"International Phonetic Alphabet" from Dory to Lilly

Linguists like to compare languages, and one of the biggest barriers to this is that there are a lot of different writing systems out there, and some languages don't have writing systems at all.  So they came up with their own writing system, which can be applied to any spoken language.  It's called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and it has hundreds of symbols to represent all the individual sounds represented in human languages.  IPA can describe EXACTLY how something is pronounced.  With this, English's 26 letters become 40-odd symbols, describing exactly how we make the sounds represented by our letters in different situations.


Here's a chart:. These are all the symbols IPA uses to describe English sounds.  I was going to explain all that jargon on the left side and top of the chart, but then I realized that it's kind of complicated, and although useful and interesting for people studying Linguistics, it's kind of irrelevant if you're just wanting to learn how to read and write with this alphabet. So, if anyone wishes me to, I can explain more about it, but I'm not going to right now.

Click to make bigger

IPA is based on the Latin writing system, so a lot of those characters are familiar and make the sounds you'd expect them to.  Some of them are familiar and don't make the sounds you'd expect them too, though, so be careful.  Some of the characters are Greek, or upside-down, or made-up, and those are the ones you'll have to memorize. Here's an explanation of the sounds they make.  It may be best for you to go somewhere private when looking through this list so you can try out some of the sounds without feeling silly.  Seriously, it helps.

b: bad, lab

d: did, lady

f: find, if

g: give, flag

h: how, hello

j: yes, yellow

• notice that the j in IPA represents the sound we would usually write as y.  IPA doesn't use the y symbol, at least not for English.

k: cat, back

• k represents both the English c and k, as well as the ck combination. They are all the same sound, after all.

l: leg, little

ɫ : little, hustle

• "dark l." usually, an l is made with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (the ridge behind your teeth), but sometimes, often at the end of words, it shows up as a dark l, which is made with the back of the tongue against the velum (soft part of the top of your mouth, way at the back.)

m: man, lemon

n: no, ten

ŋ: sing, finger

• "ang." Usually the n sound is an alveolar nasal, which means the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and the air from your lungs goes through your nose. When we use ŋ instead, the back of our tongue presses up against the velum instead. 
• Also, a handy remembering tool is that linguists often coin names for thing that use the concept they illustrate. The name "ang" is pronounced with an ŋ.

p: pet, map

ɹ: red, try

• Our regular r is an upside-down r in IPA, technically. When they're only talking about English sounds, linguists often just use a regular r to make things more simple.  But, we talk about Spanish a lot in this blog, and to the IPA world in general, the symbol r represents the trilled r used in Spanish, and ɹ represents how we do it in English.

s: sun, miss

ʃ: she, crash

• The "sh" sound is represented with the symbol "esh" in IPA.  Once again, the name uses the sound it talks about.

t: tea, top

ɾ: better, little

• alveolar tap.  We think of it as a t, or a double t, in English, but it's actually a separate sound.  Usually t's are an alveolar stop, meaning the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and stops the airflow completely, and then releases it.  With an alveolar tap, it doesn't completely stop the airflow; it just "taps" the alveolar ridge.

ʔ: mitten, cat

• The glottal stop!  It's when you stop the air completely in the back of your throat and then release it.  Say "glottal:" that's an alveolar tap.  Now say "glottal" with a Cockney accent: look, a glottal stop!

tʃ: check, church

• Even though it's two characters together, think of it as one symbol.  There are a couple instances like this in IPA, and you just have to learn and watch out for them.

θ: think, both

• "Theta."  This is one of the two symbols that represent the "th" in English.  You may have noticed before that English has two "th" sounds: both are interdental fricatives, with the tongue between the teeth and vibrating, but one uses the vocal chords and one doesn't.  θ doesn't.

