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Teoria do Olimpiady Lingwistyki Matematycznej : PISMO — Transcript

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0:01Good morning and welcome to the first
0:03theoretical part of our preparations
0:05for the Linguistics Olympiad. Today we
0:08are going to talk about writing systems
0:10. This course could just as well be
0:12called the second part of an
0:14introduction to linguistics. Why?
0:17Because I have already done one
0:19introduction to linguistics, which is
0:21dedicated to students of philology or
0:23applied linguistics. We cover topics
0:27such as language history, phonology and
0:29structuralism, morphology, nominal
0:32groups, semantics, pragmatics, and
0:34linguistic determinism. These are
0:38general topics, linguistic topics, but
0:40dedicated and aimed at people studying
0:42philology or linguistics. For example,
0:46in language history. In the lecture I
0:48recommend there, I don't talk about
0:50writing systems at all. Why? Because
0:52language can exist and, in its
0:54evolution, existed for a very long time
0:56without any system of writing or
0:58notation. Language is a prior entity
1:01and a more important entity than a
1:03writing system. Today, we will
1:06supplement that lecture a little by
1:08talking about writing systems. In
1:13parallel, you can also look at the
1:15Linguistics Olympiad worksheets. There,
1:18the approach is very problem-oriented
1:20from the other side. That is, we have a
1:23worksheet for every one of these lives
1:25and we solve all the tasks from cover
1:27to cover, naturally introducing some
1:29theoretical elements, but those
1:31theoretical elements just come up,
1:33meaning on the occasion, and I
1:34basically explain the same things, but
1:36it happens more organically while
1:38solving tasks. That is why this course,
1:42which we have here now, this series
1:44which will be a yellow series, is
1:46dedicated to people who have some kind
1:48of grasp or some kind of linguistic
1:50basics. For example, what I will
1:54explain now and quickly recap in three
1:56minutes, I explain elsewhere in 30
1:58minutes. So now I will mention, for
2:00example, that we have vowels and
2:02consonants, end of story. But in the
2:04lecture on phonology, we explain
2:05exactly what the syllable structure is
2:07and how vowels differ from consonants.
2:09Well, I spend 30 minutes on that there.
2:12So what are the distinguishing features
2:14of this series? Well, first of all, we
2:16have a problem-oriented approach,
2:19meaning we do theory for the OLM;
2:21secondly, well, theory for OLM tasks.
2:25Secondly, we base it on a new book,
2:27which is one where the guy who is the
2:29author of the tasks acts as a coach and
2:32coaches people for the Linguistics
2:33Olympiad. The booklet looks like this.
2:38I recommend downloading it. Here is the
2:42address. And why do I say I recommend
2:44downloading it? Because the book is
2:47available under CC, meaning you can
2:49download it for free. This book cannot
2:52even be—well, you can buy the book in
2:55a paper version. I have it in a paper
2:59version, but the internet version, the
3:01digital version, is distributed for
3:03free. This means you can download it
3:06for free; you cannot buy it on the
3:08internet as an ebook. We can only
3:10download ebooks for free. I recommend
3:12it, because it's a free book, so it's
3:14completely legal. You can buy this book
3:17if you want. What's more, you can adapt
3:20this book, meaning you can make remixes
3:22, transformations, and build upon this
3:24material for any purpose, even
3:26commercial ones. Of course, I can't...
3:28well, I can translate this book, but I
3:31can't really take money for translating
3:33it, so I can't actually sell it. But
3:35what we are doing here, meaning
3:37everyone can download this, and what we
3:39are doing here—basing ourselves on
3:41this book, adapting, transforming,
3:43showing—is absolutely done legally.
3:45So it's 100%legal, which is why we will
3:47be basing ourselves on this very book.
3:51So, uh, that is the distinguishing
3:53feature of this series, that this
3:55series will be based exactly on this
3:57book and we're just doing the same
3:59theory, just from a different angle. I
4:04always say that I use terminology X and
4:06not terminology Y or Z. For example, by
4:09phonetics, I mean this and that, and
4:11not this other thing. That is actually
4:14one step less abstract than saying I
4:17use the terminology used by Mr. X, not
4:19Mr. Y. Also, in my lectures, for
4:22example, I understood phonetics and
4:24phonology a bit differently. Wlad makes
4:29the same caveats, saying that he also
4:31simplifies his theory a bit, and it's
4:33not really about presenting a formal
4:35description of languages, but rather
4:37introducing a formal description of
4:39languages that will be useful for us
4:41when we do tasks. So it's again about
4:46solving tasks, or rather, it's a theory
4:48aimed or structured to explain certain
4:50phonological phenomena that we will
4:52encounter in the exercises. For example
4:55, we are completely uninterested in the
4:57distinction made in this book, and I am
4:59also not interested in the one between
5:01pictograms and ideograms. That is
5:02completely irrelevant. On the other
5:04hand, it is a small terminological
5:06difference. I defined syllabic writing
5:08and abugida a bit differently. I mean,
5:11actually, an abugida is a type of
5:13syllabic writing, but here, for
5:15practical purposes, it has been
5:16distinguished. So there will be a tiny
5:18difference, where we will distinguish
5:20that an abugida is something different
5:22from syllabic writing. But in reality,
5:23an abugida is a type of syllabic
5:25writing, although it's worth
5:26distinguishing them, but that will be
5:28in the second part. Well, exactly, it
5:30is syllabic writing, an abugida. So, uh
5:34, that difference will be explained in
5:36a moment. Uh, if anyone is interested,
5:39if anyone has stayed with me so far,
5:41thank you. If anyone is wondering if
5:43it's worth continuing to watch this
5:45course, or what I will actually learn.
5:47Well yes, it's supposed to be the
5:48basics of the basics, right? So, so
5:50really, for the most part, it's the
5:52same thing. We are basing this on
5:54materials that are available in the
5:56public domain, such as materials found
5:58on Wikipedia. That is exactly what it's
6:00for. So we have very similar pictures.
6:02Tables. I was also surprised that in
6:04these books, like, I recognize these
6:06tables, because when I made my own
6:07materials, I knew where they were taken
6:09from. But that is just the charm of
6:11materials made for free, that you
6:13simply have to take them from free,
6:15legal sources. So is it worth it, if
6:19it's very similar? Well, first of all,
6:21we won't be repeating content from
6:23lectures; we won't be repeating that.
6:25For example, you can see the difference
6:28in the history of language, in the
6:29history of language first, and we won't
6:32be doing tasks from Polish Olympiads.
6:35We will be taking all those tasks that
6:37are, that are, that are. We will be
6:41taking all those tasks that are
6:43international. In other words, we have
6:46a different approach to the
6:47introduction to linguistics. As for the
6:49International Linguistics Olympiads, we
6:51have similar types of tasks, but they
6:53are always done a little differently.
6:55In Poland, it is called the
6:56Mathematical Linguistics Olympiad
6:58because mathematicians create it and
7:00they have a slightly different approach
7:02, so it doesn't exclude anything, I'm
7:04not repeating material. Of course, the
7:06more videos we watch, the better, but
7:08it's not like it's something completely
7:11new. Unfortunately, it repeats, but we
7:13will be well prepared. So, the plan is
7:15to do the theoretical introduction from
7:17this book. I translate it into Polish
7:19and, like, explain it, add certain
7:21things, illustrate it, add my own
7:23examples, and we do examples from the
7:26first part of the book. That's usually
7:28four or five problems. The remaining
7:32problems, which are grouped as practice
7:34problems, we leave for individual study
7:36or will do another time on a different
7:38live stream. Yes, it's always really,
7:42really fun to do tasks on a live stream
7:44because you can talk, as you go a bit
7:46slower. But here, we are here to do a
7:49quick course. Also, the author notes
7:52that the solutions he proposed are not
7:56necessarily the only correct ones. You
7:59can always solve it in a few different
8:01ways, almost always, and there's no
8:03such thing as one solution being the
8:05best. So that's a small note. I
8:09compared these solutions from the book
8:11with what we worked out on the live
8:13streams, and it's actually a very
8:14similar way of solving, but as we will
8:17see with writing, there is a very cool
8:19way of writing rules, meaning after you
8:21solve the task, how you can nicely
8:23construct the rules. That, for example,
8:26is such an added value. So, thanks to
8:28the patrons, to the people who support
8:30me, or those supporting the channel—
8:32it's called "Members" in English on
8:34YouTube—and to the rest of the people
8:37as well. So, thank you all, and we can,
8:39all presentations are on Discord; if
8:41anyone wants to support the channel,
8:43you can, you can subscribe on YouTube
8:45or Patronite. All presentations,
8:47including this one, are available on
8:49Discord. So yes, let's get into the
8:52theory now. The plan for today. We're
8:54doing theory that will be practical,
8:56then we move to practice and explain
8:58that practice from the theoretical side
9:00—just like the channel name,
9:02Practical Theory. I'm having some
9:10coffee to relax. I recommend you grab
9:12some coffee or tea, too, because it
9:14always makes for better listening. So,
9:16writing; we were missing writing in our
9:18history of language, and we know that
9:20for writing, we have many systems, many
9:23ways of recording, and according to
9:25this little book, we have 3,500 systems
9:28, 3,500 different writing systems. The
9:32first terminological note is that we
9:33will be talking about signs. This is
9:35English terminology. In Polish, we talk
9:38about signs. I often talk about symbols
9:40, too. When we have any writing system,
9:44we don't have letters in it, but we
9:46have signs or symbols. This sign can
9:50represent phonemes. I remind you that
9:53in Polish, we have vowels and
9:55consonants. Vowels are those sounds
9:57that we can scream. A, E, I, O, U.
9:59Consonants are those sounds on which,
10:02on which we cannot scream. K, B, M, G.
10:05It's hard to scream those. I mean,
10:07there's a closure; the mouth is open
10:10with vowels. And with consonants, we
10:12have a closure. Somewhere the tongue
10:14touches some part, uh, part of our
10:16mouth, right? The palate, the lips, or
10:18the lips touch each other. Somewhere it
10:21touches the teeth, the tongue touches
10:23something and closes our mouth. So we
10:25speak generally about phonemes. Vowels
10:27and consonants. From the phonological
10:29perspective, it's one and the same. Uh,
10:34a sign can represent not just
10:36individual phonemes, or a symbol might
10:38not represent individual phonemes, or
10:40it might represent, because it can also
10:43represent syllables. There could be
10:45mama, tata, baba, and for example, one
10:48such sign can represent ba, ma. A sign
10:50can also represent whole words. We have
10:52, for example, such hieroglyphs,
10:54pictographs, ideographs, which
10:56represent entire words. Meaning one
10:58sign, one symbol represents a whole
11:00word. Right? That's why we don't talk
11:06about letters in the context of
11:07different writing systems, because a
11:09letter is a very specific entity, a
11:11very specific unit that encodes some
11:13phoneme, a single phoneme. Of course, a
11:19letter is a phoneme, I mean, turn
11:21around the letter, please. A letter is
11:24a sign, right? It is a symbol, but it's
11:27not the case that every symbol is a
11:29letter. So we have a letter, if we're
11:31talking about sets, we can draw it, we
11:33have a letter and we have symbols. Yes,
11:35every letter is a symbol, but not every
11:38symbol is a letter. That's the point.
11:41So we're talking about signs and
11:42symbols. Again, it's a matter of
11:44terminology. For our purposes, it’s
11:46one and the same. I use the words sign
11:48and symbol interchangeably, so
11:50there’s absolutely no difference. If
11:52someone were writing a PhD, then
11:54obviously it would matter a lot whether
11:56we’re talking about symbols or signs.
11:58But we aren't writing a PhD. Continuing
12:03our introduction, we’re talking about
12:05images and words that can be denoted by
12:07a single sign. And we’re talking
12:11about pictographs and ideographs. How
12:13do pictographs differ from ideographs?
12:17Well, a pictograph is something like a
12:19drawing of a deer, or perhaps some sort
12:21of danger. Like a skull and crossbones,
12:24that means danger, or maybe lightning
12:27bolts. We try to encode, to physically
12:35show through physical resemblance—not
12:37arbitrarily, but through a recognizable
12:40, real similarity—either an abstract
12:42idea or an entity. For example, a deer.
