አቡጊዳ...? Completion of the abugida sequence

I've long been curious about the structure of "a-bu-gi-da".  What comes after the first four elements of the sequence? Finally today, I worked out an answer:

አቡጊዳሄዝቶየኩሊማኔስዖፐሩሢጣዬፍኆፀቹዊሓሼቅኞጀጹጲ

Since I'm just having fun, and I am lazy, I didn't do any real research. I just tried to construct it somewhat logically. But it's probably wrong. So, apologies to real scholars out there. If there's an authoritative answer, maybe one of you will see this post and tell me. As they say, the fastest way to get an expert answer to a question is to post a wrong answer on the Internet! While we wait, let me explain my construction.  

Background

Abugida is the name used for alpha-syllabaries, like the Ethiopic (aka Ge'ez) script, where each character is a syllable equivalent to a vowel + a consonant in the roman alphabet. In fact, the term comes from ge'ez. But it is now used as a general term for alpha-syllabaries including some Indic ones.  Now normally, the Ethiopic character set is organized in a matrix where the columns correspond to the vowel form and the rows to the consonant, like this:

Image courtesy of this paper

As you can see the sequence of rows (consonants) here is not a-b-g-d-.... It is h-l-h-m-s-r-... So where does a-bu-gi-da come from?  Notice it sounds a lot like: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, ... 

A Greek connection

So it is related to the Greek alphabet! 

Note that I say "related" and not "comes from", which may surprise Westerners who tend to think of ancient Greece as the origin of a lot of stuff. But Greek letters descended from the Phoenician alphabet, and Phoenician is Semitic, as is Ethiopic. So the relation may go back to an earlier node in the ancestor tree, or could be a more recent adoption. 

Another interesting connection is that Ethiopic numerals from 1 to 6:  ፩, ፪, ፫, ፬, ፭, ፮, ... look a lot like the first 6 Greek letters α, β, Γ, δ, ε, ζ, ... (lowercase except gamma being uppercase). I should note that Professor Hailu Habtu in a recent book entitled "Aksum: A glimpse into an African Civilization" (excellent book by the way) disagrees with this connection. But I digress.

The Diagonal

The a-bu-gi-da consonant order is the same as the first four letters of the Greek alphabet. But notice also the vowels correspond to the first four vowel forms of the Ethiopic alpha-syllabary. So if we imagine a different matrix, with the rows matching consonants in the Greek order, and columns matching the vowels in the Ethiopic order, then we are basically going down a diagonal. Cute!

I am fond of diagonals. Like Cantor's diagonal argument that the real numbers are not countable. A classic way to introduce the difference between countable and uncountable infinity. Everyone should learn that! And how about eigenvalue decomposition... But I digress, again.

So if we follow the diagonal, wrapping around when we run out of columns, i.e. diagonal with column index being modulo 7, we can continue the a-bu-gi-da sequence. Here's the sequence with explanations. 

አ (a) – ሀ (h), 1st vowel /ä/ (Greek: Α, alpha)

ቡ (bu) – በ (b), 2nd vowel /u/ (Greek: Β, beta)

ጊ (gi) – ገ (g), 3rd vowel /i/ (Greek: Γ, gamma)

ዳ (da) – ደ (d), 4th vowel /a/ (Greek: Δ, delta)

ሄ (he) – ሀ (h), 5th vowel /e/ (Greek: Η, eta)

ዝ (zə) – ዘ (z), 6th vowel /ə/ (Greek: Ζ, zeta)

ቶ (to) – ተ (t), 7th vowel /o/ (Greek: Θ, theta)

የ (yä) – የ (y), 1st vowel /ä/ (Greek: Ι, iota)

ኩ (ku) – ከ (k), 2nd vowel /u/ (Greek: Κ, kappa)

ሊ (li) – ለ (l), 3rd vowel /i/ (Greek: Λ, lambda)

ማ (ma) – መ (m), 4th vowel /a/ (Greek: Μ, mu)

ኔ (ne) – ነ (n), 5th vowel /e/ (Greek: Ν, nu)

ስ (sə) – ሰ (s), 6th vowel /ə/ (Greek: Ξ, xi)

ዖ (‘o) – ዐ (‘), 7th vowel /o/ (Greek: Ο, omicron)

ፐ (pä) – ፐ (p), 1st vowel /ä/ (Greek: Π, pi)

ሩ (ru) – ረ (r), 2nd vowel /u/ (Greek: Ρ, rho)

ሢ (śi) – ሠ (ś), 3rd vowel /i/ (Greek: Σ, sigma)

ጣ (ṭa) – ጠ (ṭ), 4th vowel /a/ (Greek: Τ, tau)

ዬ (ye) – የ (y), 5th vowel /e/ (Greek: Υ, upsilon)

ፍ (fə) – ፈ (f), 6th vowel /ə/ (Greek: Φ, phi)

