Fri, Mar 29, 2:06 AM CDT

Abugida

Photography Illustration posted on Mar 27, 2015
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Description


I don’t think I was entirely in Chicago today. Oh, I went to work, as I normally do; I endured my normal shift—as I normally do—but I was seized by a kind of detachment as well. It was a subtle form of detachment: nothing I felt consciously until my departure from work and my trek to a slightly-more-distant el station. By the time I actually felt the detachment of the day, I figured it was simply because I was in the mood to observe and to—quite possibly—feed the kernel of a story idea that has been germinating since I wrote a fragment of an imaginary city in yesterday’s post/dedication. The sense of detachment—if that’s even the right word—was very real, and very much associated with the unreal cities of Ií-Upon and Ií-Beneath. As such detachment comes upon me, it’s usually because of a story idea, forcing itself into my conscious thoughts, or the simple desire to be the anthropologist and record some transient phenomenon in Chicago. Today, that particular feeling took a slightly different, and marvelously surprising route. I suspect that it has everything to do with the imagined cities embedded in yesterday’s post, but not in the usual way. As I crossed the Wells Street bridge I noticed gulls wheeling on frigid currents and eddies of air. They squawked and trilled to one another in the characteristic language of gulls. They wrote strange patterns in the air by simply hurling themselves along tight, spiraling trajectories, and as I watched them, I wondered if they were—like yesterday’s crows—a map of a particular region. What surprised me was when one gull in particular landed atop a decorative obelisk at the south end of the Wells Street Bridge. The creature in question simply landed and seemed to look directly at me for a moment. Seeing the opportunity for a shot, I pulled out my camera, at which point the gull proceeded to re-adjust its furled wings and simply look somewhere else. I noticed something; as I’d already been thinking about writing systems, I saw what I’d taken—at first—to be the kernel of a hieroglyphic symbol. And, for a moment, it was; but as I thought more about it, I realized that it was something a little more sophisticated. Hieroglyphic symbols, for all of their mysterious beauty, are blunt and inaccurate; they represent ideas, as any symbol might, but if a language dies (such as the language of the Ancient Egyptians) anyone attempting to reconstruct that language may be faced with the daunting absence of vowels. This is the case with ancient Egyptian. We know the words, but we don’t actually know how to say them, since the hieroglyphics in question are not a record of vowel sounds. The gull on the obelisk was not the kernel of a hieroglyphic; it was, instead, something more alphabetic in nature, something known among those language-studying-sorts-of-people as an Abugida: each symbol (character, or “letter”) contains a complex set of instructions embedded in the indicated consonant sound with either an inherent or dependent vowel (usually indicated by a doohickey on top: a slash, a line, or some other kind of thingy-whatsit.) I don’t know what sort of consonant + inherent vowel the gull on an obelisk was showing me, but I suspect it’s intimately linked with the language spoken in the imaginary city of Ií-Upon. I also suspect that it would be a consonant + different inherent vowel, if the gull was facing the other way, and it would probably be a consonant + dependent vowel, if the gull was not there at all. This image is a cultural note. Perhaps some fictional character from the fictional city of Ií-Upon will see this image and proceed to tell me something about her (or his) native language, and oddly-graceful writing system. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.

Comments (10)


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giulband

1:37AM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Very expressive example of conceptual art !!

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durleybeachbum

2:05AM | Fri, 27 March 2015

An intriguing peep into your thoughts, Chip!

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kgb224

8:05AM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Superb capture and post work my friend. God bless.

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helanker

10:55AM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Geee! What an amazing idea you have there. A beautiful hieroglyph you have created. You are an odd soul, Chip, in a good way :)

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jendellas

11:23AM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Interesting, great pic. x

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Faemike55

3:36PM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Well executed and worked!

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MrsRatbag

8:03PM | Fri, 27 March 2015

It probably also depends on a lot of other things too, such as the type of stone that the crow is standing on, the weather at the time, the time of day and the position of the wings. duh! LOL! Wonderful work Chip, you do make us think!

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wysiwig

10:34PM | Fri, 27 March 2015

First off, a fabulous interpretation of the gull on an obelisk. Second, I learned a new word today. Third, after your explanation of Abugida I could not help but wonder about the city of li-Upon. Is it Lee-Upon or Ly-Upon or possibly Lee-Oopon? Could one be the name of a city and the other an insult? There are four tones in Mandarin. This results in a simple word like 'ma' taking on four different meanings depending upon the tone. It could mean mother, hemp, horse or scold. You can see the problem. You could be complementing someone's mother and say "You have a lovely horse". Maybe this is why we have so many wars.

wysiwig

10:35PM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Your postings do tend to lead one down the stream of consciousness.

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KatesFriend

10:35PM | Fri, 27 March 2015

Speaking of languages, did you perhaps grow up in Long Branch? Because never before have I heard such a parade of doohickeys, thingys, thing-a-mabobs, hootie flickers, doobies and wazps-names since I last spoke to my mother. Long Branch: Where the streetcars loop and the squirrels scamper in fear of my shot gun toting (then eight year old) mom. It's a long story, like Long Branch. The Toronto Long Branch that is, though don't say that to anyone in Long Branch. You really do have a way of inventing a very mysterious and perhaps ancient atmosphere in a few speedy paragraphs. This piece and "A City" are so engrossing that I'm am anxious to read more about Ií-Upon and Ií-Beneath and perhaps a gull's significance to either place. The sound, whatever it may represent, would seem to me to be emphasized by a quick snapping of the tongue at the end of pronouncement. The do-dad over top of the symbol evokes emphasis of some kind. This may be in mimicry of the sounds some feline land predators make while observing potential avian prey. Some of these things go back a long ways.

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auntietk

9:45AM | Tue, 05 May 2015

the image made me think instantly of Mina, which is (of course) always a Good Thing. then i read your post and enjoyed a whole 'nother layer of life. what a joy to be reveling in your gallery!


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Photograph Details
F Numberf/5.6
MakeCanon
ModelCanon PowerShot SX400 IS
Shutter Speed1/1000
ISO Speed100
Focal Length17

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