12:49A deer can be something concrete. If,
12:51for example, we show a running deer and
12:53want to express the abstract idea of
12:55movement, then it’s an ideograph.
12:58Nowadays, as I said, this is used for
13:00visual communication. We have things
13:02like road signs: no skateboarding, no
13:04dogs allowed, no ice cream eating, or
13:06you have to do something else. You can
13:08figure it out. Basically, a foreigner
13:10arriving in such a country should be
13:12able to guess what it’s about. Yes,
13:14that you can't enter with a dog, or
13:16that you can enter with a dog, right?
13:18Because you are allowed to enter with a
13:19dog. This is part of the theoretical
13:23material for the Olympiad, so a small
13:25note: pictographs and ideographs have
13:28limited use in these competitions. Why?
13:32Because they’re easy to guess. In
13:34other words, we won't get a task where
13:36we are shown a sign and asked, "Please
13:38tell us what this expresses," right? Or
13:41what we have to be afraid of. It’s
13:43obvious it's a deer, right? And not,
13:45say, fire, right? Or falling rocks,
13:48right? Or some kind of speed. So,
13:51pictographs and ideographs are a type
13:54of sign that expresses either an
13:56abstract idea or a concrete entity. And
13:58basically, there is a certain visual
14:01resemblance. We can guess that it’s a
14:03deer. If someone has never seen a deer,
14:05they won’t guess it. But people who
14:08have seen one can figure out what
14:09it’s about. I should add that in the
14:17history of writing, there is a tendency
14:19to start with very specific pictographs
14:21and ideographs, where there is a visual
14:24similarity; we see a fish, an axe, or
14:26an arrow, and we can guess what it is
14:28because it looks like one, right?
14:33Sometimes it's more or less
14:34conventional, but we can usually figure
14:36it out. There is some level of
14:38resemblance. If we were given a set and
14:41asked to guess which is a fish or an
14:43arrow, we would manage. It might be
14:49harder here, easiest there, a bit
14:51trickier elsewhere, but the tendency is
14:53for all these pictographs and
14:55ideographs to become conventionalized,
14:57meaning they become more abstract.
15:00Convention means we all simply agree
15:02that this is a fish, right? We have to
15:05agree, don't we? And eventually, we
15:08move toward abstraction, agreeing by
15:10convention—not a written one, but
15:12just a collective decision—that this
15:15is a fish and that is an arrow. At that
15:19point, it no longer looks like a fish
15:21or an arrow. It is conventional. So,
15:23the tendency is that we start with
15:25something very concrete and related,
15:27where the shape of the sign resembles
15:29the shape of the object, and that
15:32similarity, that link, breaks off. It
15:35fades away in the history of language
15:37evolution. So, we don't go from
15:38abstract to concrete; it always goes in
15:41that direction. I mean, not necessarily
15:43always, because with thousands of
15:45languages, there might be one exception
15:48, but there is a tendency that, in
15:50almost every case, we go in this
15:52direction. Of course, someone could
15:54create an artificial language and do
15:56the opposite. So, as I say, never say
15:59never, and never say always. But it
16:03almost always goes this way. We have
16:06something like this. Let’s take an
16:09English example to see the rebus
16:11principle in the history of language
16:13and how that meaning becomes detached.
16:17For instance, to write proper names in
16:20Egypt using pictographs, they used the
16:22rebus principle. It works by taking how
16:27a word is spoken in the Egyptian
16:28language and simply writing it
16:30phonetically if we have short words. In
16:34English, for example, we have an eye, a
16:37can, the sea, and "ewe," which is a
16:40sheep. So, we read it as such a rebus.
16:49And that is a way of writing a sentence
16:51using a rebus. There is a general rule
16:54that rebuses are a way to move to the
16:56next level. Yes, if someone wants to,
17:00they can read about how it looked in
17:02Egypt, how it looks in other languages,
17:04but there is a moment when we simply
17:06add a component—it’s called a
17:08phonological component—meaning to
17:11signs that in themselves denote
17:12something, that is, have a certain
17:14semantic meaning, we add phonological
17:17meaning and we simply start, we start
17:19to conventionalize these sounds,
17:21meaning we start to record not just
17:23ideas or pictures, like an eye, a can,
17:25I see a can by the sea and a sheep
17:27swimming by the sea, but I want to
17:29record it phonologically, so I head
17:31toward abstraction, which is recording
17:34sounds. We start as a pictograph,
17:36ideograph, whatever, and we have a slow
17:39evolution into more abstract forms that
17:41slowly serve to record sounds. They
17:43don’t serve to record ideas or things
17:45, but to record sounds, just as we have
17:47in an alphabet. Now we will talk
17:51generally about logographs, that is,
17:53for example, what happens in Chinese
17:55writing. I hope the idea is clear, that
17:58we have pictographs that slowly evolve
18:00into more abstract forms. So, for
18:02example, the sun, again, this is the
18:04source of information, it’s
18:05everywhere here, I won't give page
18:07numbers because it would just be too
18:09difficult, but we have it shown
18:11constantly where these English texts
18:13come from, so I will be showing it. So
18:15the sun again, I am not, I don't speak
18:17Chinese, so I base it on other people's
18:19information that the sun was once
18:21written like this, well, there is some
18:23resemblance to the sun. And now it has
18:25become conventionalized. It is written
18:28in an abstract form like this. It’s
18:30the same with the word moon. The moon
18:33resembles a crescent moon. And now it
18:35is written this way. From a concrete
18:38meaning, we move to a more abstract one
18:41. We also have something like this.
18:44Next, we have logographs. We also have
18:48another sub-chapter about syllabic
18:50writing. Syllabaries. where one sign
18:56corresponds to one syllable. As we said
18:58at the beginning, we have, let's say,
19:00mama, and we have, let's say, one sign
19:03that will record one syllable for us.
19:05Not two letters, but we have one sign
19:07that means 'ma' together. When we see '
19:10ma', we will read it as 'mama'. Yes,
19:12for example, this will be 'tata'.
19:14Meaning one sign is one syllable. What
19:17interests us is that these are signs
19:19that are not further divisible. This
19:21means there are no smaller morphemes.
19:23Yes, there is no such thing where we
19:25have written, let’s say, I don’t
19:27know, 'la' and we can break that into '
19:29l' and 'a', instead we have these
19:31indivisible signs. An example of such a
19:35syllabic script is Katakana, where we
19:37have, let's say, this character here
19:40which we read as KA, this character
19:42here we read as KI, and this one here
19:44we read as KU. There is no such thing
19:48as the letter K in isolation. Of course
19:52, you can say them, okay, we can say
19:54vowels in isolation. With consonants in
19:57Japanese, it's harder, but basically
19:59there is no sign, no letter, no
20:01character that would represent just the
20:03letter K. Yes. So that is a problem. We
20:05always have, I don't know, we have SA,
20:08SI, SU, SE, SO, we don't have just S.
20:11Yes, that's a syllabic script, so we
20:14have TA, TI, TU, DA, DI, DU, and so on.
20:19An example from a book. We have KA, KI,
20:22SI. And in a syllabic script, when we
20:26have this information that this is how
20:28KA looks, it's not like we have, let's
20:31say, a letter K and if we add two
20:33little dashes it becomes KU, or we have
20:35S and that makes it I. We cannot deduce
20:37what the shape of the Y character will
20:39be. I don't know if it's visible that
20:44these are completely unrelated
20:45characters, meaning I don't have any
20:47instructions. Let's assume this is a
20:48letter, this is the letter S. If we add
20:51this, it becomes SI, this is the letter
20:53S. If we add this, it becomes SO.
20:55That's not how a syllabic script works.
20:58So it boils down to this, in summary,
21:01one sign, one sound without diacritic
21:03marks; these elements are further
21:06indivisible. So it's not like it's
21:08composed of several different strokes.
21:09It's simply one character in itself. In
21:12other words, you cannot deduce other
21:14characters based on the characters we
21:16already know. Right? So every
21:18subsequent character, every subsequent
21:20syllable is a surprise. There is no,
21:24there is nothing here that we can
21:26deduce. Simply every subsequent
21:29character is a surprise. If someone
21:31watched my old videos, they might say,
21:34"But wait, we had those syllabic
21:35scripts that relied on the fact that we
21:38have one sign." And we can modify those
21:41vowels. And that is the practical
21:44distinction, that this is an abugida.
21:46The second system, where we can indeed
21:48deduce the characters and there are
21:49certain differences, for example, that
21:51this will be MA, this will be MI, and
21:53this will be MU. This is an abugida. An
21:56abugida is a type of syllabic script.
21:58In an abugida, we encode, usually by
22:01using one character, we encode a
22:03syllable, except that in an abugida we
22:05have diacritic marks, and in a classic
22:08syllabic script we don't. So, for the
22:13needs of the Linguistics Olympiad, we
22:15will distinguish a syllabic script
22:17where we have this "Japanese surprise"
22:19—essentially, every sign is a
22:21surprise, every sign is a gift, every
22:23sign means something different, and we
22:26are unable to deduce what the next sign
22:28means. Just like with an alphabet, if I
22:33know the letters P, B, K, or, for
22:36example, Z, N, K, and A, I won't know
22:38how to write the letter D. Each letter
22:41is a surprise. And we distinguish this
22:44system from an Abugida. We will talk
22:46about Abugidas in a moment. Now we have
22:48Chinese script. Chinese script hasn't
22:50appeared on our Linguistics Olympiads
22:52yet, but it might appear elsewhere, or
22:54it might appear with us one day. And,
22:56of course, if we know such basics, it
22:58will be easier for us to work and we
23:00will save a little bit of time. In
23:02Chinese script, we have a small number
23:05of logographs. We have the principle of
23:07the rebus, where we combine elements
23:09and write them down, sort of
23:11semantically and phonologically, I
23:13explain. In Chinese script, we have a
23:16semantic component. Everything is, as
23:19it were, the fault of this gentleman. I
23:21don't know Chinese script, so I am
23:22referencing everything from this
23:24textbook. We have a semantic component
23:26and a phonetic component. Just like
23:28that rebus where I see a can in the sea
23:30. Yes, that's what it's about. An
23:32example. We have the word "horse." Here
23:35we have tones. I have to drink some
23:37coffee to wake myself up more and to,
23:39you know, to prepare myself mentally
23:41for what we have to do today. We have
23:46to talk about tones. Uh, I explain this
23:49again in the introduction to
23:50linguistics, but maybe I'll mention it
23:52now; we will have a separate lecture on
23:54phonetics and phonology, but I'll just
23:56mention it while I'm at it. In
23:58Indo-European languages, we have a
24:00vowel. Well, a vowel can be short, long
24:03, it can be a, o, it can be a, it can
24:06be a, it can be front, back—that is,
24:08it can be a, it can be o, o, a, it
24:11doesn't matter, but we just have one
24:14vowel. We don't have anything like
24:16tones, meaning we don't have, for
24:18example, two different meanings if I
24:20say "a" or "u." I will say "Kasia,""
24:23Kasza." I will say "sery," sorry, sorry
24:27, excuse me, "sery,""sery." Two, two
24:30different sounds, two different words.
24:32"Kasia,""Kasza." In Indo-European
24:34languages, there usually isn't anything
24:37like that, we don't have tones, meaning
24:39we don't have a semantic difference
24:41between "ma" and "ma." If I say "mama"
24:45and "mama" or "Momo," it's one and the
24:48same. There are languages that have
24:51tones, they have different tones. For
24:53example, a rising tone, a falling tone,
24:56a flat tone. So, we kind of encode
24:59meaning using tone, like whether it
25:01goes up, rising intonation, falling,
25:04rising, falling. There are different
25:06tones, and that's a problem in
25:07transcription because you have to write
25:09it down somehow. So here we have this
25:11information that we have a three. A
25:13three is a way of writing down these
25:15tones. So we have the word 'ma' with a
25:18tone that we mark with a three. So this
25:22three is information for sinologists,
25:24for people who have to pronounce it. So
25:27it's just technical information. It's
25:30not, it's something that the speaker
25:32themselves can somehow read from it.
25:35When we have to transcribe, we have to
25:37support ourselves with these numbers.
25:39So we have this 'ma'. We have a pure
25:43logograph here, horse. And when we say
25:46'mother', we have a logosyllabic word.
