes and text that doesn't rhyme, much less to tell what the words sounded like.
- A scholar who is competent to translate text written in Old Chinese is completely incompetent to determine whether Old Chinese text rhymes or doesn't rhyme. That's an entirely different field of study.
- Even when a scholar has published a book devoted to identifying rhymes within a very famous text, it is considered likely that that book will have just plain overlooked a number of rhymed passages.
These are not symptoms of a writing system that reflects the sounds of the language. The information conveyed by the writing about the sound of Chinese is so close to zero that the difference is immaterial.
Go look at some English rhyming poetry, and ask yourself how easy it would be, if you didn't know English, to tell the difference between that and unrhymed prose.
As a counterpoint, I'll offer this -
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!Fittingly titled "The Chaos": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos
So... is that all of them?
That's not much of a counterpoint. It's written specifically to use rhymes that appear not to be rhymes, is forced to use visually obvious rhymes anyway, and looks nothing like prose.
That's the power of beginnings.
A great illustration of this is alphabets. Look at the Latin Alphabet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet Most ancient words are "foreign" (heh-heh), but most letters are quite recognizable.
Also quite a few of the ancient Greek letters are still in today's English alphabet (via Latin).
A great illustration of this is alphabets. Look at the Latin Alphabet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet Most ancient words are "foreign" (heh-heh), but most letters are quite recognizable.
Also quite a few of the ancient Greek letters are still in today's English alphabet (via Latin).
When were the Sumerians a rival power to the Egyptians? The civilizations that followed the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (e.g., Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.) were definitely competitors with Egypt, but I don't recall ever reading about the Sumerians competing with Egypt. Do you have a source for that?
In the same way their written language couldn't express vowels, the english written language cannot adequately express the full range of tones and pauses we have when speaking.
People have attempted to convey some portions of spoken tone with thing like the "<sarcasm>" tag, and commas/ellipses/etc all convey some level of pauses, but they are not substitutes for the full nuance of spoken english.
Asking "Why did their written language not convey the full range of spoken sounds by default" is like asking "Why doesn't written English contain volume cues to indicate when the speaking tone should be louder".
All written languages that are created to represent a spoken language are inherently lossy.
People have attempted to convey some portions of spoken tone with thing like the "<sarcasm>" tag, and commas/ellipses/etc all convey some level of pauses, but they are not substitutes for the full nuance of spoken english.
Asking "Why did their written language not convey the full range of spoken sounds by default" is like asking "Why doesn't written English contain volume cues to indicate when the speaking tone should be louder".
All written languages that are created to represent a spoken language are inherently lossy.
they are not substitutes for the full nuance of spoken english.
A good illustration of this can be found in live speeches or interviews. A transcript often seems confusing or disjointed. When you view the actual speech itself it's cohesive and easily understood.
A good illustration of this can be found in live speeches or interviews. A transcript often seems confusing or disjointed. When you view the actual speech itself it's cohesive and easily understood.
An even more direct comparison might be something like "I read that book," which has two different meanings that are pronounced differently but spelled the same.
> no knowledge of how languages are formed
I recommend reading this article. The problem he is solving is representing text in ASCII. For example an e with an accent can be replaced with a plain e. But what about languages not using the base Roman alphabet? You get a fascinating tour of Divehi and the final result - the unidecode module - works rather well.
http://interglacial.com/tpj/22/
I recommend reading this article. The problem he is solving is representing text in ASCII. For example an e with an accent can be replaced with a plain e. But what about languages not using the base Roman alphabet? You get a fascinating tour of Divehi and the final result - the unidecode module - works rather well.
http://interglacial.com/tpj/22/
> "I am rather sure, however, that it cannot be done with a mere regular expression, and that is not something I say lightly!"
This sounds like a challenge.
This sounds like a challenge.
They didn't remove em, it just never occured to them to have them. There's still an interesting question about why old languages from that region didn't have vowels, if this is true of other ancient written languages from other regions, when vowels were added/why/etc.
They didn't need them. If you remove the vowels from your sentence you will find that you will probably still be able to read it. Modern Hebrew and Arabic get along just fine without vowels. Children's books in Hebrew do have the vowels since the kids don't know yet how to pronounce the words, but gradually they kids grow up and the vowels are gradually dropped out until they can read without them just like adults.