ð: this, mother

• "eth" is the voiced interdental fricative.  Here is another case where the name employs the sound it describes, as it does with theta.

v: voice, five

w: wet, window

ʍ: whom, which

• A lot of people don't have this sound in their normal speech.  It's that odd "h" that people add after the "w".  A lot of older people do it.  It depends on your dialect of English.

z: zoo, lazy

ʒ: pleasure, vision

• This is a sound that English doesn't like much.  It mostly shows up in words borrowed from other languages, especially French, which loves this sound.  It's the "g" in "mirage," and the "s" in "vision."  You might use it in "garage."

dʒ: just, large

• Since IPA used "j" for our "y" sound, it needed another symbol for "j." Here it is. Once again, think of it as one symbol even though it's two characters.

In the chart, some of the characters are in parenthesis.  That means that they're allophones: English speakers don't think of them as different sounds, and some speakers don't use them at all.

You may have noticed that those are all consonants. Next I'll give you vowels, which are kind of tricky.  Also, harder to describe, because they vary a lot with accents and dialects.  When you look at these, think of them as Standard American English would pronounce them.  I'll give you a link to a site that has sound bytes later in this post.

æ      cat, black          

e       bait, eight       

ə:      away, cinema 

ʌ:      was, hustle

• ə and ʌ are practically the same sound-- ə is used when the sound comes in an unstressed syllable; ʌ is when it's stressed.

ɜ:      bet, end          

ɪ: hit, sitting         

i: see, heat           

ɑ:      hot, rock

ɔ:      bought, coffee

• a lot of people don't have this sound in their dialect of American English.  This is characteristic of the east coast, and usually doesn't show up in the west (they use ɑ instead)  My relatives in Rhode Island use this vowel; I don't.  If I were to spell it how it sounds, "coffee" would be something like "cwoffee."  Or, in IPA, [kɔfi].

ʊ      good, put

u:      blue, food 

aɪ      five, eye

• This and the next two are called "diphthongs," and they happen when we let the sounds around it influence the sound of our vowel.  It is very common for a vowel to become a diphthong, because the way they're formed in our mouth is so imprecise.

aʊ     now, out           

ɔɪ      boy, join

Example sound bites


Here are some entire words transcribed.  If anyone wants to practice some, say so in the comments and I'll give you some words to try out and correct/help you figure it out.  It takes some practice. :)


hustle: /hʌsl/

[hʌsɫ]

• Here's an important thing when transcribing: your transcription will either be in /slashes/ or [brackets].  Usually in brackets. The difference is, /slashes/ mean what your transcribing is the underlying form, what people think they're saying.  In English, people don't think of the dark l [ɫ] as a separate sound; they think of it as an /l/.  Brackets mean that your transcription is what people actually say.

recommend: [ɹɛkəmɛnd]


three: [θɹi]


transcribe: [tɹænskɹɑɪb]


strange: [stɹendʒ]


So, that's IPA!  Comment if you have any questions, or want to practice. 


Here's a handy-dandy website where you can type in IPA, and then copy-paste it over here.

"Yoshi" from Lilly to Dory

This is my friend Yoshi:

While we were in Mexico she was given this name by a Mayan fellow named Ricardo, who transformed it into "Yoshi" after having a great deal of trouble pronouncing her actual name, which is Chelsea.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I think I've figured out how he got "Yoshi" out of "Chelsea."

Let's start with the beginning: "Ch."  This is a sound that doesn't exist in the Mayan dialect of Tzotzil.  There is a sound similar to this, but it's softer.  Closer to a "sh" sound, or something in between the two.

(A note: when you see an "x" in written Mayan words, such as "uxmal" or "yaxchilan," it is pronounced with that "sh" -like sound.  The "x" comes from the Spanish conquistadores, who when documenting words they learned from the natives or the names of places would simply replace a sound they didn't know how to write with an "X."  In actual Mayan writing, this sound is usually represented by a "tz" combination, like the middle sound in "Tzotzil."  If you're wondering about the beginning "Tz" in "Tzotzil," this is pronounced more like a "D-z."  The whole word sounds more like "d-zo?-sheell" in English, with a glottal stop after the "o.")