25:50In other words, we have a semantic
25:52component. I'll read this as 'nu'. I'm
25:54not Chinese, so I'm reading it however.
25:57My apologies to the Chinese. So we have
25:59the word 'nu' pronounced in some
26:01specific tone, which means woman. It's
26:03this character here. And we also have
26:05the phonetic component 'ma'. We have
26:09the word 'ma'. I mean, we have the word
26:12, we have this 'ma' component. We have
26:14this horse. It's the same character. I
26:17point to it and we add the semantic
26:19component 'woman' to it. That's how it
26:23goes. Yes. That's how it seems to work,
26:27right? That we have one character here,
26:30to which we attach...I'm very sorry, if
26:33anyone knows Chinese, I apologize for
26:35what I'm doing now, but in short, we do
26:37something like this, right? So it's...
26:44Let's stick to what we drew, or wait,
26:46vice versa. So we have green, we have
26:49that word, it's 'ma', and in purple we
26:52attach 'woman'. Oh, like that. Okay.
26:56And we read it then. We read it. We
26:59read it. Just so I don't get lost. We
27:02read it. We have this horse, 'ma'. We
27:05have this mother, pronounced
27:06differently, 'ma'. And we start, we
27:10have this phonetic component 'ma',
27:12which is that horse. Except that the
27:15horse is no longer pronounced like...it
27:18stops meaning 'horse'. When we add the
27:20'woman' in the writing, then it means '
27:22woman', a 'woman' who is modified, so
27:25this character, the phonological
27:27component, is pronounced 'ma', but with
27:29a different tone. It's this 'ma, ma, ma
27:33, ma, ma'. Sorry. But those are
27:37different tones that carry meaning. And
27:39in writing, we combine these characters
27:41. Next example, right? Let's assume we
27:48have this, I mean a machine, which is
27:50built, or rather pronounced this way,
27:52so we have this phonetic component here
27:54and we add a semantic component to it,
27:56like a rebus. We add a tree in this way
28:01, right? And there is such a, such an
28:03identical sign. Only now I'll use the
28:05correct colors, so we have it done like
28:07this. Yes, so this is, it tells us how,
28:08how, how we are supposed to, how we are
28:10supposed to pronounce it, right? And
28:12this is, so red is the pronunciation?
28:15And green is the meaning, in a nutshell
28:17. Another example. In short, we have '
28:22chang', which means mouth. Mouth, to
28:27sing is mouth plus something. How do we
28:30pronounce it? Well, we look at this '
28:32chang'. Purple is the pronunciation.
28:38Green is, green is, green is the
28:40meaning. And we simply call this, from
28:43a theoretical perspective, a phonetic
28:45component and a semantic component.
28:47Again, this is theory for the OLM, so
28:49if we get a task with the Chinese
28:51language, what do we do? Yes, well at
28:54least we know that, okay, elements are
28:56put together here. This sign on the
28:59right will inform us how it is said.
29:01This sign on the left informs us what
29:03it means. And that is what we need to
29:05know to solve a Chinese language task.
29:07If someone is learning Chinese, maybe
29:09we are talking complete nonsense. But
29:11I'm saying, this is not a formal theory
29:13, this isn't for people who want to
29:15describe languages, this isn't for
29:17people learning Chinese. This is a
29:19theory tailored for the OLM, that is,
29:21the Linguistics Olympiad. And now we
29:26move on to the alphabet. An alphabet is
29:30something where we have one letter that
29:31can encode either a single vowel. It's
29:36worth remembering that a vowel will be
29:38denoted by, since it's called '
29:40consonant' or 'vowel', we have the same
29:42system, where we have V for vowels and
29:45C for consonants. Right? When we later
29:48make a syllable structure, we will use
29:50such CV clusters. Let's assume, this
29:52means we have a consonant and a vowel.
29:55Yes, a letter can encode this and that,
29:57but someone might say, what about a 'j'
30:00, for example, is 'j' a vowel or a
30:02consonant? Or what about phenomena like
30:05aspiration, for example, that you can
30:07write 'herbata', but someone says '
30:09h'erbata', right? What about, for
30:11example, diacritical marks? Well, those
30:13are specific problems of alphabets and
30:15the adaptation of alphabets to
30:17languages. For example, the Polish
30:19language is not made to be written with
30:21the Latin alphabet, but skipping that,
30:24as for the definition, one letter means
30:26one vowel or consonant. Well, and there
30:28are certain problems, right? But
30:30generally one letter, one one sound. We
30:33have the Latin alphabet, for example.
30:35We use the Latin alphabet nowadays. We
30:37have the Greek alphabet. I highly
30:39recommend everyone, everyone to take a
30:41look at a few letters. Cyrillic, which
30:43is actually based on the Greek alphabet
30:45. We have the Georgian alphabet. If
30:49anyone was studying for the Olympiad
30:51this year, they might remember my
30:52advice to learn the Georgian alphabet,
30:54because we really like these alphabet
30:57puzzles in Polish Olympiads, especially
30:59Georgian, which appeared three times
31:01and showed up again this year.
31:03Surprisingly, I managed to predict it.
31:06So we have alphabets—Georgian is an
31:09alphabet where—tasks with alphabets
31:11are often, often, of course, we also
31:13have Armenian and various others, but
31:16basically, basically a little practical
31:18tip. Alphabets, when we have an
31:21alphabet, that is, we have one letter,
31:23one, one letter, one sound, these are
31:26usually cryptographic tasks in Poland,
31:28meaning you simply have to decode them.
31:31For instance, we get something in
31:33Georgian script—there have been four
31:35such tasks where we get some strange
31:37symbols in Georgian script, we get some
31:40symbols and you have to, for example,
31:42we get 10 words and they are, for
31:44example, words for sports. You have to
31:46figure out yourself what these sports
31:48are and translate these sports into
31:50Polish, or school subjects, or planets.
31:53Recently it was about planets, like,
31:54guess what the names of the planets are
31:56in the Georgian language. So that is a
31:58specific type of task. If anyone is
32:01interested in how to decode planets or
32:03sports or school subjects, they can
32:04look at these worksheets. But I'm just
32:07saying that alphabets also appear
32:08sometimes, especially in Polish
32:10Olympiads. We really like Georgian. Now
32:15maybe we'll say a bit about Abjad, so
32:17we are now moving on to to a system
32:23where, to abjads and abugidas. Abjad
32:28should remind us of the Arabic script
32:30or Hebrew. These are similar languages.
32:36So an abjad relies on the fact that one
32:38character signifies, encodes one
32:40consonant. It does not record, by
32:44definition, in the classical, in the
32:47classical abjad, there are no vowels,
32:49although, as we will see here,
32:51sometimes they do appear. But there are
32:55types of writing, so I'm saying—I'm
32:58showing Arabic now so that it can be
33:00visualized, but generally, a classical
33:02abjad does not have, in its script, in
33:05its characters, it does not have vowels
33:07. These vowels are inserted
33:11automatically by, um, by the language
33:13users. Let's see how it looks. We have
33:17a single letter B. The letter itself
33:19did not exist in Japanese. Here there
33:21is B. We can insert, using a diacritic
33:24mark, we can complete it to make it 'bu
33:26'. We can make 'ba' and we can make 'bi
33:30'. So those are the diacritic marks.
33:33Yes. We have 'u', we have 'a', we have
33:36'i', and it is underneath. in classical
33:40Arabic only. Okay, this is either
33:43classical or modern Arabic. Classical
33:45Arabic is the one used for writing the
33:47Quran. Also we have long vowels. We
33:51have a distinction between short and
33:53long vowels. Long vowels. We see that
33:55this is the sound and this sound can be
33:57written down. Also we have in Arabic,
34:01we have vowels that are written down.
34:04That is the same sound. Yes. Yes. Yes.
34:10Good. What's happening here? I mean,
34:14generally, as if explained what an
34:16abjad is. An abjad is just consonants.
34:18There are no vowels. Or vowels are
34:20written using diacritics. Period. But
34:22by the way, we can talk about the
34:24Arabic script. This is not in the book,
34:26so I'm adding it from my own knowledge.
34:29In Arabic script, we have letters that
34:31have several different—of course, we
34:33write from right to left, and we have
34:35letters that unfortunately connect to
34:37each other. Meaning each letter has
34:39several different variants. It has an
34:42isolated variant, or a variant where we
34:44add something after the letter, or a
34:46variant where we add something before
34:49the letter, before, after, and so on.
34:52There are several different, four
34:54different settings, and that is the
34:55problem with Arabic script. So Arabic
34:57script is not often used because it is
34:59difficult. Like, this and that is the
35:02same sound. Generally, the letter means
35:06, well, it's not the same sound, it's
35:08the same consonant B. So "ba" would
35:10look the same. We can only add a short
35:14vowel or a long vowel using a diacritic
35:16. Only we see that it will connect. It
35:20will change. It can change in different
35:23ways, in different directions. So
35:25that's how we add this "a" and that's
35:27how we add this "i". It's an
35:28interesting fact about Arabic script
35:30that it just changes a little bit. We
35:32have an "s". Similarly with "s", it
35:34will change, this "y". These things
35:38will be there. We see that it is
35:40written as "a" with this kind of sign,
35:42but it changes quite a lot, and that is
35:44simply the problem. If we see such
35:48scribbles, we don't really know,
35:50therefore, whether it is, I don't know,
35:52whether it is B or if it is S. So, in
35:55general, Arabic script is tough, and
35:57there probably won't be many tasks, at
35:59least at lower levels, to, for example,
36:02decode any words—maybe just single
36:04letters. But since it connects, it is
36:07very hard to guess, let's say, whether
36:09an "L" is an "L", or if it is, for
36:11example, some consonant or a vowel.
36:14Like, when we have some word, right,
36:15for example, you don't know, it won't
36:17be in this direction, right? You don't
36:19know, let's assume how it will be, how
36:21it will connect. So that's one piece of
36:26information, that's one piece of
36:28information about Arabic, that in the
36:30Arabic language we have consonants, we
36:32write only consonants and normally
36:34vowels are not written. There are,
36:35there are such writing systems in
36:37general that have no vowels. Vowels are
36:39added automatically. Uh, and now, how
36:42does this vowel insertion work in the
36:44classical language, I mean in the
36:46classical dialect, we have three vowels
36:49. Why did I hesitate and say language
36:51or dialect? Well, first of all, I keep
36:54making mistakes, so that's my way of
36:56speaking, that I keep having slips of
36:58the tongue, but the problem with the
37:00Arabic language is that for political
37:02reasons, I mean generally every
37:04language, uh, back. The problem is that
37:06we don't fully know what is a language
37:08and what is a dialect. This is a
37:09problem not just for Arabic, but really
37:11the decision about what is a dialect of
37:13a given language and what are two
37:15different languages is a political
37:16decision. In other words, whether the
37:19Silesian language is a language or a
37:21dialect of the Polish language, that is
37:23a political decision and linguists
37:25adapt and just sort of follow the
37:27politics. There is no linguistic
37:30definition of a dialect and a language.
37:33It always follows what people decide.
37:35So for political reasons, this is not
37:37just unique to Arabic, but I'm saying
37:39that for political reasons, people
37:41speak of one Arabic language that has
37:43various dialects, so there are very
37:45many of these dialects and they are not
37:48even mutually intelligible.
37:49Theoretically, these are different
37:51Arabic languages, but it is still said
37:53that it is one Arabic language. There
37:54is one Quran written in this Arabic
37:56language and all other things are
37:58dialects. Classically, we have three
38:01vowels, but different dialects have
38:04more vowels. They have, for example, e
38:07and o. They also have diphthongs, but
38:11for example, we have a much larger set
38:13of vowels. How does this vowel
38:16substitution work? I'm just about to
38:19tell you. And what is the problem with
38:22the dialects? Let's assume we have a
38:25Polish city here, right? Let's say
38:28every Pole, like, this is some city.
38:30What city is this? It will be Krakow.
38:32And all Poles will say Krakow. Yes, but
38:35for example, someone will speak in a
38:37different dialect of Polish and will
38:39substitute it with Krikow, Krukow, Kow,
38:45Krauko, Kromk, Krow. All the consonants
38:51match, but each person will substitute
38:53these vowels differently. And obviously
38:56we can't just, you can't say Korkow.