Still strange, given the rebus principle of phonetic hieroglyph use mentioned above: why would I use a pictures of a bee and a rock to form the sound baroque? Why not a bar and a rock (or a ba, whatever that would be)?
If you take existing, drawable words you implicitly get the vowels with the consonants, unless explicitly ruled out by convention. Maybe the answer is dialects, that there was much wider consensus over the spoken consonants than over the spoken vowels. Lacking audio recordings we will never find out (it's crazy enough that we can reconstruct those languages to the point where so many translations turn out somewhat plausible)
If you take existing, drawable words you implicitly get the vowels with the consonants, unless explicitly ruled out by convention. Maybe the answer is dialects, that there was much wider consensus over the spoken consonants than over the spoken vowels. Lacking audio recordings we will never find out (it's crazy enough that we can reconstruct those languages to the point where so many translations turn out somewhat plausible)
I'm not sure what is obvious or implicit to you was obvious or implicit to people speaking/writing ancient egyptian languages.
Hebrew still (mostly) lacks vowels (and Arabic has a few, but is missing some we'd expect as important to pronunciation), to this day. I wonder if we asked a contemporary Hebrew speaker if "you implicitly get the vowels with the consonants" when you combine phonetic representations, if they would agree.
In any event, it's usually a mistake to assume you know what was obvious or implicit or straightforward to people living thousands of years ago. Different things were.
Hebrew still (mostly) lacks vowels (and Arabic has a few, but is missing some we'd expect as important to pronunciation), to this day. I wonder if we asked a contemporary Hebrew speaker if "you implicitly get the vowels with the consonants" when you combine phonetic representations, if they would agree.
In any event, it's usually a mistake to assume you know what was obvious or implicit or straightforward to people living thousands of years ago. Different things were.
When you have a symbol representing a word, it represents all the defined (by convention) properties of the word. All the semantics, all the the vocalization. The defined part, that is. You don't get any undefined parts, e.g. if you had separate symbols for "read (past tense)" and "read (present tense)" they would "naturally" include relative speed but not relative pitch. If vowels are significant at one point in the language's use, but the rebus principle allows for mismatching substitutions it would be a strong indication that at some earlier point they were not, either because they had regionally differing conventions (while still mutually understood) or because they were just filled in ad-hoc based on context (e.g. how pitch is decided upon when speaking a language where it is not significant: just make it sound pleasant and/or communicate macro structure).
Of course, over time weird things do happen and you might end up with a mess like english where the relationship between phonetic encoding and actual vocalization is incredibly weak and serves only as a hint for narrowing down the actual encoding+context to semantics to vocalization lookup chain.
Of course, over time weird things do happen and you might end up with a mess like english where the relationship between phonetic encoding and actual vocalization is incredibly weak and serves only as a hint for narrowing down the actual encoding+context to semantics to vocalization lookup chain.
Actually in ancient Egyptian in many cases there are multiple ways to write a given word as multiple characters could yield the same sounds.
Chinese writing to this day doesn't indicate the sound of the word at all. A fortiori, it doesn't indicate vowels.
The first written Semitic language, Akkadian, _does_ indicate vowels, because doing so is mandatory in the writing system Akkadian used, the cuneiform originally developed for Sumerian.
(Egyptian is closely related to the Semitic languages, but not quite closely enough that it's called Semitic. Instead both are grouped together in the larger category of "afroasiatic" languages, also including other south-Mediterranean languages.)
It may never have occurred to the Egyptians to include vowels in their writing, but omitting vowels from Phoenician can only have been a purposeful choice, as the existing systems (except Egyptian) did have them.
The first written Semitic language, Akkadian, _does_ indicate vowels, because doing so is mandatory in the writing system Akkadian used, the cuneiform originally developed for Sumerian.
(Egyptian is closely related to the Semitic languages, but not quite closely enough that it's called Semitic. Instead both are grouped together in the larger category of "afroasiatic" languages, also including other south-Mediterranean languages.)
It may never have occurred to the Egyptians to include vowels in their writing, but omitting vowels from Phoenician can only have been a purposeful choice, as the existing systems (except Egyptian) did have them.
> Chinese writing to this day doesn't indicate the sound of the word at all. A fortiori, it doesn't indicate vowels.