So, Ricardo could have replaced the "Ch" with the "X" or "tz" sound, but instead he used a "y."  Why?  Well, that "X/tz" sound is never found at the beginning of a word in his dialect, but is often preceded by a vowel sound.  It was difficult for him to begin a word with this sound, so he replaced it with a sound that is used fairly often at the beginning of words in Tzotzil; "y".  Kind of like how Spanish speakers sometimes have trouble with beginning a word with an "s" sound followed by a consonant, like in "stop," or "scary."  Often they will add an "eh" sound to the beginning, so it sounds more like "eh-stop," and "eh-scary."  This is a familiar sound in Spanish: "escuela," "especial," "estudio," etc.

The next sound after "Ch" is "eh."  This is the part Ricardo had the most difficulty with.  Tzotzil is very fond of rounded vowels, like the "o" in "only" or the "a" in "always."  But it doesn't like those flat sounds like the "a" in "cat" or the "e" in "everyone" or "Chelsea."  It was much easier to turn that sound into the rounded "o" that he's used to.

The next part of her name is the "l."  Now, this is the interesting part.  The "l" in "Chelsea" is what is known in Linguistics as a "dark L."  It's the difference between the "l" sound in "lake" and the "l" sound in "milk."  The one in "milk" is the dark L.  It's something English speakers have trouble distinguishing; we think of them both as an "L."  But say the two words, "lake" and "milk" to yourself a few times, and you'll notice that in "milk" you really don't make an "L" sound at all.  It's the same in "Chelsea," which is why Ricardo had trouble.  There is no dark L in Tzotzil, or any Mayan dialect for that matter.  Instead of trying to replace it, he simply omitted the "l" sound altogether.

The next sound is "s," which is another sound that doesn't exist in Tzotzil at all.  Ricardo turned it into the previously mentioned "X/tz" sound, which to English speakers sounds closer to a "sh." (that's why we say it "Yoshi," but in actuality Ricardo pronounced it more like "Yo(X)ee")

The ending, "ea," (pronounced "ee") wasn't a problem for Ricardo at all; this is a sound familiar to Tzotzil, so he left it.

The spelling, "Yoshi" comes simply from our interpretation of Ricardo's pronunciation, which we likened to the name of the character from the "Mario" games :)

Love,
Lilly

"T" from Dory to Lilly

Did you know that the Hawaiian language doesn't have a t sound?  This is incredibly odd.  Weirder:  It's related to Samoan and Tongan, and they both have t's.  So does the ancestor language, Polynesian.

Also, Samoan doesn't have a k, but Hawaiian and Tongan do.

That is all.

Love, Dory

"Tea" from Dory to Lilly

So, something neato happened today! It worked together with a discussion Lilly and I had on her post "hot."  But before we get to that, we have to rewind to me doing my linguistics homework this morning.


We're talking about how languages evolve in class right now, and today we learned about one way to trace sound changes.  See, words usually aren't really spelled like they're pronounced, and obviously recordings came about only recently, so how do we tell how sounds change?  One way is to look at literature, especially verse and poetry, because that reflects what sounds rhyme at the time it was written.  For example, Mother Goose rhymes were written in the 1500s and 1600s, early in the era of Modern English.  Check it:


Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.


When you were little, did you ever wonder why that one/down rhyme doesn't rhyme at all? ("...maybe it was just me," says my professor.  "I mean, I grew up to be a linguist.")  WELL.  It used to rhyme.  That's one of the clues that historical linguists look at--that obviously used to rhyme, so what sound change does it reflect, and how can it be explained?


Our "one" is now pronounced "wun"[wən], but used to be [on]. Same with "down."  It's [down] now, but it used to be [don]...they used to rhyme.


So on the comments of Lilly's post "hot," we got into a discussion of the eytmology of the Modern English word "tea."  See, it's a borrowed word, because tea itself was imported from the Far East back in the day.  Here's the complicated etymology. I'll bold the important bits.