39:02You can't say Kork Korkow. Why? Because
39:05because why can't you say korkow?
39:10Because we have a vowel system and we
39:12are actually changing this
39:13systematically. So when we say Kraków,
39:15we have two vowels, and you can't
39:17systematically replace them with one
39:19identical vowel. When we throw in new
39:23vowels, for instance, let's throw in, I
39:25don't know, let's throw in the vowel "e
39:27" here, well, this "e" will take a
39:29little bit of this, "e", it will take a
39:31little, and I doubt that "e" would take
39:34it, take it, take this, take this—it
39:36won't take it, so there will be a
39:38greater distinction. There will be, for
39:40example, some sounds that, used to be
39:42pronounced with an "i" or an "a", start
39:44being said as "e". So it happens in a
39:47systematic way, right? So you couldn't,
39:49for example, there probably wouldn't
39:51exist a dialect that would say the same
39:53vowel twice, which would sound like
39:55Korkow. Let's note that in Polish we
39:59say Kraków, but one could also say
40:01Karków. Kar karuk karukw. Karakw and
40:12so on. These words can be pronounced in
40:14completely different ways. They can be
40:17pronounced in totally different ways.
40:19And that is the problem with these
40:21dialects, that it's as if one person
40:23said Kraków, another said Karakow, one
40:26person says Karikew, let's say Kirekew
40:31and so on. And that is what these
40:33dialects consist of, that they aren't
40:34fully mutually intelligible. Because
40:36one person says Kirekew, and the other
40:38person says Kraków. Although at the
40:39Abjad level, it is the same system of
40:41consonants. Of course, this works like,
40:43for example, such an example, such an
40:46example will be in Polish when we have,
40:59for example, text messages, well, if I
41:02have such a message, I can add those
41:04diacritical marks myself, right? For
41:07example, I can say to myself: "I want
41:09to buy butter and milk, I can go to the
41:12cinema, right?" I can add that in. Yes.
41:16And that is somewhat how Arabic script
41:18works, that simply these marks...these
41:20marks don't necessarily have to be—
41:22these marks here don't necessarily have
41:24to be added, these short vowels—
41:26because it is so obvious that the
41:28speaker can substitute them on their
41:30own, and every speaker in a given
41:32dialect substitutes their own vowels,
41:34and that is why these dialects differ.
41:36So, Abjad script—wait, an Abjad
41:39consists of us writing down consonants.
41:43Vowels are either not written at all,
41:45or only the most important ones are
41:46written, or they are written using
41:48diacritical marks, and the sound of
41:50that vowel can be made whatever you
41:52like. So, generally, an Abjad is a
41:56consonant writing system. Let's
41:58remember Hebrew or let's remember
42:00Arabic, because that's how it looks.
42:02Maybe that digression was unnecessary,
42:04but I’m saying, if we get, let's say
42:06we get an Arabic script, well, in that
42:08case, we are better prepared because we
42:10know, we know what it's all about,
42:12right? We know how it works. And there
42:17are different vowels anyway; everyone
42:19substitutes them as they see fit. Did I
42:21say anything else interesting? Well,
42:26yeah, I think that’s enough. Next, we
42:29have abugida. I told myself that an
42:32abugida is a syllabic script. Well,
42:36because it is a syllabic script; it’s
42:38really based on the principle that in
42:40every sign, every symbol, we have one
42:43consonant and one inherent vowel. And
42:46we have, we have, we have what? And we
42:49have, for example, we have something
42:51like, oh, that this will mean, this
42:56sign itself means 'ma', but we can
42:58write 'me', 'mi', we can say 'mu', and
43:04so on. So that is 'ma', 'mi', 'me', 'mu
43:07', 'mo', let's say, right? So we have,
43:11we have a base sign. The base sign is
43:14here. This is the base sign, and this
43:16sign always means, for example, 'ma',
43:19and to this, we add so-called
43:21diacritics, which are in this form,
43:23right? These are diacritical marks. A
43:27more detailed example. We have, we have
43:31what? We have the letter 'K'. Again,
43:33there is no such thing as 'k' alone. Of
43:35course, there are certain ways to do it
43:37. It is a challenge in an abugida to
43:40get rid of that vowel. And for instance
43:42, we usually have some kind of extra
43:44sign that causes us to, I don’t know,
43:47we can add this, and it will cause us
43:49to delete the vowel, so with a special
43:51sign, for example here, we can cancel
43:53out that 'ma' and say 'm'. So there are
43:57ways to write it, but by default, one
43:59sign always implies a vowel. A little
44:02practical tip. In all the abugidas
44:05we've had so far, the default vowel was
44:07always 'a'. We really like it when we
44:10have languages, we like such...that’s
44:13what I wanted to add. Why do vowels
44:15look the way they do? When we have few
44:19vowels, we like to place them in parts
44:21of the mouth where the contrast is
44:22audible. For example, we won't have two
44:28'e's, we won't have' y 'and' e 'because
44:31they are similar, or we won't have two'
44:33a's and 'o's, or two' o's and 'u's, or,
44:36I don't know, a short and a long' u ',
44:39for example, because they are similar
44:42sounds. No, those are similar vowels.
44:47When we have few vowels, we want to
44:48place them in positions where the
44:50difference is clearly audible. And' i '
44:51is at the top of the mouth and at the
44:53front. And "a" is at the very bottom. "
44:55U" is at the very back. And "u" makes a
44:58big difference. "A" and "u" make a big
45:00difference. This will not be confusing.
45:03That is also why, not coincidentally,
45:04we have these vowels in Arabic, because
45:06there are so few of them. We have them
45:08in very different places. So "a" is one
45:10of the more basic vowels, and that is
45:13why, for example, kids start by saying
45:15"mama," because we simply open our
45:18mouths—a, a, please shout "a." So "a"
45:21is one of the more basic vowels. A, o,
45:24e, i, o, u. Things of this type are
45:27very simple. So the default sound
45:29really is very often "a." So we have "a
45:33," we can write a double, long vowel, a
45:35short one, and so on, using different
45:38markers, right? And that is how it
45:42differs from...that is how it differs
45:44from a syllabary, although an abugida
45:47is a type of syllabary, but for
45:48practical reasons we can distinguish
45:51them, that in an abugida—let me
45:53repeat—once we know what the
45:54diacritics are, for example, we know
45:56that this is "ma," we know that this is
45:59"ta," and we know that this is "ba,"
46:01well then we can change all the
46:03syllables. We can make "me,""te," and "
46:07be." We can make "mu,""tu," and "bu."
46:16So if we know what the diacritics are,
46:18we can deduce new signs. That is why
46:21the abugida is used so often, because
46:23an abugida is a cool exercise. I mean,
46:26an abugida is great for puzzles because
46:28if I know the diacritics, I can deduce
46:31them, which means I can do something.
46:34And an abugida is really used every
46:36single time. When we had to do it based
46:40on the 11 scripts we made, when we had
46:42to decode the script, it was an abugida
46:45every time. Yes. Every time there was
46:48an alphabet, it was the Georgian
46:50alphabet, and every other time it was
46:52an abugida. So the abugida is
46:54hyper-important. What other things can
46:57we do? For example, we can change
46:59vowels. We can change vowels using such
47:02diacritics, but we can also do a simple
47:05rotation or a mirror reflection. Yes.
47:08Here our triangle rotates, and for
47:11example, we have, I don't know, the
47:13basic sign "pa,""pe,""pi,""po." Or we
47:16can use, for example, mirroring. We can
47:18do this, so we have "mam,""mim." The
47:23preference is to mirror it, because it
47:25is simple to do that. Rotation is for
47:30when that is not possible. For example,
47:32this sign cannot be...or rather, it can
47:34be mirrored, but after mirroring it is
47:36the same sign, right? And such signs
47:38are more easily made. Generally,
47:41generally we just have either one type
47:43of phenomenon, where we either mirror
47:45it, or we rotate it, or we do a mix of
47:48that. But in general you don't have to
47:54approach it logically, whether it's,
47:56whether it's, whether it's, we have a K
47:58here, and that, we have a K here, and
48:00that will be k. Okay, maybe you do need
48:04to approach it. Yes. Well okay, then in
48:06that case it's clear that it's a mirror
48:07reflection, right? But when, for
48:09example, we have a rotation, it also,
48:10like, you don't need, it's not a
48:12completely different phenomenon. We
48:13just have a sign and we simply rotate
48:15it, or we rotate it by mirroring it, or
48:17we have a rotation. It's just one of
48:19the two, right? Like, you can figure it
48:21out, right? And of course the changes
48:23are systemic again, it's not random,
48:25but we have, for example, usually such
48:27reflections. It is nicely shown here in
48:29this illustration from this book, that
48:30we have a certain direction of change,
48:32a certain direction of rotation and a
48:33certain direction of reflection. Right?
48:36And generally, how we approach signs,
48:38we already had a task like that, where
48:40we had signs and you could deduce what
48:42the meaning was. Of course those were
48:45such signs, there can also be mixed
48:47systems, for example we have: this is
48:50ma, this will be ta, this will be ba,
48:53and for example this changes the
48:55consonant for us, and we still had
48:57diacritical marks, so we had my, by, y,
49:00ma, ba, ta and we had diacritical marks
49:03, let's assume, I don't know, mi, mu
49:05and it will be me. Yes, so it was a
49:07combination of that. Generally, if
49:11someone hasn't done these Olympiad
49:13tasks yet, the principle for solving
49:15them is that, what do we do? We just
49:18look at the data set and this data set
49:20is just self-contained, meaning all the
49:22information is there. You have to
49:23observe carefully. Anyway, we'll do the
49:25tasks in a moment, so we'll see, right?
49:28Sign, sign language. Maybe a small
49:32surprise, that there is no such thing
49:35as, there is no such thing as one sign
49:37language. There are different sign
49:39languages every time. And, so what? And
49:43Polish language is not, not
49:44understandable for Americans. American
49:46is not understandable for the British.
49:48British for the Japanese. Each country
49:50has its own sign language. It is not
49:52mutually intelligible. A cool piece of
49:55information is that we encode using
49:57gestures, but native speakers of sign
49:59language also encode using facial
50:01expressions. And native speakers are
50:04able to tell who is a native speaker
50:06and who is not by their facial
50:07expressions. I don't know if you
50:09noticed, but when someone is signing,
50:15uses gestures and so on, if they use
50:17sign language, they also have very
50:19engaged facial expressions, meaning for
50:21example they don't speak, so they
50:23encode that expression or additional
50:25information using facial expressions.
50:27When someone learns sign language at a
50:29university, let's say, or in a course,
50:31they aren't entirely able to master
50:32those facial expressions. You soak up
50:34those facial expressions with your
50:36mother's milk. So, just like native
50:38speakers of normal languages, or normal
50:40in the sense of spoken ones, have
50:44different intonation and prosodic
50:46patterns, and you can hear it. Likewise
50:48, native sign language speakers also
50:50stand out, because they have much more
50:52natural facial expressions. So,
50:53gestures can be learned, but native
50:55speakers perform these gestures faster,
50:57more precisely and better, and they
50:58additionally encode information using
51:00facial expressions. Uh, we are also
51:03interested, for example, in the fact
51:05that in sign languages, uh, one can
51:07also, one can also, can also encode
51:09numbers, names, one can do, uh, one can
51:11encode individual letters, meaning we
51:13also have gestures that represent
51:15individual letters. And different
51:17grammar, there really is a problem like
51:18that with the spoken language. Why do
51:20we have this sign language, for example
51:21? Because that signed version of the
51:23Polish language, the sign language of
51:25Polish is not, it is not the Polish
51:27language, it is a completely different
51:29grammar, a completely different
51:31construction of the subject, sentence,
51:33predicate. That is why people who don't
51:36speak also have problems with books. I
51:39mean, in the sense that uh, it's not
51:43one-to-one, that if someone uses sign
51:45language, they can read books. Because
51:48these are two completely different
51:49languages with different grammar, with
51:51different syntax. Uh, sentences are
51:53built differently, so you have to learn
51:55the Polish language differently, so, uh
51:58, so subtitles alone are not enough. Oh
52:00, you could provide subtitles, for
52:02example. Well, not necessarily, not
52:04necessarily. Of course, it is known
52:06that people learn the Polish language,
52:08but the average Joe has no idea how
52:10hard it is for a person who is deaf,
52:12right? To learn a normal language, I
52:14mean a spoken language, not a signed
52:16one. So sign language is a specific set
52:20of gestures and grammar, and it is not
52:22the same grammar as for the spoken
52:24language that is written down. That is
52:26why, besides subtitles, they provide a
52:28person who signs, yes, who performs
52:31these sign gestures. The last thing,
52:34Braille alphabet. We have a system, we
52:37have a system. We have a system of, uh,
52:40six little dots. Black ones are raised.