That's not true. The vast majority of Chinese characters (estimated at around 90% or more) are phono-semantic compounds, which were also devised based on the Rebus principle that the OP of the thread mentioned.
These compounds consist of an element that hints at a word’s pronunciation (the "phonetic"), together with an element that hints at its meaning (the "radical"). The phonetic and radical are respectively analogous to the rebus and determinative of Egyptian hieroglyphics that the OP also mentioned.
For example, the following characters all share the same phonetic 青, which is pronounced qīng in Mandarin Chinese:
請 - pronounced qǐng - with the 言 speech radical, means "to invite, please"
情 - pronounced qíng - with the 忄 heart radical, means "feeling, emotion"
清 - pronounced qīng - with the 氵 water radical, means "clear"
睛 - pronounced jīng - with the 目 eye radical, means "eye"
The character 青, which means "blue/green", lends its pronunciation qīng to the characters in these examples, not its meaning.
One major caveat is that because the Chinese writing system has been around for a very long time and both the meanings and pronunciations of characters can shift over time, the phonetic and semantic components of many characters are no longer as reliable in indicating their pronunciation or meaning. In many cases they are still good enough though. It’s interesting to note that because sound changes are often systematic, the phonetic components of phono-semantic compounds still generally work within any particular spoken variety of Chinese (i.e., the pronunciation of the phonetic evolves similarly to the pronunciation of the other characters that make use of the phonetic), even though the various Chinese varieties may have diverged differently.
[ This response was adapted from my original answer in Quora: https://qr.ae/TUhrP0 ]
That's not true. The vast majority of Chinese characters (estimated at around 90% or more) are phono-semantic compounds, which were also devised based on the Rebus principle that the OP of the thread mentioned.
These compounds consist of an element that hints at a word’s pronunciation (the "phonetic"), together with an element that hints at its meaning (the "radical"). The phonetic and radical are respectively analogous to the rebus and determinative of Egyptian hieroglyphics that the OP also mentioned.
For example, the following characters all share the same phonetic 青, which is pronounced qīng in Mandarin Chinese:
請 - pronounced qǐng - with the 言 speech radical, means "to invite, please"
情 - pronounced qíng - with the 忄 heart radical, means "feeling, emotion"
清 - pronounced qīng - with the 氵 water radical, means "clear"
睛 - pronounced jīng - with the 目 eye radical, means "eye"
The character 青, which means "blue/green", lends its pronunciation qīng to the characters in these examples, not its meaning.
One major caveat is that because the Chinese writing system has been around for a very long time and both the meanings and pronunciations of characters can shift over time, the phonetic and semantic components of many characters are no longer as reliable in indicating their pronunciation or meaning. In many cases they are still good enough though. It’s interesting to note that because sound changes are often systematic, the phonetic components of phono-semantic compounds still generally work within any particular spoken variety of Chinese (i.e., the pronunciation of the phonetic evolves similarly to the pronunciation of the other characters that make use of the phonetic), even though the various Chinese varieties may have diverged differently.
[ This response was adapted from my original answer in Quora: https://qr.ae/TUhrP0 ]
> That's not true. The vast majority of Chinese characters (estimated at around 90% or more) are phono-semantic compounds, which were also devised based on the Rebus principle that the OP of the thread mentioned.
See this very interesting article that constructs a writing system for English using the same principles: https://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm
See this very interesting article that constructs a writing system for English using the same principles: https://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm
See my other response at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18349921 . There is often an element in a Chinese character which is historically related to the sound of the character, but the information flow there is in the wrong direction (and is historical rather than current). You can't predict the sound of a character from its form.
Thanks for the more information! I may not have known what I thought I knew. However, some googling leaves me still unsure.
This web page suggests that the earliest known written languages were all vowel-less, including the ancient Egyptian alphabet, Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician, and South Arabian. It doesn't mention Akkadian though.
https://www.ancient.eu/alphabet/
Other googling suggests Phoenician developed from Proto-Canaanite. Even if other written languages with vowels were around at the time it developed, I don't know if that means it was a _purposeful choice_ exactly. Just based on how languages works, it seems plausible it just evolved from Proto-Canaanite by people who knew how to write Proto-Canaanite, which doesn't necessarily mean they thought "Gee, should we add in vowels like those Akkadians?" I don't know if we have any way of knowing?
