Saturday, February 13, 2010

My Invented Proverbs - Part V

  • People are too lazy to specialize, hence they generalize. They hence do not work on facts, obtained through specialization, but rather on perceptions, obtained through generalization.
  • Xenophobia is selective Mis-Anthropy.
  • Your popularity is directly proportional to the ratio of your twitter-followers-count to your twitter-followings-count.
  • GOD is a placebo for Human fallibility.
  • 90% of people within any group, resent the fact that they are not 100%
  • History may be written by victors, but Archaelogy is not.
  • I am not an atheist, I am just GOD with retrograde amnesia.
  • I am not on bench, I am suffering from a "Programmers block".
  • There is a whole range of gray shades between pride and shame.
  • If we cannot have consensus on current affairs, why do we expect different people to have a consistent view of history, for today's current affairs are tomorrow's history.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Logical Grouping of Devanaagari Baaraakhadi

Came across this interesting realisation about the arrangements of the Baaraakhadi in Devanaagari.

This is about how you use your tongue and mouth cavity to articulate a particular sound.
There is a sort of logical grouping and progression about the arrangements.

क, ख, ग, घ, and ङ sounds are all articulated by the tounge against the back of the ceiling of the mouth cavity
For च, छ, ज, झ, and ञ sounds, we move forward and use tounge against the centre of the mouth cavity's ceiling
ट, ठ, ड, ढ, and ण are produced more forward behind the gums of incisors
त, थ, द, ध, and न are produced with the tounge against the teeth
and प, फ, ब, भ, and म are produced by the lips alone.

Considering the expertise on grammar that stands 2.5 millenia, this phonetic formalism is not a surprise.