52:42I say black are raised, because it's
52:44known that a person who is, who is not
52:46seeing, sighted-impaired, blind, will
52:48not see the color. So it is important
52:50that these are bumps. We code these
52:52bumps, which are raised, as black, but
52:54of course that has no meaning for a
52:56person who cannot see. Yes, different
52:59languages have different Braille
53:00systems, and unfortunately, just like
53:03with sign language, learning Polish
53:05Braille doesn't mean you can handle
53:07Japanese Braille. Having Japanese
53:09Braille as a puzzle doesn't mean we can
53:11handle Japanese or American Braille,
53:13and vice-versa. Braille often comes up
53:18in Olympiads because you have, say, six
53:20of these dots, and you have to decode
53:23their meaning, right? What's cool is
53:28that I know how Braille works, but
53:30since there are different versions, you
53:32could have Japanese, American,
53:34Brazilian, or Polish Braille, and you
53:36always have to decode the rules behind
53:38it. You have to encode all the sounds
53:42of a given language using different
53:44dots and combinations of dots, right?
53:47And that’s a cool mathematical,
53:49linguistic, and cryptographic puzzle—
53:51how sounds are encoded. And that is why
53:54it’s so great. It’s cool that we
53:55know how it works, but even if we know
53:57how the Polish one works, we don’t
53:59know how the American one will work, or
54:01vice-versa. And we’ll have a puzzle
54:03with Japanese Braille in a moment. One
54:06last thing, maybe I’ll finish my
54:08coffee before we move on to the puzzles
54:10. The last thing is that we have mixed
54:12systems. There were only a few words
54:18about Korean. I mean, there were only a
54:20few words about those languages in
54:22general. It would be a lot of extra
54:24information, but we have symbols like P
54:26, P with a star, pH, and so on. M. They
54:30all have a square or are based on a
54:32square, because these are consonants
54:34that are bilabial, meaning both lips
54:36are involved. Here we have the lips,
54:40the teeth, and the lips touching. P, b,
54:43and so on. Um, there are consonants
54:46where the lips close during production.
54:50So for Koreans, apparently, they all
54:52have a square because they resemble
54:54mouths from the front. When the lips
54:56are in the front, they are closed, and
54:59we say m, p, m, b—they have to close.
55:02So that’s what the mouth looks like.
55:03So it reminds them of that. It says
55:07that the properties of the symbol,
55:09again, symbol or sign—they use them
55:11interchangeably—are based on the
55:13features of the sound they represent.
55:16So, there’s an indication that it’s
55:18not entirely arbitrary, not entirely
55:20conventional, because there is a
55:22physical resemblance between the lips,
55:24which look like that when producing the
55:26sound, and the notation. So there are
55:28such feature-based systems, if you want
55:30to call them that. This is very rare. I
55:32haven't seen Korean. I have no idea
55:34about Korean in general. So the point
55:37is that if we get Korean on an Olympiad
55:39, we’re in trouble—it’s sad, a
55:41real shame. Yes, but there is also a
55:45system like that, right? Each
55:48individual sign is marked separately.
55:50It is not an alphabet. I don't have an
55:52alphabet. Let me sneeze to wake myself
55:58up. And we can now move on, we can now
56:00move on to the next part, meaning we
56:02can move on to practice with a bit of
56:04theory and and we're doing this now,
56:07we're doing the most important steps.
56:09We do 100%of these tasks on live
56:11streams. That is, we don't do the full
56:14solution of the tasks, perhaps not 100%
56:17, but 80%. We perform the most
56:21important steps to explain what this
56:23puzzle is about, what it involves, and
56:25basically go through the main stages.
56:27And the finishing touches, meaning
56:29connecting all the remaining sounds, we
56:31do on the worksheets. I will explain
56:34the difference in a moment. We are
56:35starting with problem 22. Why 22, and
56:38not 21? We will do problem 21 next. Why
56:42? Because this one is simpler. This
56:45puzzle will be simple, the next one
56:47will be difficult, then it will be
56:49simple again, and then it will be
56:50medium. No, I don't want to start with
56:53a puzzle that is difficult, because
56:55people will get sad, it won't be good,
56:57people will give up, so let's do
56:59something simpler, and a harder puzzle
57:03will be in a moment, so relax, there's
57:05no need to disconnect. A simple puzzle.
57:08Uh, the puzzle looks like this: we have
57:10symbols, uh, and we have encoded, we
57:13have encoded, uh, various, various,
57:15various names. I always rewrite this.
57:18Fortunately, because this is not a
57:20scanned sheet but from a book, I was
57:22able to locate the font and can now
57:24make a nice animation because I know
57:26which font is used. So I am now
57:28rewriting the same thing, but I am
57:30putting it into a presentation. And we
57:32have the same information. We have
57:34three different, three different
57:36categories of names. We have regions,
57:38cities, and kings, and we need to
57:40translate these types of things.
57:44Generally, when we solve puzzles, we
57:46are first interested in matching them,
57:48working out the rules, and once we do
57:50all that, we can translate these names.
57:55That is at the very end, and we won't
57:57be doing that at this moment either;
57:59we'll just see that in the book it's
58:01not done either, because once you work
58:03out the rules, you can figure that out
58:05on your own. So, we are not interested
58:07in translation for now. We get rid of
58:09that information and we have this
58:10little puzzle. We have regions, cities,
58:14and and kings. And now, uh, if someone
58:17wants to think about how to do it
58:19themselves, they can of course pause.
58:21On live streams, I ask questions and
58:23wait for answers, what we're doing, so
58:25it's more interactive and it takes much
58:27longer. Now I just want to do a quick
58:29demonstration of the solution. If
58:31anyone wants to solve this in parallel,
58:33just pause it yourself. I ask a
58:36question and you can pause right there.
58:38So, what are we doing? We start by
58:40looking at the information given here,
58:42meaning regions, cities, and kings.
58:44This is important information. Next,
58:46the question is: how can we use this?
58:48What catches our eye in the dataset?
58:50The datasets are what we call
58:51self-contained. These aren't just
58:53random words; it's a puzzle. The puzzle
58:55lies in the fact that this data set can
58:57be solved. So, we have information in
59:00this puzzle that allows us to solve it.
59:03That is how a puzzle differs from
59:05random words chosen from a dictionary
59:07—it can be solved. So, what catches
59:09our eye? I swapped the order. I usually
59:13use the term that something is sticking
59:15out or standing out. Like how we have
59:18something protruding from a building, a
59:20balcony for example, we ask: what is
59:22sticking out? We should notice that we
59:26have this last element, which first of
59:28all isn't repeated here, and secondly,
59:30it's in the same spot at the end; it's
59:32a similar element at the end of each,
59:34and it's likely linked to that. Overall
59:39, I'm asking what we can do with this,
59:41how can we handle this? I'm asking, if
59:44you want to do it, hit pause. What are
59:47we doing with it? Well, first of all,
59:49we color code it, we see that this
59:51element is suspicious, it's a bit "sus.
59:53" Firstly. Secondly, we reshuffle, we
59:56play with blocks, we arrange the blocks
59:58, we group this together, we group that
1:00:01together, and we group this together,
1:00:03right? This is semantic classification.
1:00:07We assume this will encode the regions,
1:00:09cities, and kings for us accordingly. I
1:00:11don't know how, but in general, I
1:00:12suspect it will be some kind of
1:00:14information. We have two regions, two
1:00:16cities, two kings. Time for phonetics.
1:00:20What do we do next? What do we do next?
1:00:24Press pause. If you don't want to wait,
1:00:26well, I have no idea what to do here. I
1:00:28will break these down into syllables.
1:00:31It is a syllabic script. For one, there
1:00:34are no marks. How do I know that?
1:00:36Because there are no diacritical marks.
1:00:38There isn't anything like we have
1:00:39things here. No, there are no
1:00:41diacritical marks. Uhh, there is one
1:00:43suspicious thing, that we have a little
1:00:45dash here, but in the other places,
1:00:46well, we just have it done this way. I
1:00:48see that we have a lot of letters here.
1:00:50One, two, three, four, five, six, seven
1:00:52, eight, and so on. A lot of letters.
1:00:54And here we only have three characters.
1:00:56So, of all these systems, I assume it's
1:00:58going to be something like pamata,
1:00:59babasa, and so on. It just looks like
1:01:01syllabic script at first glance. Yes.
1:01:04Uh, and if someone is watching this
1:01:06lecture for the first time, this is
1:01:08simply new information for them. Once
1:01:10you've done 11 or 12 sheets, it's
1:01:12obvious that this is a syllabic script,
1:01:14because it is. So, what can I do? I can
1:01:17count the syllables in these words.
1:01:19Let's move to these words. If you want
1:01:22to count the syllables, you can pause.
1:01:24I will do it for you. Let's count:
1:01:26kamatu pala a. Why did I divide it as
1:01:29pala a? We might be tempted to make it
1:01:31"palaa," but we don't see anywhere that
1:01:33there are two characters. We have a
1:01:35minimum of three characters. Three
1:01:37characters, four characters, more
1:01:39characters. This dataset doesn't look
1:01:41like it, doesn't tell me, doesn't show
1:01:43me that these would be two syllables.
1:01:45So I assume there is no such thing as
1:01:47long vowels. We just have pala. And
1:01:50here the dataset tells us that we don't
1:01:52have long vowels. This is a hypothesis
1:01:54we have to make at the beginning. Aha.
1:01:56If someone is watching for the first
1:01:58time, it's like we don't have, we don't
1:02:00have, we don't have certainty, we just
1:02:05have an educated guess, so I can assume
1:02:08: yes, I'm not certain, but I'm 90%sure
1:02:10that it will be like this and I have to
1:02:13guess anyway, so there are no long
1:02:15vowels, we just have a double "palaa."
1:02:18Let's keep counting syllables. Here we
1:02:20have three and three syllables. Kurkuma
1:02:22, tuwa, warpalawa, tarkumawa. umowa.
1:02:26Let's count the syllables. And now my
1:02:30suggestion is that we color them, as
1:02:31based on this information we are
1:02:33already able to match these things. We
1:02:39have a diacritic here, which won't be a
1:02:41syllable, it just looks like some
1:02:43strange diacritic that appears and
1:02:45ruins the whole picture for us. It's
1:02:48unclear what it actually means. But for
1:02:50now, we can ignore it. I can definitely
1:02:54see that these are kings. Why? Because
1:02:56here we have the longest words, where
1:02:58we have four characters. One, two,
1:03:00where we have four characters. One, two
1:03:02, three, four. One, two, three, four.
1:03:05These will be kings. Even if I'm not
1:03:06sure about that, I can definitely see
1:03:07that here we have three characters each
1:03:09. We have three syllables, meaning one,
1:03:10two, three, one, two, three. It matches
1:03:12up. And we have a mix here, where we
1:03:15have one, two, three, four, one, two,
1:03:17three. Overall, I can observe that this
1:03:20will be a diacritic sign. If I'm not
1:03:22able to formulate such a hypothesis, I
1:03:23can start from the fact that these will
1:03:25be regions, because it fits. Well, here
1:03:27we have longer words, so I can also
1:03:28assume that these will be kings. So,
1:03:30well, information on how we know this.
1:03:33We know this from here. Let's sort it
1:03:35out. And let's get rid of the rest now.
1:03:38Let's get rid of the "syr", because
1:03:40they don't form anything for us. So we
1:03:42have kings, cities, regions, and now
1:03:44let's see what similarities we have,
1:03:47what catches our eye. Let's see, let's
1:03:49see what we can see now on the symbols.
