Whistle, Hiss and Shush: The Serpent Eats Its Own Tail

I've been revisiting my phonetic alphabet recently, mainly with a view to compiling all my blog posts on the topic into one book-like PDF. I have toyed with the idea of writing an actual book on the topic, however I think the flow of the blog articles works much better than a book ever could. You can follow the journey from start to finish.

Obviously these journeys and questions never have a true ending, it's more just that you reach a natural point for an intermission. With that in mind a few loose ends are worth commenting upon.

The main one concerns the snake-like letter S.

We noted before that the S sound was essentially a Z sound with a "push of air" (we kept the S symbol though as it was suitably snake-looking). Keeping it turned out to be fortunate as I'd forgot about the "Sh" sound - as in the word shush.

With the other letters we've been using the letter H as a way of amending the core consonants - to add that push of air. For example, to create the P sound in our new alphabet we use B + H - as we deemed P to be the B consonant with a push of air.

So in our P-less alphabet the word push would be rendered bhush.

Following this logic S would also be a Z with a push i.e. Zh. However, we really need that H to lift the S/Z sound into the Sh sound.

Shush

The Sh sound really is quite unique. It's very similar to hissing, but it's a bit more whistle-like. It's almost a hiss approaching a whistle if that makes sense. (As I often say; making these sounds with your own mouth really helps. Just reading the words and symbols from the page doesn't quite convey the actual sound made, nor the mechanics utilised by the mouth.)

When I was thinking about all this the word whistle itself couldn't fail to strike me. It has the W at the start - the very mouth shape we make when whistling. Plus it contains the word, or rather the sound: hiss. W-hiss-ling. (There really is a certain beauty to how logical our language is.)

Anyway, as noted, it was very fortunate we didn't throw out the S symbol to render S as Zh.

In theory we could've used multiple H letters to make the Sh sound - to emphasise the sheer amount of "air pushed out". Zhhhhuzhhhhh! As opposed to zhuzh - which would just give us something that would sound like sus. That would perhaps be a tad too whacky though - even by our standards.

So we'll have to keep Sh as it normally is in the English language, and have S as just a normal S - with no way of differentiating between the slightly different Z and S sounds we have in English.

I think this is probably fairly fine though, and fittingly it brings us right back to where we began this entire blog series. In that very first Constellation Consonants post the letter I chose to remove was Z. Precisely because it was so underused and superfluous ..and as I said in that article we won't miss Z once we get used to not having it :)

Finally: The Actual Alphabet

I've knocked up a final image listing the letters we were eventually left with once everything unneeded was stripped out.

(The final alphabet - click to enlarge)

Again, there's no true ending to these investigations. In fact, it would be really interesting to look further into how pitch is naturally used in language. For instance the way lower vowel sounds are often used to signify things that are low (and also big), and how higher sounds are often used to signify things that are high (and likewise things that are small).

The words low and high being good examples in of themselves. Low having a deep "O" sound and high having a higher "I" or "eye" sound. Hill and hull (or hole) also spring to mind. A hill being an upwards hump and a hull or hole being a downwards one. It makes perfect sense that we would naturally gravitate towards language that mirrors the actual mechanics of the sounds made. These things are ingrained in the fabric of reality. A thick bass guitar string makes a deep bassy sound, whereas a tiny high E string gives a high pitched one. So the association between low and big and high and small is commonly rooted in experience. Just look at words such as tiny and teeny-weeny and then compare them to words like huge and enormous.

This natural musicality of language seems quite underexplored and underappreciated to me. So if we do start a fresh page of notes and observations that could be the place to start.

For now though I think we can leave it there.

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[The complete pdf book can be downloaded for free from here:

Free PDF downloads page

As can the work Birth Family Tribe Love Sex Apotheosis ]

Journal Notes: August 2022

This is just a short journal-style post to make a few notes. I haven't posted like this on this blog for a while, but it really is a handy way of keeping track of information. The notes relate to topics touched upon on here before.

Firstly..

Firstly we have this quote concerning Giordano Bruno. It's from George Abbot (1562 - 1633), who mocked Bruno for his view that the Earth was in motion. Abbot later went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

"[Bruno supported] the opinion of Copernicus that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still"

I thought this was interesting as it illustrates how uncommon belief in the heliocentric model was at the time.

This then led me on to the following little titbits of information.