French thé, Spanish te, Italian tè, Dutch and German thee, Danish, Swedish te, modern Latin thea; < (perhaps through Malay te, teh) Chinese, Amoy dialect te, in Fuchau tiä = Mandarin ch'a (in ancient Chinese probably kia); whence Portuguese cha, obsolete Spanish cha, obsolete Italian cià, Russian čaj, Persian, Urdu chā (10th cent.), Arabic shāy, Turkishchāy. The Portuguese brought the form cha (which is Cantonese as well as Mandarin) from Macao. This form also passed overland into Russia. The form te (thé) was brought into Europe by the Dutch, probably from the Malay at Bantam (if not from Formosa, where the Fuhkien or Amoy form was used). The original English pronunciation /teː/ , sometimes indicated by spelling tay, is found in rhymes down to 1762, and remains in many dialects; but the current /tiː/ is found already in the 17th cent., shown in rhymes and by the spelling tee.

So, not a ton of room for linguistic hypothesis here, cuz they've got it pretty well covered.

BUT GUESS WHAT?  I, all by myself, found an example of the older pronunciation, "tay" [te].  I was doing the aforementioned Linguistics homework of finding evidence in older literature in English of sound changes.  So I was doing a bit of light reading, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, written in 1713. AND LOOK.

Soft yielding minds to water glide away,

And sip the Nymphs, their elemental tea.

The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome,

In search of mischief still on earth to roam.

The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,

And sport in flutter in the fields of air.

--Canto 1, lines 61-66

Oh hey, in that second line, "tea" would have to be pronounced [te] to rhyme!  And as you can see here, and I'll attest to for the rest of the poem, Pope keeps a very strict rhyme scheme, so this isn't just a slant rhyme or bad poetry.  He only seems to slip up in a few places, and they're instances like this, where they rhymed perfectly (for his dialect).

The old pronunciation [te], which ultimately comes from the Far East, is still reflected in some cognates in other languages.  If you go back and look at the etymology, the French "thé," the Spanish "te", and the Italian "tè", all still have this pronunciation.  Cool, eh?


Some more rhymes in The Rape of the Lock that reflect old pronunciations:

What though no credit doubting wits may give?

The fair and innocent shall still believe.

--Canto 1, lines 38-39

Not with more glories, in th' ethereal plain,

the sun first rises o'er the purpled main,

Than issuing forth, the rival of his beams

Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames.

--Canto 2, lines 1-4

fyi, The Thames is the river running through London, and it's pronounced "Temz" [tɛmz].

neat, huh? :)

I'm going to go make some [te] now. Cheers!

p.s.: I brought "The Beast," my British Literature anthology, out of its comfortable retirement as a bookend for this hypothesis.  Be grateful, and impressed.

Love, Dory

"Finals Week" from Dory to Lilly

Ok, so this isn't really a hypothesis.  But it's to let y'all know that I might be scarce for the next couple weeks, as I have Dead Week now and then Finals Week coming up.  Much of my brainpower will be going in that direction, but I shall hypothesize here if I can!  I will also comment on Lilly's posts, though, if I can.

Love, Dory

"Hot" from Lilly to Dory

As I sit and drink my tea, a thought pops into my head: "té." "Té" is the Irish Gaelic word for "hot," and it's pronounced exactly like the drink, or the thing you hit a golf ball off of.  I have always been puzzled as to why "té," the word itself, sounds so different from the English word, "hot."  See, I've always thought of "hot" as kind of an onomatopoeia (meaning, a word that sounds like what it is). Think about it, or say it out loud. The word itself sounds weighty, and tired. It sounds like a heavy exhale, an exasperated sigh, or exactly the kind of sound one would make while trudging along on a humid summer day in Florida.  On the other hand, "té" is quick, and sharp.  It has that same kind of abrasive sound that we English speakers like to reserve for swear words.  To a linguistic mind, these two words convey two very different messages.  But could "té" be an onomatopoeia as well?  I believe so, and this is why:

Think about where the Gaelic language originated.  It's the native language of Ireland and Scotland, and developed right alongside English but is descended from an entirely different language branch.  The climate there is cool, and damp.  It's overcast most of the year and the temperature rarely exceeds 70 degrees fahrenheit.  Why would people come up with a word like "hot," if they don't experience anything like the environment I described above?  To the contrary, think of what they do experience.  Fire, hot food, hot water, etc.  It makes much more sense to envision someone touching an object that burned them, and exclaiming "té!" as they jerk their hand away.  I think that this is a word that describes something hot to the touch, not a type of heat that surrounds you.

And I suspect that this is where the word "tea" originated, as well.

Love,

Lilly

"Fire" from Lilly to Dory

Pulled an almost all-nighter last night studying for my earth science lab final. At six o'clock this morning I was prepared to fill in all sorts of graphs and charts, calculate great circle distances between two points, and analyze detrital and chemical composition. I got to the test to find I had completely over-studied; the test consisted of five short paragraph-style questions, and I was in and out of there in less than thirty minutes.

However frustrating and largely useless, my study session (particularly the section on rocks and minerals) did serve to remind me of a hypothesis I came up with quite a while ago, while I was reading "The Kin." In the book, the characters often make and use, for practical as well as ritualistic purposes, something called a "cutter." In the anthropology world, this "cutter" is known as a projectile point: a tool formed from a rock by chipping flakes away to create a sharp edge. "Projectile point" is the broad label for any such tool, and can include knives, hand axes, spear and arrow points.

The book's characters are labeled by the author to be the earliest modern humans. Though I have found that label to be a misnomer, I have so far found them to be extremely accurate representations of Homo erectus: the direct predecessor to modern humans. This is surprising to me because this book was written in the 1920's - before the the first discovered Homo erectus skeleton had even been confirmed and there was still debate going on over whether Homo habilis was bipedal.

It's important to remember that while Homo erectus was not the first human ancestor to make "cutters," they were the first to discover how to make fire - something that truly set them apart from their earlier counterparts, Homo habilis, who did use fire when found in nature and could even store it, but couldn't make it on their own. This got me wondering: how did Homo erectus first figure out how to make fire?

There is a film from the 1970's (a sarcastically labeled, "classic" by my anthro professor) called "Quest for Fire." The film follows a group of Neanderthals as they search for a new source of fire after their precious store has been stolen by a rivaling tribe. Eventually the Neanderthals meet up with some Homo erectus who show them how to make fire by twirling a stick against a flat piece of wood. Though many anthropologists find this model laughable at best, there is no real evidence to prove fire was not first made with wood, as wood artifacts that old generally don't survive. However, something has occurred to me that seems more likely to follow the course of natural progression, and it's something that is really not all that uncommon when it comes to human discoveries: fire happened by accident.

The clue lies with the "cutter." The best rocks for making such a tool are fine-grained, as opposed to course. The majority of found projectile points are made of flint or obsidian. Both of these rock types, when fractured, break off in very neat and predictable flakes and form very sharp edges. It just so happens that the best spark-making rocks are also those with a fine grain, flint in particular. The way I see it, it was only a matter of time before a group of Homo erectus found themselves in an area rich in fine-grained rocks, sat down to make a cutter, and it made a spark.

This must have been something noticed by others as well, earlier humans included. But only Homo erectus had the brain power to make the connection, and more importantly, spread the information.

An article I read recently, titled "Fire out of Africa," hypothesizes that the discovery of fire-making gave groups of Homo erectus a revolutionary boost of confidence. Fire provides protection from predators, warmth, the ability to cook meat. It may have allowed individuals and groups to travel further than they ever had before and even may have sparked - pun intended- the African exodus itself.

. . .