1:03:51Yes, what the symbols tell us. Let's
1:03:53observe the symbols, let's see where we
1:03:55have similar signs. What can we, what
1:03:58can we see? You can pause, I'm moving
1:04:00on. We're moving on. It should catch
1:04:04our eye that we have "kurkuma", that we
1:04:06have two signs next to each other, and
1:04:08it will probably be that word because
1:04:10the "kurkuma" signs are repeated. Does
1:04:13that check out? This yellow part, it
1:04:16seems to me that it will be an' r '. I
1:04:18see that we have' r 'here, and in this
1:04:20place, and here. Let's see the' r '.
1:04:22Well, there is probably a diacritic
1:04:24sign for the consonant' ry ', because
1:04:27this' ry 'consonant is not common. I
1:04:29have no idea. Well, in any case, there
1:04:31is such a strangeness, such an oddity.
1:04:33in the form of this' ry '. Of course, I
1:04:35don't have to figure it out right away,
1:04:37but I can just state it at this point,
1:04:38but if I don't feel confident, I'll
1:04:40just ignore it for now. I'm looking
1:04:42further, I like to color. Let's color
1:04:44some more, shall we? So I'm looking at
1:04:47the next signs that repeat. So we have
1:04:49"wawa" again. Yes, I can look from "
1:04:51kurkuma", I can see "wawa", it doesn't
1:04:54matter. And at this point, it would
1:04:55match that we have one word here, and
1:04:57another word here. Let's see now, let's
1:04:59see now what we do next with this "wa".
1:05:01"wa" repeats here, and we have "wa". So
1:05:05this confirms that we matched it
1:05:07correctly, and by the way,' q 'appears
1:05:09at this moment,' q 'we know. So I have
1:05:12confirmation that these are the words,
1:05:14and now I can click, we can click,
1:05:16click the words that are 100%correct.
1:05:19So let's click this and let's click
1:05:21that. Oh, we've matched them up. So
1:05:24what do we do now to deal with this? We
1:05:27color, we look at some morpheme that
1:05:29repeats, a symbol that repeats, and we
1:05:31try to move it. Right here. You can
1:05:37pause, but you can also go further. We
1:05:41have, we have, we have the' ma 'symbol
1:05:43repeating here, and since we see it's
1:05:45reversed, we swap the order and we can
1:05:48click. All right, and done. And we've
1:05:50finished the puzzle. Actually, I could
1:05:52do a bonus now where we match the
1:05:54remaining characters and show which
1:05:56symbols go where. It's definitely done
1:05:58correctly, and this is how we've
1:05:59finished it. This is the solution.
1:06:03Again, we'll skip the steps of
1:06:05translating this, because you can
1:06:07decode it yourself. So this is the
1:06:09official answer, but we'll skip the
1:06:11translation of this part. Basically,
1:06:13we’ve arrived at a point where the
1:06:15solution is complete, right? I, I, I
1:06:18really like this recording system,
1:06:20where you can actually make a table
1:06:22with' au 'and just write the symbols
1:06:24down here. I won't do this in
1:06:29presentations, because I simply lack
1:06:31the space, since I have to have
1:06:33everything on one screen. But as we can
1:06:37see, it’s a cool way if someone wants
1:06:40to take notes—just make a table and
1:06:42quickly jot down the symbols. We see
1:06:44that it is a script, it's not an
1:06:46abugida, it is a syllabic writing
1:06:47system. I mean, an abugida is a
1:06:49syllabic script, but for practical
1:06:51reasons, it’s a syllabic script. We
1:06:53see that when we have that sock or shoe
1:06:56, we can't deduce what' ta 'is, we
1:06:58don't know what' tu 'is. Since we know'
1:07:00ma ', we don't know what' mu 'is. It is
1:07:02not an abugida. Which doesn't change
1:07:06anything in how we solve the puzzle,
1:07:08but it is what it is, because here it
1:07:10is how it is. Now we move on to this
1:07:14puzzle, which is harder. This is what
1:07:15the puzzle looks like. The author is,
1:07:17of course, credited. What do we need to
1:07:19do? We have a lot of information, blah,
1:07:21blah, blah. Information overload.
1:07:23I’ll go ahead and move on. I’ll
1:07:25take the liberty of transcribing it. We
1:07:28have the Hmong language, Hmong,
1:07:30Hmong-da, I don't know. It is written
1:07:36using the so-called missionaries'
1:07:38alphabet. Missionaries. The letter W
1:07:44represents a vowel. W is, it’s like
1:07:47if we had, let's say, an A. W is not a
1:07:49consonant, it is a vowel. Okay, the
1:07:52first thing we must remember: the
1:07:54letters G, S, V at the end of syllables
1:07:57are not consonants. They aren't those
1:07:59consonants, they indicate tones instead
1:08:01. Remember that Chinese one, where
1:08:03there was 1, 2, 3, 4? I would prefer to
1:08:06see 1, 2, 3, 4, because this can be a
1:08:09bit confusing, but remember that G, S,
1:08:11V is information about the tones.
1:08:14It’s as if we had G1, S2, V4. Those
1:08:19tones are in those specific places. Yes
1:08:21, that is a tone. This is the tone.
1:08:23This is the tone. We are starting,
1:08:25starting, starting to solve this by
1:08:26carefully reading the instructions. We
1:08:28see that we need to get familiar with
1:08:29it. So we have these tones. Here we
1:08:31have a vowel, and here we have, and
1:08:33here we have a G. We are trying to get
1:08:37rid of the informational chaos. We see
1:08:40that here we have information about
1:08:42what this means in English, what these
1:08:44words mean in English. Yes, but here we
1:08:49won't be asked to provide a translation
1:08:51. Since we don't have to provide
1:08:55translations, semantics are irrelevant.
1:08:59Up until now, when we had script, we
1:09:02never had to translate, and semantics,
1:09:04meaning what it actually means, didn't
1:09:06affect the result. Although it will
1:09:11certainly happen once that it does, in
1:09:13this puzzle it doesn't. And we can get
1:09:17rid of this informational noise. And we
1:09:20did that every time we had to match
1:09:22morphemes or decode script, that we get
1:09:24rid of the informational noise. It's
1:09:26immediately better. We know what we
1:09:28need to do. We need to translate this
1:09:31to English, I mean, do a transcription,
1:09:33and here we need to provide the
1:09:35missionary script. We take a close look
1:09:39. The original has two or three groups
1:09:41of characters. Transcription, two or
1:09:43three syllables. I, I sort of spaced it
1:09:45out more in the original so that you
1:09:47can see the pause, that it's written
1:09:49this way to show the pause. Again, if
1:09:51anyone wants to think about what we can
1:09:53do, we pause right here. Press pause if
1:09:55you want to try it yourself. Pause,
1:09:57pause, pause, pause. Okay, we had a
1:10:00chance. You had a chance, you had a
1:10:02chance, you had a chance. If it didn't
1:10:05work out, well, that's okay. We have
1:10:08the transcription here and we assume
1:10:09it's a syllabic script. Why? Well,
1:10:11because we assume I'm reading, it
1:10:13doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if we
1:10:15read left-to-right or right-to-left.
1:10:16However you read it. Here we have one,
1:10:18two, three, four, five letters. Here we
1:10:20have three letters, so here we have two
1:10:22signs, two signs, and so on. The same
1:10:23here, right, in different places.
1:10:25Exactly the same. Well, that's a long
1:10:27word. The number of letters doesn't
1:10:29match and the number of these doesn't
1:10:30match, so it won't be an alphabet. You
1:10:31can just see it, right? At first glance
1:10:33. Right, that y in this place, yeah?
1:10:36Well, one syllable, four letters, right
1:10:38? It's a syllabic script. The question
1:10:40is, is it an abugida or is it a
1:10:41syllabic script? We'll see, but we have
1:10:43to think about the direction of writing
1:10:45. How to determine the direction of
1:10:47writing? We have the same method every
1:10:50single time. I’m searching, we’re
1:10:52looking at this dataset, looking for
1:10:54things that stand out to us. What
1:10:56stands out to us in these these these
1:10:57things? What strikes us, let’s just
1:10:59let ourselves be struck, right? Let’s
1:11:01see what strikes us. You can pause, but
1:11:04I know you don't want to. What should
1:11:07strike us are these little dots. It’s
1:11:09a specific script and I can't isolate
1:11:11the dots, but let’s mentally
1:11:13underline just the dots now. The dots
1:11:15really stand out, don't they? And those
1:11:19dots correspond to the letter G. Just
1:11:23the dots. And the question is, does two
1:11:27dots mean G? I remind you that G is a
1:11:29tone. It is a tone. We see that it’s
1:11:36being written as the first word. Oh,
1:11:39right here. Right here, let’s assume.
1:11:41Oh, why why did I underline this, right
1:11:43? Because here we have word number 13
1:11:45and here we have word 13. It doesn't
1:11:47matter if it's 3 1 13 1 3. I don't see
1:11:49the direction. Here we have the second
1:11:50word, so this is the second word.
1:11:52Reading from right to left, it will be
1:11:53the second word, left to right the
1:11:55second word, right? We see here that
1:11:59these dots are above the first word, so
1:12:01, so we do something like this, we
1:12:03write all words in order, but syllables
1:12:05are written this way, right? Generally,
1:12:12at this moment, that is one explanation
1:12:14. The second explanation is, if someone
1:12:17, for example, knows Chinese, they are
1:12:19able to say right now that, well,
1:12:21consonants, those tones, not those ma
1:12:24ma...there is no tone on a consonant.
1:12:28The tone is on the vowel, so it will be
1:12:31above the vowels. It won't be above the
1:12:33consonant, it will be above the vowel.
1:12:34So if someone knows the tonal rule in
1:12:36Chinese, at this moment they will see,
1:12:38well, these are vowels, right? And U is
1:12:40a vowel. This is a U pronounced in this
1:12:42way, right? Or this is an O pronounced
1:12:45in this way, right? So that’s how it
1:12:47looks. So that is an alternative
1:12:48solution. I’m saying there are
1:12:50several solutions. If someone knows
1:12:51Chinese, it might be more evident to
1:12:53them faster, right? So let's assume we
1:12:55have a vowel, and we continue to
1:12:57mentally underline, we only underline
1:12:59these little lines and look for answers
1:13:01, looking for S. We see that it would
1:13:03make sense, that we write, oh, we write
1:13:06syllables 1 2, but the syllable itself
1:13:08is written this way, right? So we write
1:13:12words 1 2. And as for the order of
1:13:14these things, we write 1 2 1 2. I
1:13:17don’t know if that makes sense.
1:13:20Let’s keep underlining these dots.
1:13:25We’ll do the dots and the dots
1:13:26correspond. What do the dots correspond
1:13:28to? Why is there an O here? Why is
1:13:30there an i here? Why is there an a here
1:13:32? What's going on? A riddle. What is
1:13:35this little dot? I don't like this, I'm
1:13:37going to keep underlining these things.
1:13:40I know that V is a tone, so I'm looking
1:13:43at what's happening, where this V is
1:13:45and what this V corresponds to? It
1:13:48corresponds to nothing. Why? Why? Why?
1:13:57Why? Exactly. Why? If you want to think
1:14:00about it, pause the video. You have 3
1:14:02seconds. Three. Why is it like that?
1:14:04Why? What is the rule? Three, two, one.
1:14:09I'll explain now. The tone system is
1:14:12made of diacritics. It is likely a
1:14:15syllabic script, but when it comes to
1:14:17the characters themselves, the tones,
1:14:19they made a diacritic system to denote
1:14:21them. In other words, we see that when
1:14:25we have two dots, we have G. I mean G,
1:14:28so we have this tone number 1, 2, 3, 4,
1:14:30that's tone 1 written with G. When we
1:14:33have a dash, we have tone S, which is
1:14:36tone 2 written as S. When we have, when
1:14:38we have one dot, it is O, which is
1:14:41likely no tone or a neutral tone. I
1:14:44don't know what the tone is in this
1:14:45language. It could be a flat tone, it
1:14:47could be a rising tone, I don't know,
1:14:49we can assume it's the default tone.
