4 ms·
While the article goes into history and detail, here are a couple of analogies that may help explain what this thing is: • The convention of specifying phone n
by svat 4y ago
While the article goes into history and detail, here are a couple of analogies that may help explain what this thing is:
• The convention of specifying phone numbers using words, e.g. 1-800-FLOWERS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneword https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneword): this is the mapping
0 ↔ (space?)
1 ↔ ??
2 ↔ abc
3 ↔ def
…
9 ↔ wxyz
Roughly, the Kaṭapayādi system is simply a different mapping between digits and letters.
• So a closer analogy may be, if the conventional English alphabet happened to list vowels (aeiouy, say) and consonants separately, then a mapping something like
b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
(so there are two choices for each digit, e.g. 2 can be represented by either 'c' or 'p'), with the decoding convention that we ignore vowels, and consonants that are immediately followed (in the same word) by another consonant. Then, to specify a sequence of digits like "314159265", we could write down below each digit the two possibilities for it:
3 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5
d b f b g l c h g
q n r n s x p t s
…and use these letters to make words. So something like "dine rob soul cottage" would stand for DNRBSLCTG = 314159265, as would "dumb funny sex parties" (= DBFNSXPTS = 314159265) or whatever. Then we could write rhyming poems or memorable prose, to memorize the digits (and transmit them accurately in an oral tradition).
With the English alphabet the above mapping would be hard to remember, but the alphabet in Sanskrit happens to be organized in a more orderly way, so it's easier to remember the mapping. (And the name helps: ka ṭa pa ya are simply the beginning (ādi) letters of each chunk mapping to 1234567890, the way our mapping above could be called the "B-N" mapping.)
Something close that there's a (recent) tradition of in English is "pilish": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilish where the lengths of the words encode the digits, as in "how I wish I could remember pi" (=3141592). (See "Cadaeic Cadenza" and "Not a Wake": http://cadaeic.net/cadintro.htm http://cadaeic.net/cadintro.htm )
- blackhaz 4y agoThank you very much. Your post should be the first chapter in that Wikipedia article.
- oceliker 4y agoAs of now, it is the first chapter of that Wikipedia article.
- danans 4y ago> the alphabet in Sanskrit happens to be organized in a more orderly way For the curious, it is consonantaly ordered anatomically in the vocal apparatus, starting from the lowest and furthest back point of articulation, the velum (k and g sounds) and ending with the highest and most forward point: the lips (p and b sounds).
- svat 4y agoYes, in particular the main consonants part is arranged like the periodic table: the rows are ordered by place of articulation, and each column a different manner of articulation. ---- In fact, it is possible that Mendeleev was inspired to arrange his periodic table based on the arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet (or at least aware of the resemblance). The evidence is thin, but the plausibility argument (quoting from the nice article https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-grammar-of-the-elements https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-grammar-of-the... ) is something like: • Mendeleev was friends at Saint Petersburg University with Otto von Böhtlingk, a famous Sanskrit scholar and linguist. • Böhtlingk composed a grammar of "the Siberian language Yakut (also known as Sakha), in which he applied the principles of Sanskrit grammar to extraordinary effect". In particular, he "constructed a periodic system of Yakut speech sounds based on Pāṇinian principles" (that is, he arranged the Yakut sounds in a table like the Sanskrit alphabet). • Böhtlingk and Mendeleev shared an interest in Siberia (Mendeleev's birthplace) and Arctic languages, and it is likely that Böhtlingk would have told Mendeleev about this. • Mendeleev when he came up with the periodic table used the unlikely choice of Sanskrit prefixes (eka-boron, dvi-manganese etc) for his predicted elements, rather than Greek/Latin/German/Russian ones. This is likely a homage/result of his friendship with Böhtlingk. As I said, there is no clinching evidence, but we can only connect the dots. (Anyway, the above article, written by a chemist and a linguist, is an interesting read.)