Now for a related, and rather interesting factoid: there has been research done by a group of Cambridge University students concerning the relation between the development of speech in early humans and tool-making. The study involved one student silently demonstrating how to make various tool-like objects to a group of others who were to watch and then reproduce the product, all without speaking to each other. The test was to determine whether speech is required for such learning. For simpler wooden tools, such as carved wood spear points, they found no verbal communication necessary. But for stone tools, such as projectile points, they found speech to be imperative to learning the techniques. They have hypothesized that this proves that Homo habilis, the first stone-tool making early human, must have therefore had the capability of speech.

Love,

Lilly

"Night" from Dory to Lilly

Oh, Linguistics.  I seem to be spending a lot of time etymologizing these days.  I don't think "etymologize" is an actual word, but if it was, it would be the action of etymology, which is finding the historical roots of words.

My musing started with a post on my other blog about Latin roots in Harry Potter books.  One of the ones I picked out was the spell "nox," which comes from the Latin word for "night."  I couldn't think of any modern English words that use that Latin root, but then Lilly posted mentioning the word "nocturnal," and the German "nacht" ("night"), and it started me thinking etymologically.

See, English has a complicated history.  It's an Indo-European language, meaning it stems, like a lot of the languages of Europe (as well as some surprising ones like Hindi and Afrikaans), from an ancestor language called Indo-European, a language so ancient we have no record of it except that linguists know it has to have existed.  Here's a picture:

(If you're wondering what the "proto" means in "Proto-Indo-European," it means that the language has been reconstructed by linguists.  As I said before, it's too ancient to have anything written down, so we don't know much about it past that it exists.)

So this is fun.  I haven't looked up any etymology on any of the following words, but I'm going to hypothesize on their relationships.

"Night" --Modern English
"Nacht" (night)--German
"Nox"(night)--Latin
"Nocturnal" (occurring at night)--Modern English

If you're wondering what that dotted line on the language tree is for, it's because Middle English was heavily influenced by French when the Normans (from France) conquered the British Isles in 1066.  Thus, a lot of words in English were borrowed from French, which descended from Latin.  This resulted in the common misconception that English is descended from Latin. Does that make sense?

I'm going to go ahead and say that "nocturnal" is one of those words borrowed from Latin.  It wouldn't be all that odd for (and I'm going to put these in brackets, which is Linguistics speak for "this is how they're pronounced, not how they're spelled") [nɑks] ("nox") to turn into [nɑkt] "noct."  The "al" ending of "nocturnal" makes it an adjective in English.

Now, "nacht" comes from German, which is so distantly related to Latin that it might as well not be for our purposes.  But, notice the similarities in sound between "night" and "nacht"?  Bear in mind that Middle English was very very heavily influenced by French, which doesn't like funny sounds like that back-of-the-threat one in the German "nacht."  And notice the spelling of English "night":  where did that gh come from?  I bet it was a gutteral sound in Middle English, but that French influence stamped it out, leaving only the spelling as a fossil to attest to its existence.  Think of words like "laugh" and "enough."  That same gh, but this time it's turned into an f, because that's easier to do at the end of a word than to not pronounce it at all like in "night."   What about "sight"?

So, say it out loud if you want to, but add in that gutteral sound to "night."  Sounds quite a bit like "nacht," right?  I'd venture a pretty confident guess that "nacht" and "night" are both direct descendants of the same word in Germanic.

"Nocturnal" came into the language later, borrowed directly from Latin "nox," as a lot of higher-vocabulary words are.

Now I'll go look up etymology, and see if I'm right. (oh look, I bet "right" is Germanic too!)

So says the Oxford English Dictionary:
"Nocturnal" is the adjective form of "nocturn," which comes from the Latin "nocturnus." No mention of "nox," but I'm guessing it's in the same word family in Latin.