Namely that Christopher Marlowe didn't mention heliocentrism in his works - this passage comes from a work titled Christopher Marlowe by Richard Wilson:

It is true that in none of his writings - as they have reached us - does Marlowe ever mention a heliocentric universe, while his poetic imagery often contemplates a 'centric' earth and the revolving spheres; none the less, many of his critics have found it surprising and even contradictory that he did not include Copernicanism among his unorthodox and unlicensed opinions.

The next is simply an interesting bit of word knowledge. This time from a book tilted Spatial Questions: Cultural Topologies and Social Spatialisation by Rob Shields. It concerns the concept of space.

First century BCE Judaic thought adopted the Hebrew 'place', makom kadosh, as a name of God (Arabic makam 'holy place').

We've mentioned words with the double 'M' sound on this blog before, so I thought this was an interesting addition. The relation of 'space' to 'place' is also quite thought provoking. The entire passage (titled 'Space as the Sacred') from which the above quote is from is well worth reading in this regard.

Buoyant Birds: Why "Bird-Brain" is a "Bird-Brained" Insult

We appreciate the beautiful birdsong we hear in our gardens every morning, and we admire the way they gracefully glide through the air, but when it comes to intelligence birds often get a bad rap. The term "birdbrain" commonly used as an insult towards any human we appraise to be acting stupidly or dim; stemming from the basic observation that birds have small brains compared to their body size.

However, though bird's brains do look tiny compared to their size, the main reason for this is that birds have to be buoyant, in order to fly. Meaning their mass is spread out over a greater area. Birds have air sacs in their bodies, and hollow bones. They have to be super light. If you've ever looked at a plump little robin redbreast and wondered how something so portly can dance through the air with so little effort it's because they're buoyant as well as aerodynamic. They're like little balloons with wings.

If you hold a mouse or gerbil in your hand they have a bit of weight, like a little bag of sand, but a bird of similar size feels light. So it's not so much that birds have small heads and brains, but rather that they have big bodies - as the mass of their body is spread out over a greater area of space than it would need to be if they were land animals that didn't have to fly.

So birds aren't as dense as we think they are.

The Spring

One day a man wanders far from his tribe. Deep in the jungle - perhaps half a day's journey from his settlement - he discovers a beautiful fresh water spring. Tired, but excited by his discovery he begins to make the long trek back home to his people. Yet as he walks he has a dilemma:

He wants to tell the rest of the tribe about this amazing discovery he's found, but at the same time he knows that if he tells all the tribe members it's likely that word will spread to neighbouring tribes, and then a neighbouring tribe may come and take control of the spring. Meaning they won't have access to it.

Therefore, thanks to this accidental discovery, he has also discovered a reason for secrecy.

A fresh water spring would be a huge strategic resource for his tribe. What is more essential than fresh water? Surely it's something worth lying for. After all, what is worse? Keeping a secret from some of his fellow tribe members, or allowing a situation to develop where they could go thirsty?

So, as he ponders the issue he finally resolves to go against his first instinct, which was to simply share the truth on his return. Instead, when he returns he doesn't tell everyone about the discovery he's made - he simply goes and tells the tribal elders.

The tribal elders are the leaders of the tribe, and they also keep other secrets. To become a tribal elder and share in these secrets a tribe member must reach a certain age, then go through a series of initiations. One of which requiring a vow not to reveal these secrets to anyone not already initiated -- on pain of death.

Our wanderer, understanding the strategic importance of the new water source he's found, shares his information with the elders; creating for them a map showing the route he took to find the spring. In doing this he helps reinforce the knowledge hierarchy within the tribe, and keeps some of his friends and family members in the dark.

However, he also gives his own tribe a knowledge advantage over the competing tribes that surround them. An advantage that could easily be lost if all the members of the tribe were allowed to share in the knowledge.

Alas, we can clearly see the practical considerations that led our tribesman to choose secrecy over revelation. Likewise we can understand why the tribal elders developed such a system for protecting such secrets in the first place (bizarre though their rituals may seem). For the tribe without a way of protecting their information - be it information about the landscape, stores of food, or battleplans - will be easy prey for the tribes that have one.

So, it appears these systems evolve quite naturally from necessity, no matter how right or wrong we may think they are in principle. It's difficult for any tribe, nation or group to be totally open in a world of threats and dangers.

When there is peace on Earth all people will have access to the spring of knowledge.

The Mark of the Beast - A Rational Explanation For Why It's So Prophetic

13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-revelation-of-saint-john-the-divine

In this age of implantable microchips and digital identities the above passage from the Book of Revelation can seem eerily prophetic. Literal believers in the bible will raise it as proof that biblical prophecy is real, and that the end times are upon us. Whilst the so-called sceptics will simply ignore it, and pretend they haven't noticed how aptly it appears to mirror the way the current world is heading.