ኆ (ḫo) – ኀ (ḫ), 7th vowel /o/ (Greek: Χ, chi)

ፀ (ṣä) – ፀ (ṣ), 1st vowel /ä/ (Greek: Ψ, psi)

ቹ (ču) – ቸ (č), 2nd vowel /u/ (Greek: Ω, omega, next Ge'ez consonant)

ዊ (wi) – ወ (w), 3rd vowel /i/ (no Greek equivalent, next Ge'ez consonant)

ሓ (ḥa) – ሐ (ḥ), 4th vowel /a/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ሼ (še) – ሸ (š), 5th vowel /e/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ቅ (qə) – ቀ (q), 6th vowel /ə/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ኞ (ño) – ኘ (ñ), 7th vowel /o/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ጀ (ǧä) – ጀ (ǧ), 1st vowel /ä/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ጹ (ṣu) – ጸ (ṣ), 2nd vowel /u/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

ጲ (p̣i) – ጰ (p̣), 3rd vowel /i/ (next Ge'ez consonant)

To generate this I used the Grok large language model. After all, LLMs are language sequence completers, how appropriate! It took a bit of prompting to get to this. If you are interested, here's the whole conversation with Grok.

Actually this whole exercise was as much to see if an LLM could do this as it was about the subject itself.   

Oh by the way, if you want serious content on Ethiopic, check out  geez.org.

Update on Ethiopic transliteration in Gmail, Google Docs, Blogger, etc.

ሰላም ዓለም!

Transliteration is is the conversion of a text from one script to another. For example,  typing  something in the Roman alphabet, like "selam alem", and having it show up in fidel (Ethiopic script) as ሰላም ዓለም.  This is a really convenient way for people who want to write in languages that use non-Roman scripts, to write on an ordinary computer which has a keyboard with roman letters.  

A few years ago (it's hard to believe it's already been that long!)  Ethiopic transliteration in Gmail, Google Docs, etc. was launched.   With several user interface changes in Google products, the instructions ain that post are a bit out of date. Here's a quick update so there's an easy reference somewhere.

Transliteration as a standalone tool

To use it as a standalone tool, where you can just type text to copy elsewhere, go to google.com/intl/am/inputtools/try/ or google.com/transliterate/amharic (similarly for tigrinya) 

How to write Amharic or Tigrinya in Gmail, and in Google Docs:

To use Amharic transliteration directly while writing inside Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Sites, etc. you need to set it as an "input method" (all of the following works with Tigrinya as well as Amharic.  Just select Tigrinya instead in the settings).

1. Go to Gmail Settings (the little gear icon in the top right corner of the Gmail window) and click on Settings.
   
2. In settings, under the "General" tab, in the "Language" section, click on "Show all language options" and then click on the checkbox to "Enable input tools".
   
3. Click on the "Edit tools" link right next to it. A large window will pop-up with various languages on the left under Input Tools, select Amharic and move it over to the right column under "Selected input tools" using the big arrow, in the middle of the window, and click OK
   
4. Save the settings: back on the settings page, make sure you scroll all the way down and click on Save
   
5. Once you have done that, you will see the አ icon right next to the gear icon in the top right in Gmail. Just click on that icon whenever you want to switch to typing in Amharic 
6. Then when you type phonetically in roman letters, and as you finish each word, the corresponding text in Ethiopic shows up.  
    
7. You don't have to memorize any rules, just type naturally the words as they sound, and it will figure out the best transliteration. For example "negergn" becomes ነገርግን but "negeregn" becomes ነገረኝ.  Notice that "gn" gives different results in the two cases. The transliteration shows up as you type, showing multiple candidates, and when you hit space at the end of the word, the top one is automatically chosen.  You can also select the several other choices if the top one is not what you mean.
8. This also works in Google Docs, Blogger,  Google Sites and most Google products that have text input.

P.S. Ethiopic font

Note that before you can use transliteration, your computer must have an Ethiopic (Ge'ez) font installed. Most recent versions of Windows or Mac have it pre-installed so you can skip this part. If you can see the following text "ሰላም ዓለም" (or read the text on this web page, then you have an Ethiopic font installed. If you can't see it, then you need to install a font like this one for example.

Optimism

A few months ago, I stumbled across a business card left behind on a table. Under the name of the company, it had three words, each followed by a period,  representing, I guess, the three pillars of their "corporate values".  One word struck me: Optimism.   I must have snickered,  because someone asked what was up. I instinctively thought "optimism" was a silly value, but it dawned on me that I had never thought about it explicitly.

Is optimism good?

The question sounds strange because Optimism, today, in American culture, is automatically assumed to be A Good Thing. Like "pro-active". People use that word as if it's synonymous with "good".  E.g. Person A: "Don't do this bad thing." Person B: "It's not bad, it's pro-active!"  Noooo....  Just like sometimes, being pro-active is evil, being optimistic is not automatically good.