1:14:52And V will be, V will be a specific
1:14:54tone. And V is some other tone. Yes,
1:15:10that would check out. So what I'm
1:15:13saying is the other way around. I mean,
1:15:15in the sense that what seems to be the
1:15:16other way around. This default tone, I
1:15:18don't know, the default tone is a and o
1:15:20. I don't know how they pronounce it,
1:15:21but it's the default vowel and the
1:15:23default vowel is written with a dot. It
1:15:25would seem that the default tone should
1:15:27be written with a zero. But with a zero
1:15:31we write the tone V, so it's the other
1:15:33way around. No, I didn't make this up,
1:15:35that's just the language. That's just
1:15:37how they invented it, right? There are
1:15:39various number systems and also various
1:15:41counting systems. I didn't make this up
1:15:42. That's how it is. In this language,
1:15:44it's the other way around, isn't it? So
1:15:46this is, this is counterintuitive, but
1:15:47not every language is intuitive. Since
1:15:49it works, then apparently that's the
1:15:51meaning. Anyway, we're back to the fact
1:15:53that G is very easy to spot. It's
1:15:56problematic that a dot marks this tone,
1:15:59the tone the vowel has, and having
1:16:02nothing, the zero tone, marks V. V von.
1:16:08So the tonal system is a diacritic
1:16:10system. And now we go back to our
1:16:13consonants and vowels. Um, let's look
1:16:16here. Let's see. We are looking here.
1:16:21Why? Why are we looking here? Because
1:16:25the signs are repeating. Again, we have
1:16:27a section where we just have characters
1:16:29that are similar. So we see that we
1:16:32have "ra" twice and we have "y" and we
1:16:36have "h" and "c". Not "k", but "ca". I
1:16:41can figure it out based on the fact
1:16:42that since we have "rara" here, the
1:16:44script is—I mean the script, we write
1:16:45these syllables this way, but the
1:16:47individual syllable is written this way
1:16:49. So I see that we have "ra", "ra".
1:16:53These are our consonants. The vowel
1:16:55will be "u". We see that this "G" is
1:17:00those two little dots. Like, I can't
1:17:02write it out properly because I can't
1:17:04underline it, but we see that the vowel
1:17:06is encoded separately and the tone is
1:17:08encoded separately. So above the vowel,
1:17:11we have—we have the tone written. So
1:17:13this "G" is actually written. So "sra"
1:17:15looks like this, that we write one.
1:17:18This is—this is, or maybe I'll write
1:17:20it this way. We start with the
1:17:24consonant, then we write the vowel as
1:17:26number two, and above the vowel,
1:17:28because the vowels are—we shout on
1:17:30the vowels, we write the tone above the
1:17:32vowel. That's how it looks. So we have
1:17:36this, we have "ra", "u", "rauge", right
1:17:39? "Ra", "u" is the vowel, just so you
1:17:41know, right? I didn't write it, just
1:17:43that it's a vowel. "Rausu", oh, I
1:17:45didn't write it, sorry. This isn't "ca"
1:17:49, but it's "ci". Why is it "ai"? Well,
1:17:59apparently we have diphthongs then.
1:18:25Okay, good. Generally speaking, I see
1:18:28that, okay, I corrected some things,
1:18:29and some things I didn't. Now there's
1:18:31the thing that this is exactly the
1:18:32moment where we are solving this puzzle
1:18:34, just the main elements, and now you
1:18:36really have to sit down to it, see if,
1:18:37for example, okay, this is the moment,
1:18:39you have to see if we have "a" and if
1:18:40we have "a". We'll see if we have the "
1:18:43au" vowel, or if it's "ra" or "rau". So
1:18:45, like, "y" shows that we have these
1:18:49consonants, and now you have to sit
1:18:51down, see, at this very moment we sit
1:18:53down to see if it's the default "k"
1:18:55vowel or if it's "ki". And at this
1:18:57point you need to—at this point you
1:18:59need to sit down with the vowel. So
1:19:01that just has to be done independently.
1:19:03There are double vowels, it’s just
1:19:04that you have to figure it out by
1:19:06solving it. So, I corrected it in this
1:19:08place, but in this place I didn't. In
1:19:12this place, I didn't. There is one
1:19:16problem with the vowel, with the "k"
1:19:18sound, so we'll leave the vowels, but
1:19:19I'll show you what the vowels look like
1:19:21in a moment, but you can figure it out
1:19:23calmly. I just wanted to say that there
1:19:25is a problem with the with the "k"
1:19:26sound. Why is there a problem with the
1:19:28"k" sound? The only problem we have is
1:19:30that the K sound is missing in these
1:19:32places. And we simply assume in that
1:19:36case that we have something like a
1:19:38default K sound. So if there isn't, if
1:19:40there isn't a syllable that starts from
1:19:42scratch. If it's not there, we just
1:19:44substitute it with C, I mean, we
1:19:46substitute the consonant with K. That's
1:19:48what the answers look like, and that's
1:19:51what I was saying, at this point we
1:19:53have to figure out if we have an A, or
1:19:55an AJ, AU, A, and so on. Eh, yes, it's
1:20:01easy to figure out, we just aren't
1:20:03doing it because we mainly just wanted
1:20:05to show that we have a default K
1:20:07consonant, that we have two different
1:20:09systems, and that we have different
1:20:11ways of writing tones. It's problematic
1:20:19to figure out that the zero tone is
1:20:21written with a dot, and the tone with
1:20:23nothing is written as a V tone. That is
1:20:25difficult. This is a diacritic system.
1:20:27Next, we have these vowels, which are
1:20:29simple. We have a default K consonant.
1:20:31Uh, and we have the direction of
1:20:33writing. Generally, words are written
1:20:35from left to right, but I think here,
1:20:37since this is the first edition, there
1:20:38are such minor errors. We are writing
1:20:40it the other way around. We write it
1:20:42this way, this way, this way. Unless it
1:20:46is written where 1 2 3 is. Unless it is
1:20:49written where the center of the
1:20:50syllable is. Phonologically it is 1 2 3
1:20:55, but we write it in terms of order as
1:20:571 2 3. The center of the syllable is
1:21:00here, here is the consonant, but the
1:21:02center of the syllable is the vowel,
1:21:04right? But generally, the order of
1:21:06writing the syllable is this way, right
1:21:08? TR, not 1 2 3. So that can be
1:21:11corrected in the second edition. So,
1:21:14sorry, we missed out on all the fun of
1:21:16matching the vowels, but like I said,
1:21:18it's not about how much time. We are at
1:21:21an hour and 20 minutes, we still have
1:21:23two tasks, so we have to pace ourselves
1:21:25. We're moving on to the next puzzle.
1:21:28Puzzle number three. This one is
1:21:30simpler. We have the Tagbanwa script
1:21:33here. Uh, we have done this script once
1:21:38before, but we did it on our Olme. Uh,
1:21:42the puzzle was that this system, from
1:21:44what I remember, has, in Polish for
1:21:46example, we have E and...in this system
1:21:51it's one sound, meaning they have fewer
1:21:53vowels than there are in Polish, so for
1:21:55example, it is coded using E, but here
1:21:57it is done from a different angle. We
1:21:59had it, I remind you, we had it written
1:22:01this way, and here we have it from top
1:22:03to bottom or from bottom to top, right?
1:22:05So it's a completely different task.
1:22:08Luckily, I have access to the font
1:22:09again, so I was able to download it and
1:22:12we can transcribe this in a nice format
1:22:14. The rule is the same. We have the
1:22:17words and we have the translations for
1:22:19these words. Where to start? If you
1:22:24want to solve it yourself, go ahead.
1:22:27What are we doing? Pause the video.
1:22:29What are we doing? 3 2 1. What catches
1:22:36our eye? What stands out to us? Let's
1:22:39add some color. We have two words with
1:22:42three characters and one, two, three,
1:22:45four, five, six words with four
1:22:47characters, plus we see these elements
1:22:50are clearly diacritics. It might not be
1:22:53obvious, but the more exercises we do,
1:22:55the faster it becomes clear that these
1:22:57are diacritics, right? So we have an
1:22:59abugida, which is a syllabic script. An
1:23:02abugida that uses diacritics. You can
1:23:04see that at a glance, right? Again, we
1:23:07have a lot of letters here. 8 letters,
1:23:0910, 12 and so on, but here we have four
1:23:11characters, so we see it's not an
1:23:13alphabet, it doesn't match up, right?
1:23:15So it's an abugida. We have diacritic
1:23:18elements. Let's divide them into
1:23:19syllables. Now we're doing the boring
1:23:22part. We go here and break them into
1:23:23syllables. Balugu. Now I've corrected
1:23:26the spelling. This is how it should be.
1:23:29Bugawasin, Kadiang, Kapukusan. If we
1:23:32don't know how to divide syllables,
1:23:34let's wait for the lecture on phonology
1:23:36or watch the lecture on phonology that
1:23:38already exists. So, for anyone
1:23:40interested. That's how it's divided.
1:23:42Kapopusan kiaabusan. And now we have ma
1:23:46ngin sa, or maybe mang in du sa, since
1:23:49the "ng" exists in English. Will it be
1:23:53manginga, or manga? I have no idea, but
1:23:58it doesn't change anything from a
1:24:00phonological point of view, because we
1:24:02have four syllables here and four
1:24:04syllables there. Where is the break?
1:24:06It's completely irrelevant, but we have
1:24:08four syllables here and four syllables
1:24:09there. Next we have tuman, kujun, blah
1:24:12blah blah. Four syllables. Generally,
1:24:15there are two words with three
1:24:16syllables, and there are more words
1:24:18with four syllables. We'll get rid of
1:24:22the variant, because it doesn't give us
1:24:24anything. And we can color-code it, so
1:24:27we have these words here and the
1:24:28remaining words here. So we know where
1:24:31those words will be. I don't know which
1:24:33is which, but I can guess. Yes, the
1:24:37characters don't represent letters. We
1:24:40have a syllabic script. What do we do
1:24:42now? What is the next step? If anyone
1:24:45wants to solve the puzzle, they can
1:24:47pause now, and I'll explain how to do
1:24:49it. Three, two, one. Where do we start?
1:24:55We are looking for elements like these
1:24:57again. We are looking for elements that
1:24:59repeat. We don't have two identical
1:25:01signs in a row here; it was the same as
1:25:03it was with turmeric, right? Is it
1:25:05turmeric? Turmeric. There were two
1:25:07identical signs. Yes. It is the same
1:25:09method. Now we are looking for where we
1:25:11have two repeated syllables. And the
1:25:13syllables are repeated. We'll get rid
1:25:15of the colors. Syllables are repeated
1:25:17in this place. K pupusan. We know the
1:25:23syllable is in the middle, so it will
1:25:25be pupu. And the question now is, is it
1:25:28k pupusan or k pupuusan? In which
1:25:31direction do we write? From top to
1:25:33bottom. From bottom to top or from top
1:25:35to bottom? We definitely know that this
1:25:37is the word, so we can match it. And
1:25:40now the question is, in which direction
1:25:42do we write? So what do we do? How do
1:25:44we determine that? You can pause or
1:25:48take a look at this fragment, right?
1:25:51Generally, we color it again and look
1:25:53at where we have similar signs. We
1:25:55color it, noting we have a repeated
1:25:57sign here and a repeated sign here,
1:25:59right? And now we see that we have
1:26:02these signs. Now you can pause and say
1:26:04whether it's from top to bottom or from
1:26:05bottom to top. 3 2 1. It turns out we
1:26:13write from bottom to top. Because it is
1:26:17kapupusan. Kapupusan. The sound repeats
1:26:22at the beginning. No sound is repeated.
1:26:24We don't have k kapupu san. No. On the
1:26:27other hand, we also see that we have
1:26:29words that end in san. So we have
1:26:34kapupu san, ka kadiang and san. San is
1:26:38in two places, two words end in it, so
1:26:40the reverse hypothesis doesn't work; if
1:26:43it were san, we don't have any word
1:26:45that starts with, or wait. If it were k
1:26:47, then we don't have other words; we
1:26:49don't have a three-syllable word
1:26:51starting with k, so that doesn't work.
1:26:53And likewise, we don't have a word
1:26:55ending in x, two words that end in san.