Meanwhile, anyone in between is left a little freaked out by it..

"People have to take a mark? That they have to have to "buy or sell" things? That does sound a lot like the 'digital identity' systems governments are rolling out now. WEIRD!"

And it is weird, a little unsettling even. Especially for people that are otherwise rationally-minded.

However, fortunately for those people, there is a rational explanation for this that kind of makes sense of it all. Namely that the 'Mark of the Beast' is a timeless concept - representing a threat that exists in all eras of human history. A threat that takes on different forms according to the technology available in the era.

Tribal Bodily Markers

Tribal markers are common throughout all of human society, and can take a multitude of forms - piercings, brandings, tattoos, circumcisions and so forth. All these things can be good, bad or indifferent in of themselves.

For example, tattooing is very common around the world - both as a form of individual bodily expression, and also as a tribal or group marker. If a person freely chooses to get a tattoo, either as a personal choice or to denote membership of a particular tribe or group, that's perfectly fine and normal. However, if there's peer pressure to do so things are a little different, and often in such circumstances failure to accept the marking may come with social consequences, imposed by the wider group. So it's not quite the same as someone freely choosing to do it. On top of this, tattooing can even be used to literally tag and track people. The most extreme example obviously being the tattooing of prisoners in concentration camps during World War II.

It's similar with implantable tech like microchips. If someone freely chooses to have a microchip put under their skin that's fine. Though I personally find the idea thoroughly unappealing (just as I find the thought of tattoo needles thoroughly unappealing), I can nevertheless respect another person's freedom to do it. However, if people are being forced, coerced or pressured into doing it, then that's quite different. Then it really is the mark of the beast ..or at least the mark of a beast. As when a person's bodily autonomy is overridden like this it equates in many ways to being treated like an animal.

In fact, our attitude to animals is quite illuminating in this regard, and when it comes to the forced tagging or marking of creatures it's our treatment of animals that sets us on the path to how we treat humans. The hierarchy tends to look something like this:

animals < criminals < the general population

Animals, especially farm animals, are often tagged for human convenience. Think cattle branding with hot irons, or those little ear tags you see hanging from cows' ears. Today RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags are also commonly used - so again, if the 'Mark of the Beast' is an implanted microchip the beasts are already subjected to it.

Next in the pecking order though are criminals. Often criminals will be tagged in various ways. Today it may be ankle bracelets, in the past it was branding with irons, or the clipping of body parts, such as the ears. We generally treat our fellow humans with more respect than we do animals, but when people transgress the law society often deems that they've forgone some of their rights. So they stand only a few notches up.

However, from there it's only a small step to forcibly marking or tagging the population in general. Be it for the convenience of those in charge, or to protect society from some dangerous wider threat. We only need to look at the health mandates of the last few years to see how easy it is to go from tracking criminals and terrorists to tracking the entire population.

In human civilisation it seems the Mark of the Beast is never far away. We have this in-built urge to track, tag and control other animals and people. Especially so those in charge, who, just like parents, feel a need to keep track of their children. Both the naughty ones and the good. (Or if you're being less generous: like farmers, they feel the need to keep track of their cattle.) Either way there's a desire for order and control, and there's always the urge to use whatever technology is available to do this.

It's not too hard to imagine that in some distant, long-forgotten period of history it may have been the case that branding wasn't just reserved for the criminals and cattle. Perhaps there were times when entry into a city or a marketplace was conditional on taking a brand or mark - on the hand, or perhaps even the forehead. Maybe the mark coming in the form of a number or a name.

Again, it's perfectly natural for whoever's in control to want to keep track of things. To know where people are, who has and hasn't paid their dues. Think the 'ink stamps' put on people's hands when they enter nightclubs - it's such a simple way of knowing who's paid to get in. Who's free to come and go, and who isn't. A mark or branding on the skin (or a microchip underneath it) is an ultimate and permanent expression of this.

So this is why that above passage from the Book of Revelation feels so apt - it's because it is. However, it was also no doubt just as apt when it was first written. The danger that tyrants will impose bodily markers upon their populations being an ever-present threat.

The term 'Mark of the Beast' therefore carrying with it a double meaning. To be marked like a beast, i.e. like cattle, but also standing as a symbol for the evil empire or tyrannical regime imposing this marking upon the people - the Devil, the Beast, the Great Babylon.

*The above painting is St. John the Evangelist on Patmos by Hieronymous Bosch, circa 1489.