But you may know more about it than me, or what I found on google.
This web page suggests that the earliest known written languages were all vowel-less, including the ancient Egyptian alphabet, Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician, and South Arabian. It doesn't mention Akkadian though.
https://www.ancient.eu/alphabet/
Other googling suggests Phoenician developed from Proto-Canaanite. Even if other written languages with vowels were around at the time it developed, I don't know if that means it was a _purposeful choice_ exactly. Just based on how languages works, it seems plausible it just evolved from Proto-Canaanite by people who knew how to write Proto-Canaanite, which doesn't necessarily mean they thought "Gee, should we add in vowels like those Akkadians?" I don't know if we have any way of knowing?
But you may know more about it than me, or what I found on google.
That page does mention Akkadian in passing, by referring to "Cuneiform". It accurately notes that there are many more cuneiform signs than there are sounds being represented, and so it's not really right to call cuneiform an "alphabet". However, it is still true that (particularly by that point) cuneiform writing obligatorily indicated vowels.
A fun fact that I particularly like: the form "Ra" for the old Egyptian sun deity is a transcription convention which transcribes an Egyptian consonant as the vowel "a". The Egyptians generally did not include a vowel in their writings of the name. However, we actually do know the vowel used in the god's name, because he is mentioned in diplomatic correspondence, written in Akkadian. The vowel is [i] (as in the English word "bee"), occurring between the R and the "A" (which is actually one of those back-of-throat consonants that modern Egyptians are so proud of).
A fun fact that I particularly like: the form "Ra" for the old Egyptian sun deity is a transcription convention which transcribes an Egyptian consonant as the vowel "a". The Egyptians generally did not include a vowel in their writings of the name. However, we actually do know the vowel used in the god's name, because he is mentioned in diplomatic correspondence, written in Akkadian. The vowel is [i] (as in the English word "bee"), occurring between the R and the "A" (which is actually one of those back-of-throat consonants that modern Egyptians are so proud of).
> That's an interesting fact. As someone with no knowledge of how languages are formed it makes me wonder why have a written language that purposefully omits vowels if other characters would need to be introduced in their place for disambiguation? What was the point of removing vowels?
My understanding is the Semitic languages don't use vowels the same way that Indo-European languages do, and they can be typically inferred from context.
Also, they didn't "remove" vowels, but rather Indo-Europeans added them. Specifically when the Greeks adopted the Phonetician alphabet, they took a bunch of the letters that stood for consonants they didn't use and re-purposed them to represent the vowels that they needed to intelligibly write their language.
My understanding is the Semitic languages don't use vowels the same way that Indo-European languages do, and they can be typically inferred from context.
Also, they didn't "remove" vowels, but rather Indo-Europeans added them. Specifically when the Greeks adopted the Phonetician alphabet, they took a bunch of the letters that stood for consonants they didn't use and re-purposed them to represent the vowels that they needed to intelligibly write their language.
I'm not sure how accurate this is, but one thing I have read is that ancient writing was in some ways used as an aid to memory, rather than a means of communication. Imagine you have your cultural sagas and songs that are memorized and passed down from generation to generation. When writing arises, you use it as a way to make it easier to recite. You might not really care much about the "missing" vowels and you save parchment. Once you start down this path, you might go quite far before it occurs to someone to add vowels.
I imagine it's a bit like early music notations which left out the rhythm. The idea being that you'd probably have heard the music already, so the rhythm part would be passed verbally and didn't need to be written. Likewise with vowels...
[deleted]
It's interesting that "𓂓𓂸" displays correctly oh the same Windows Phone where separate penis character is censored.
Maybe it's marked as a kind of modifier that only appears in combination with another letter, since that seems to have been its primary (though not the only) use case according to wl.
There are some examples of usages here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Phallus_(hierogl...
They can mean urinate, semen; man; husband.
Combined with other symbols, one can form the meanings: copulate, ass/donkey and coward. The last may be the egyptian equivalent of "dickhead".
They can mean urinate, semen; man; husband.
Combined with other symbols, one can form the meanings: copulate, ass/donkey and coward. The last may be the egyptian equivalent of "dickhead".