Let's define optimism as follows: Having high expectations for a positive outcome. That is to say, compared to most "normal" people's probability distribution of outcomes, yours has more weight on the positive side. Say we both bet on the same horse, and one of us thinks we'll lose and one thinks we'll win.  So when is it good to be the optimist?  I would slice it on three levels:

1. Of course if you turn out to be right, then great... But that just means you got lucky.
2. What if you had to make the same choice over and over again, and on average the optimistic view is more accurate? Great, but that's not really optimism, it's having a better probabilistic model, better foresight.
3. Now what if you believe the same probabilities as everyone else, but you are more willing to take the risky choices and eventually you're better off? You are good at taking the right amount of risk for reward, and if in the long run you are better off (technically i.e. if you are on the efficiency frontier in the risk, reward plane),  then ... well that's good judgement. 

But in all these forms, the optimism is situational! The are plenty of situations where the wise person would take the "pessimistic" position.   Thus, as a fundamental value to live by, "optimism" is actually orthogonal to the things we consider good, truthful etc.

People (including Corporations!) of the world, listen to me: Value luck, foresight or judgement.  Not optimism.  That's just silly.

 

On Optics (channeling Safire)

William Safire recently died. Even though I disagreed with most of his political opinions, I loved and will miss his columns, especially "On Language". So I want to note his passing here, with my own little post on language. Now of course I don't aspire to be as entertaining or educational as him... so I'll just rant about something I find annoying.

Politicians and journalists in the US have started using the word "optics" when they mean "perception" or "appearance" . E.g. instead of "this looks bad" they say "the optics of this are not good"..... urgh! Extremely annoying fad! Here are two quick examples I just found using my favorite search engine. The first one is from a politician in 2008:

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa [...] said that terrorists would dance in the streets if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is elected president [...] because Obama's middle name is "Hussein," his father's Muslim roots, and his appearance -- or "optics," as King put it. "I'll just say this that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? "

Well Mr. Congressman, the optics of this are that you are a pretentious buffoon who thinks that borrowing scientific sounding words makes you look smart. (Oh and it seems you are also a bigot... but that's off-topic here.) The second one is a more recent example from an actual writer this time:

"In response to the leak, the White House kicks into high damage-control mode [...], but even here shows some clumsiness, at least regarding civil-military optics: the 25 hours for the Olympics vs. 25 minutes for McChrystal optic..."

The "McChrystal optic"? To me those two words invoke a beam of light going through a solid material whose constituent atoms are arranged an orderly repeating pattern. Which of course has nothing to do with what (I think) the writer meant to communicate -- something about Gen. McChrystal and perceptions. The faddish metaphor failed, the sentence is ugly and borderline incomprehensible. Way to go, Mr. Professional Writer.

I think this usage of "optics" right now, in 2009, is just at the point where it's perfect indicator of a certain kind of pomposity. Normal people haven't started using it (and hopefully never will), but it seems to be trendy with hacks who either can't come up with better metaphors or fear that simple words would expose their paucity of meaning. Am I being to harsh ? OK, let's give that last writer the benefit of the doubt, and see what else he's written... in an even more recent post, the following:

"President Obama and his advisors seem to be wrestling with this fundamental issue in Afghanistan and the optics and the body language...."

Bingo! Optics and body language.... just horrible isn't it?

It's not that I am just a cranky conservative when it comes to language -- far from it, I love its constant evolution -- slang, jargon, lingo.. it's all great! But that doesn't mean that all neologisms are good. It doesn't mean that "any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes", to quote George Orwell. For a new word, usage, phrase, or expression to work, for it to be cool, in any language "what is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around."

R.I.P. William Safire.

Etymology of Nemo

Another trip down ego lane.. A long time I ago, I threw up a page called the Etymology of Nemo... I am glad to report the first update since October 29, 1998, thanks to a very erudite Mr. Arthur Klein, who contacted me by email:

If I remember correctly, the Greek word used by Homer was 'medeis' where the first e is an eta and the word is pronounced may-dace. It is declined like the famous heis, mia, hen, meaning one (masculine), one (feminine), one (neuter). But it has been fifty years since I studied Greek and tried to read Homer. But you should be able to find it in a decent classical Greek dictionary under: mu, eta, delta, epsilon, iota, sigma. My little modern Greek traveler's dictionary has only 'meden' - mu, eta, delta, epsilon, nu - meaning nothing.

Arthur (Exalted one in Celtic)
Klein (Little in German)
How about that for an oxymoronic name.

While we're on the topic, I should also note my Chinese name
(self-selected with a little help from the web)

柠檬

Pronounced ne-mo. It has a meaning I like a lot, but which shall be left as an exercise for the reader (and I've already done it -- haha).