"Night" is indeed Germanic, although I can't seem to find the exact word in Germanic. The Oxford English Dictionary didn't see fit to include that in the entry.The Old High German is "nacht," as is the Modern German.  The reconstructed Indo-European is "nokt."  Which is interesting because I can see the Latin "nocturnus" descending from that.

Love, Dory

"Windows" from Lilly to Dory

Ok, so it all started when I was walking home from the store, and passed by this really pretty church. I noted that the reason I like it so much is probably because it reminds me a lot of the style of buildings in Mexico, with terra-cotta roof tiles, a pale yellow exterior paint, wooden doors and candelabras mounted on the walls around the outside doors and windows.

The difference, however, is that it wasn't actually structured like a hacienda-style Mexican building. A hacienda is built like a big rectangle or square, with an open central courtyard in the middle. The Hotel Caribe in my "Merida" album is a good example. 

This structure allows, of course, for very good lighting and ventilation in all the rooms. It also ensures that each room can have an opening on two opposing walls, which takes advantage of the natural pressure difference between indoors an outdoors by creating a cross-breeze. It's a pretty simple concept to figure out, even without a basic understanding of the mechanics. I use this tactic in my own apartment when it's cool out. If I only open the front windows, the breeze doesn't come in. But if I open both the front and the back windows, it creates an almost constant cross-breeze. Following so far?

So knowing that the hacienda is actually a style rooted in Spain, I wondered if the Spanish continued building this way in Mexico purely for aesthetic purposes, or was it actually suited well for the Mexican climate also (which is considerably more humid)? My first thought was to check whether this style, or something like it, is reflected in the Mayan ruins. And the answer is yes. The Palace Structure at Palenque consists of two large rectangles, each with a central courtyard in its center. Though the buildings are only one floor as opposed to three or four like the haciendas, the same practical purposes are achieved: maximum light and ventilation; opposing windows in each room creating a cross-breeze.

The interesting feature about some of the windows inside the Palace Complex is that they are not square or round but consist of two narrow slits comprised in the shape of a "T". Professor Tromans pointed out to me that the "T" shape is a symbol that represents the Mayan god of wind, so they shaped their windows into this symbol. Simple enough. Well, I think I figured out how that shape came to represent the god of wind and also why they built their actual windows this way rather than, say, simply use the symbol to decorate the outside, which seems to me to be much easier to do.

Flash back to beginning band with Mr. Elliston. When I was learning to play the flute, Elliston emphasized that high notes require you to blow air with more pressure, and low notes with less pressure (you may have been taught this as well, for the french horn). This can be achieved by making the opening in your lips smaller - for high pressure - or wider for low pressure. The difference can be felt if you blow on the back of your hand. Notice that a wider opening will blow warm air, and a smaller opening will blow cooler air.

Air moving through a smaller opening is cooler, because the air is pushed through it faster and with more pressure. You can make a very small window and the air coming through it will be cooler, kind of like air conditioning. But if you actually want a good amount of air, the window has to be bigger. So how do you achieve this? The "T" shape maximizes the capacity for air flow, while still forcing it through small openings to cool it down. Genius.

So I think that the Maya figured this out, and used it primarily for efficiency purposes. Eventually that led to the "T" symbol coming to represent wind. Not the other way around.

What do you think?

Love,

Lilly

Welcome!

Dear readers,

My sister Lilly and I always throw odd/interesting ideas and hypotheses at each other to discuss, and Lilly came up with the idea of making our idea-throwing into a blog.

Lilly is an Archaeology major and former Film major, and I, Dory, am an English Education major, French minor, and former Linguistics major.  We like to speculate on everything from literature to history to science to, sometimes, math.  We come up with interesting ideas about how the world works, how human nature has evolved, and we like to get input on it.  Usually from each other, but with this blog we'd like to open that role up to you.

This is an intellectual forum, where your ideas are as valid as anyone else's. Please comment, and give us your reactions, your contradictions, your ideas, your knowledge.  You are very welcome!

Love,
Lilly and Dory