It hasn't gone by completely unnoticed https://twitter.com/unicode/status/722133439726505984
Other semi-risque hieroglpyphics:
𓂑 U+13091 small breast
𓂒 U+13092 large breast
𓁒 U+13052 giving birth
𓁔 U+13054 breastfeeding
𓁤 U+13064 the god min
𓄡 U+13121 animals belly showing teats and tail
𓐍 U+1340D possibly the placenta, though could be a sieve
𓂑 U+13091 small breast
𓂒 U+13092 large breast
𓁒 U+13052 giving birth
𓁔 U+13054 breastfeeding
𓁤 U+13064 the god min
𓄡 U+13121 animals belly showing teats and tail
𓐍 U+1340D possibly the placenta, though could be a sieve
Ah, I wondered when this would be come up, so to speak.
It's just the Egyptian Hieroglyph Unicode block. Apparently the ancient Egyptians were not aware of the comedic value of this symbol to future generations.
It's just the Egyptian Hieroglyph Unicode block. Apparently the ancient Egyptians were not aware of the comedic value of this symbol to future generations.
I just checked a middle egyptian dictionary I just happen to have on my computer. There are 330 words that use D52 (the phallus or the phallus with the folded cloth). D52 was used to make the sound "mt". A sampling words that use D52 include: ancestors, bull, to appear, ox, men, impregnate, midday, fame, witness, discuss, artery, watermelon, without, to be thick, friend, husband, donkey, boom (or a ship), gateway, erection, sexual abuse, to plan, urine, etc.
The other one, D53 (phallus with liquid issuing), could be used to make the "bAh" sound. There are 200 words in my dictionary that use this sign. Some words include: boy, to know a woman sexually, Bull of Bulls, sperm, uncircumsized, virgin, to escape, lustful, poison, venom, in the presence of, masturbator, ejaculation, flood, virility, genitals, flaccid penis, to become erect, to sicken, seed, to pour forth, begotten one, male, son, profusion, discharge, sexually excite, homosexual, to commit adultery, repeated copulation, coward, unmanly, sissy, to sleep with, divine seed, to bear witness to the truth, sin, evil, to take a woman's virginity, etc.
The other one, D53 (phallus with liquid issuing), could be used to make the "bAh" sound. There are 200 words in my dictionary that use this sign. Some words include: boy, to know a woman sexually, Bull of Bulls, sperm, uncircumsized, virgin, to escape, lustful, poison, venom, in the presence of, masturbator, ejaculation, flood, virility, genitals, flaccid penis, to become erect, to sicken, seed, to pour forth, begotten one, male, son, profusion, discharge, sexually excite, homosexual, to commit adultery, repeated copulation, coward, unmanly, sissy, to sleep with, divine seed, to bear witness to the truth, sin, evil, to take a woman's virginity, etc.
> Apparently the ancient Egyptians were not aware of the comedic value of this symbol to future generations.
I wouldn't be so sure about that...
I wouldn't be so sure about that...
Right, I'm sure even people in antiquity thought bodies and poop were funny.
Whenever I read about Roman graffiti, I can't help but think humans have't changed all that much over time:
http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2...
http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2...
There are some there... yea. We haven't changed that much. What did Chie ever do?
> It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-joke-odd/worlds-oldest-jo...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-joke-odd/worlds-oldest-jo...
Ancient Egyptians: forever 12 years old
It is in the section "Parts of the Human Body" but I can't find a source willing to call it out by name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner%27s_sign_list#D._Part...
Edit: found one https://archive.org/details/COLLIERMANLEY1999EgyptianHierogl... via @FakeUnicode on Twitter https://twitter.com/FakeUnicode/status/722139283381821440
Edit: found one https://archive.org/details/COLLIERMANLEY1999EgyptianHierogl... via @FakeUnicode on Twitter https://twitter.com/FakeUnicode/status/722139283381821440
I was hoping an HN reader would be able to comment on what the purpose of the middle (𓂹) symbol is. Anyone?
Googling the symbol hasn't provided any leads.
Googling the symbol hasn't provided any leads.