1:26:59So yes, we write from bottom to top,
1:27:01for starters. Secondly, something is
1:27:03happening with the consonants at the
1:27:04end. We have san here, we have sa here.
1:27:07We have san. It's the same sound, or
1:27:09rather the same sign. And we have san
1:27:12once, and sa once. Without any
1:27:14diacritic mark. Something suspicious is
1:27:16going on, but let's leave that for now
1:27:17and move on because it doesn't make
1:27:19sense. We can substitute it. I know
1:27:21that this will be it, so I will
1:27:22substitute it. And likewise by way of
1:27:24elimination. How do I know it's 6a?
1:27:26Well, because I know by way of
1:27:28elimination. Since we took one
1:27:29three-syllable word here, the second
1:27:31one will be here. So I know that. I
1:27:34keep coloring and looking at which
1:27:36characters appear in which places. We
1:27:40have three and c, and I can now deduce
1:27:42that it's this word, these words here,
1:27:44because they start with the same
1:27:46syllable. And again, something strange
1:27:49happens at the end. something strange
1:27:53happens at the end, because for example
1:27:58, already, because one time we have,
1:28:05let's say, yang, one time we have ya,
1:28:12oh, one time we have, one time we have
1:28:14it as ya, one time as jung, and one
1:28:16time as jun. Well, jun I understand,
1:28:19the vowel is changing, but this is,
1:28:21this is ya. And what happens with that
1:28:23N? What happens with that N? And what
1:28:24happens with this? Ng, ng, N. Why is it
1:28:26there or why is it gone? Uh, I can
1:28:29match three and four, I'll match them.
1:28:32How do I know that? How do I know that?
1:28:34Well, because that's how the order of
1:28:36syllables looks. By the order of the
1:28:38syllables, I can see that's how it
1:28:39looks, right? That we have this and so
1:28:41on. Fourth and third, I can see which
1:28:44one is which. I'll continue underlining
1:28:46the next characters we have at this
1:28:47point. I underlined it, I could have
1:29:00done it in pink, I'm thinking about
1:29:02that now, just that I wanted to
1:29:04emphasize it's a Q, that I'm 100%sure
1:29:06it's not, it's not a k, but that it's a
1:29:08Q. Well, I underlined it, I could have
1:29:10underlined it in pink, whatever. I mean
1:29:12, if I were doing it now, I would
1:29:14underline it in pink, but let's just
1:29:16leave it, right? I keep underlining, I
1:29:18look at the remaining elements that
1:29:20repeat, that we have 6a, which is, it
1:29:22is, it is, it is ba. I know this is ba,
1:29:25Bugawasin, Kaibusan, and so on. I can
1:29:27match them, I match the elements and by
1:29:29process of elimination, the last
1:29:31element remains. So everything is
1:29:33matched nicely. I simply see which
1:29:34syllable is which. I can match them,
1:29:37for example, that we have this, it
1:29:39changes by using this, it's u, this
1:29:41will be, this is u and so on, that we
1:29:43have this Q, we have this i. For now,
1:29:46there are few diacritics, so it's easy,
1:29:48it's easy to identify, and we can see
1:29:50what's happening. The hardest part of
1:29:52the puzzle is, it is, it is, it is this
1:29:55consonant at the end. Now let's do this
1:29:58: we'll get rid of the colors and see
1:30:00what happens with those, with those
1:30:02syllables, that we have once san, once
1:30:05sa, once san, once we have ma, mang,
1:30:07and once we have, once tung. And it
1:30:12turns out that this system is such a
1:30:14strange one that we have the same thing
1:30:16as in Arabic. In other words, the N and
1:30:20Ng consonants are not written down, but
1:30:22the speaker is simply able to add them
1:30:24in on their own. So the users of this
1:30:31language, they know themselves when to
1:30:33insert them. The reader adds these
1:30:36types of elements by themselves. It's
1:30:39like if we had "I, speak, I can go buy
1:30:41butter," I can read it correctly on my
1:30:43own, so apparently it's not marked
1:30:45because everyone just knows how it's
1:30:48read. Formally, it looks like this. I
1:30:51really like this writing system and, as
1:30:53I said, I can't do this in a
1:30:55presentation, but if someone does it on
1:30:57paper, it's very cool to make a chart
1:30:59like this and write the vowels down
1:31:01this way, right? Like I said, I
1:31:02remember this language having only
1:31:04three vowels, there was vowel reduction
1:31:06, where 'e' was reduced to 'i', and 'o'
1:31:08was reduced, I believe, to 'u'. So
1:31:12three vowels, but there was no such 'ng
1:31:14' system. And what? And a very simple,
1:31:17a very simple abugida, really a very
1:31:20simple abugida, where we only have two
1:31:22diacritics, but the difficulty lies in
1:31:24having to add that 'ng'. Sometimes, but
1:31:28these are the solutions to these tasks.
1:31:30Those three words to translate are
1:31:32something like this. Well, once we have
1:31:34the key, I think it's easy to do, right
1:31:36? If someone wants to look at the
1:31:38solution, this is what it looks like.
1:31:40Well, it's not particularly difficult.
1:31:42So we have K, k. The last little puzzle
1:31:47. Braille, BR writing is the last one.
1:31:51The last little puzzle, Japanese
1:31:53Braille. Promised, known, and liked.
1:31:55Damn, I could have left that Japanese "
1:31:57lufok" in. I forgot about it. Oh well.
1:31:59Japanese Braille. The puzzle author,
1:32:03and we move on here. Again, we have a
1:32:06lot of things. We need to look at this
1:32:08dataset. We have one word provided
1:32:10translated. We must, we must write in
1:32:12this way, we must write these words
1:32:14down and we must also translate a lot
1:32:16of things. Again, we get rid of the
1:32:18elements that we don't need. For now,
1:32:20we have to see how it works and we have
1:32:22to determine, we have to establish the
1:32:24rule. Uh, here we are given a
1:32:26translated word. Unfortunately, I can't
1:32:28do this in the form of these characters
1:32:30because my presentation breaks down
1:32:32completely, so unfortunately I have to
1:32:33do it as an image. Uh, so we are given
1:32:40"karaoke". Karaoke. We divide it this
1:32:43way. We know that Japanese writing is
1:32:45syllabic and we have karaoke. What is
1:32:49the direction of writing? How to
1:32:52determine the direction of writing? Oh.
1:32:56We definitely have to look at "karaoke"
1:32:58and we have to look at some words here,
1:33:00the hint is that you need to choose two
1:33:02words. Which words can help us
1:33:05determine the writing direction? If you
1:33:08want to figure out which words to
1:33:10choose, look at these words and let me
1:33:11know. Or pause, take a pause. You have
1:33:143 seconds for this. Three, two, one. We
1:33:19are looking at the words "katana" and "
1:33:21sake." Why are we looking at the words
1:33:23"katana" and "sake"? Because we have "
1:33:25karaoke" and we have "k." We have one
1:33:27word, two syllables, three syllables,
1:33:30and we have repeated, recurring sounds
1:33:32—that is, we have "karaoke," and
1:33:34those sounds repeat here. Now, if we
1:33:37read from right to left, well, since
1:33:39that is a "k," it would be...wait, if
1:33:42it were right to left, it would be "
1:33:44k-ra." If that is a "k," then we have "
1:33:48k-ta." We are missing a syllable, right
1:33:50? The other way. If it is, if it is "
1:33:53k-ra," then it would be "sa-ke."
1:33:58Doesn't fit. Left to right. Ka-ra-o-ke.
1:34:03Na-ka-ra-o-ke. That's right. That is
1:34:11how it's done. Now I've underlined
1:34:15these things, I mean, I had to do it
1:34:17because I simply cannot write it, do it
1:34:19in PowerPoint. So we have the BC
1:34:21example done, we have "katana" done, "
1:34:24karaoke" we have done. And now we look
1:34:26at what we do next. What do we do next?
1:34:36Three, two. You can, you can say it
1:34:38yourself. You can, you can suggest it
1:34:40yourself. 3, 2, 1, we underline it and
1:34:43look for the things that we already
1:34:45know. "Ta" appears in this spot, so
1:34:48this will be "Atari." How do I know
1:34:50that? Well, because we have, we have "
1:34:52Atari" repeated. Then I look at the
1:34:54fact that we have a set that has two
1:34:56syllables, so it will be "koi." And in
1:34:58this way, the system is done, and we
1:35:00simply have to figure out all of this
1:35:02information. You can already deduce
1:35:04which is which, no problem. Now you
1:35:06need to write it down, and we write it
1:35:07like this. I really like this system.
1:35:10Very clear and straightforward. We have
1:35:12"k,""kok," and now these are the
1:35:14collected bits of information, these
1:35:16syllables, and the question is how we
1:35:18build this system. Now you can think
1:35:20about how we make it, because this is a
1:35:25system that is complex, right? And it
1:35:31looks like this: we have essentially
1:35:33naked consonants, to which vowels are
1:35:39added. So we have two little dots. We
1:35:43have two dots, and one dot, we have "ke
1:35:46,""ki,""ko," and so on. Again, we said
1:35:50that Braille is a script that is
1:35:52different for every country. Apparently
1:35:56, in Japanese, there are fewer vowels
1:35:58and fewer consonants, and the script is
1:36:01simply efficient. Yes. In other words,
1:36:03in other words, there is no problem.
1:36:05Let's assume we are about to run out of
1:36:07dots. No, there cannot be a situation
1:36:09where all the dots are taken. For
1:36:11instance, if all the dots mean, I don't
1:36:14know, P, B, K, and so on; we have a
1:36:16limited number of combinations and we
1:36:19just have to encode them. So,
1:36:21apparently it works for, for, for
1:36:23Japanese, but it might not necessarily
1:36:26work for Arabic or Polish, right? Or
1:36:28for Hungarian. And that is why every
1:36:30Braille is different. It works well for
1:36:32the Japanese. This is what the solution
1:36:34looks like. We translated it from the
1:36:36word. This is what a samurai looks like
1:36:37. written in miso. So that’s how we
1:36:39have this information organized, right?
1:37:00Okay. I’m looking at it in the book
1:37:02now. In the book, we missed that we had
1:37:05to create these, we had to create new,
1:37:07new, new, these new sounds, right? We
1:37:10missed that this syllable isn't here
1:37:12and we had to create this syllable
1:37:13ourselves. Am I saying that right? Yes.
1:37:19We had to create it by combining these
1:37:21two elements. So that was the task:
1:37:23while translating it, you had to create
1:37:25these two elements yourself. I see it
1:37:28now, but it isn't explained generally
1:37:30in the book. Basically, to solve the
1:37:32task, you had to build the system of
1:37:34how it’s written and just figure it
1:37:36out. So the hardest part of this puzzle
1:37:38is making that transition from one to
1:37:40the other. And maybe it’s hard to do
1:37:44the first time, but there really are a
1:37:46lot of Braille types like this, and in
1:37:48higher stages the tasks consist of
1:37:50needing to write something in Braille.
1:37:54So, once we know how this system works,
1:37:56we can decode it next time. You just
1:37:58have to encode it, or I don't know,
1:38:00figure out what the information
1:38:02encoding system is. Except this is
1:38:05Braille designed for an Arabic script,
1:38:07so, well, it’s a specific type of
1:38:09Braille. But anyway, I don't want to
1:38:14drag this out. An hour and a half for
1:38:16four tasks, I don't know, is that a lot
1:38:18or a little? Let me know in the
1:38:19comments. This is the first part of our
1:38:21deliberations on writing systems. In
1:38:23case you’re wondering, information
1:38:24will be here now so you can go and
1:38:26watch the next videos. This is an
1:38:27introduction to linguistics. Somewhere
1:38:30down there, and on this side, there
1:38:32will be the Linguistics Olympiad
1:38:33materials, and somewhere there will be
1:38:35a link to the playlist with the next
1:38:37episodes. So there is a multitude of
1:38:40choices. You can choose the episode
1:38:42that interests you. That’s all for
1:38:44today. Thank you for your attention and
1:38:46I invite you to watch the next episodes
1:38:48on preparations. There will be stuff on
1:38:50phonology, phonetics, and numbers.
1:38:52There will be lots of interesting
1:38:53things. Also, thank you and let me know
1:38:55in the comments if you liked it. Take
1:38:57care and bye.

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