The folded cloth was used by itself or in combination with many other signs, for example:
𓋴 U+132F4 folded cloth
𓄸 U+13138 folded cloth and intestines
𓋵 U+132F5 folded cloth and horned viper
𓋶 U+132F6 folded cloth and sickle
𓌭 U+1332D folded cloth and knife sharpener
𓌯 U+1332F folded cloth and butcher's knife sharpener
There are other signs that they also combined like this, for example,
𓌌 U+1330C cobra with mace
Both the cobra and the mace are also standalone signs, just as all the signs above are standalone signs in addition to being combined with the folded cloth. Why did the egyptians combine signs like this? I'm not sure. I've never read an explanation for it.
𓋴 U+132F4 folded cloth
𓄸 U+13138 folded cloth and intestines
𓋵 U+132F5 folded cloth and horned viper
𓋶 U+132F6 folded cloth and sickle
𓌭 U+1332D folded cloth and knife sharpener
𓌯 U+1332F folded cloth and butcher's knife sharpener
There are other signs that they also combined like this, for example,
𓌌 U+1330C cobra with mace
Both the cobra and the mace are also standalone signs, just as all the signs above are standalone signs in addition to being combined with the folded cloth. Why did the egyptians combine signs like this? I'm not sure. I've never read an explanation for it.
It's pretty common for signs to be rearranged or omitted for aesthetic reasons. There was a strong preference for signs to be grouped in boxes. For example, if we were find 𓅨𓂋 wr, it would almost always be written with 𓂋 underneath 𓅨. With the 𓋴 combinations, we're combining with symbols that are mostly horizontal with a vertical symbol. Sure, you could stack them, flip them to be parallel, or put them after each other like I did with 𓅨𓂋 wr. However, some scribes probably thought combining them in crosses looked better than any of the alternatives.
Sign D52A is a monogram combining sign D52 (transliteration: mt, phallus) and sign S29 (transliteration: s, folded cloth). It is read smt or smt(r). Possible translations, depending on context include the verbs to hear, to examine, to bear witness to, or to inquire.
The google-noto-sans-egyptian-hieroglyphs-fonts package provides the required fonts to enjoy this page on Fedora/CentOS 7.
Honest question: Why isn't there a penis emoji? As far as I can tell, the exclusion criteria given by the UTC doesn't forbid it and it seems to meet all the standards for inclusion. Is it just prudishness on the part of the UTC?
For anyone else who's curious what their standards are, the guidelines seem to be here: http://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#selection_factors
I guess they could say it falls under "Already representable" since we have eggplant emojis lmao. I would have guessed that they want to avoid emojis that are generally used in crude/offensive contexts, but there's a middle finger emoji so...
I guess they could say it falls under "Already representable" since we have eggplant emojis lmao. I would have guessed that they want to avoid emojis that are generally used in crude/offensive contexts, but there's a middle finger emoji so...
> I guess they could say it falls under "Already representable" since we have eggplant emojis lmao.
By that logic there's no need for the smiley emoji since we already have :).
I expect that the given reason would be that vendors would be unlikely to implement it. That's at least plausible, but if the UTC has ever given an actual reason I'd like to hear it.
By that logic there's no need for the smiley emoji since we already have :).
I expect that the given reason would be that vendors would be unlikely to implement it. That's at least plausible, but if the UTC has ever given an actual reason I'd like to hear it.
On a more serious note:
> And for those of you on Windows with a censored font
Anyone know how to resolve this? I think Mark Twain would deem me capable of chewing steak...
> And for those of you on Windows with a censored font
Anyone know how to resolve this? I think Mark Twain would deem me capable of chewing steak...
interesting PM meeting they had. Or following Carlin - "3 dirty hieroglyphs you cant see".
If Rongorongo ever gets included in Unicode, there'll be a new variant: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roro_076.svg
There's probably a similar glyph in ancient Chinese oracle bone script, which might one day end up in Unicode as well.
There's probably a similar glyph in ancient Chinese oracle bone script, which might one day end up in Unicode as well.
> bone script
Hey, no puns allowed on HN.
Hey, no puns allowed on HN.
On my mac os Mojave, those glyph do not show up (aka, they show up as square boxes).
Anybody else experiencing this on mac os mojave or is it something wrong on my end?
edit: they don't show up in chrome and won't work in slack, they do work in iMessage.
edit2: safari happily displays them
Anybody else experiencing this on mac os mojave or is it something wrong on my end?
edit: they don't show up in chrome and won't work in slack, they do work in iMessage.
edit2: safari happily displays them
Now that this is more commonly known, I wonder how long it will take for social media platforms to start filtering it out.
That would be unfortunate for people working with or discussing Egyptian texts. It's not like this is an uncommon symbol in hieroglyphic texts.
How many Egyptologists are discussing hyroglyphics on social media?
I'm no Egyptologist, but I have discussed middle Egyptian hieroglyphic texts on Facebook. Admittedly, images, images of text produced by JSesh, and standard transliterations are more common than Unicode.
[deleted]
I'm disappointed the article doesn't also point out that there are also egyptian hieroglyphic characters for breasts.
It was actually pretty uncommon for ancient humans to draw the human form, let alone dicks. I think one of the earlier images with a dick in it was of birdman. More current anthro or art history buffs hopefully will put me in my place. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux#/media/File%3ALascau...
Edit I mention this becaus the author speculates humans have been drawing dicks for ages. Society had been much more interested in the female form. See the Venus figurines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines
This all makes a bit of sense if you acknowledge the patriarchy: how much of your interest and indeed porn is dick focused after you’re 12?
Edit I mention this becaus the author speculates humans have been drawing dicks for ages. Society had been much more interested in the female form. See the Venus figurines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines
This all makes a bit of sense if you acknowledge the patriarchy: how much of your interest and indeed porn is dick focused after you’re 12?
Why does 𓂸 render correctly in Chrome's address bar, but not anywhere inside a webpage rendered inside Chrome?
Chrome's address bar uses OS fonts, whereas webpages use Chrome's fonts.
It's working for me with Chrome on Android
Time to buy `𓂸.tld`
That URL was apropos of the post funny on another level for those of us who speak Swedish, as "kuk" means the rude kind of dick, that isn't a rooster.
U+130B8 translates to d80cdcb8 in utf-16 hex. On mac, switch to Unicode Hex Input, hold down Option key and type d80cdcb8
There really is no good reason in the spirit of unicode not to have actual emojis for more bodyparts, including genitals.
Unicode seems also censored on Android, but I successfully sent 𓂸 over iMessage ^^
𓂸 End to end encryption
𓂸 Multiplatform
𓂸 Unicode standards compliant
𓂸 Multiplatform
𓂸 Unicode standards compliant
It renders correctly on my Pixel 2, in both Chrome and Firefox. Up-to-date stock firmware.
Yeah, "censored in Android" is like saying "censored in Linux".
But what the point if your correspondent can’t see your 𓂸 on the sms app?
My SMS app has no problem with sending or receiving that character. For reference, I'm using Google Messages version 3.7.052 on a Google Pixel XL.
It's a shame that whomever has bagged 𓂸.com just redirects to google.
I'm drunk as shit, and this is f*cking funny. Happy Halloween! 48617070792048616c6c6f7765656e <--- Hex
is there a range of unicode vaginas, you know, for, erm, balance?
Vaginas? No. (Did you maybe mean Vulva?) But, there are breasts.
({})
seems this is a reasonable combination of characters to represent a specific kind of activity 𓂺
> And for those of you on Windows with a censored font (what a thing!) this is what they look like.
I've never heard about censored fonts, but I am on Windows and these indeed do not work. How do I fix that?
I've never heard about censored fonts, but I am on Windows and these indeed do not work. How do I fix that?
Maybe install an extra font, this [1] one works for me.
[1] http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Nilus.zip
[1] http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Nilus.zip
$ echo 𓂺
𓂺
Yup. The singularity is near.
𓂺
Yup. The singularity is near.
That profile picture made the article much more hilarious.
Phonetically, Egyptian hieroglyphs use what's called the Rebus principle. For example, in English we could write https://i.imgur.com/Rp51iOt.png (hn ate my emoji) for belief. When this symbol is used phonetically, it represents the consonants "mt" because the ancient Egyptian word for phallus used those consonants. If we wanted to write "phallus," we could write 𓂸𓏺 with the stroke afterwards to denote that we mean the symbol, not its phonetic value.
Edit: hn cut out my emoji unicode. Replaced the emoji unicode with an image link.