unforum

[Bendover]

The Wiki has some interesting articles with shi as a topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi

[yggdrasila]

A correction (attached.) I missed a symbol that does not appear to have a variation (making a total of 7 distinct symbols.) The delta/upside-down triangle represents this symbol.

Does it still display letter "shi" ? And I am assuming you meant Chinese "shi" ?

ygg

[ne0x]

[devjoe]

Well no, I meant it forms the lower case Latin letters shi, but of course that is also a transliteration of a Chinese word. Just trace them out on your earlier image; it even has the dot on the i.

I was noticing the 7th character myself, and I notice one more important discrepancy: the red character in row 5 looks like the character represented by hollow square rather than the one represented by solid square. That would definitely break "shi"

[fretty]

I've figured out the purpose of the colours, compare yggdrasila's colour line diagram on page 2 to the following diagram of pinyin tones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pinyin_Tone_Chart.png
It look's exactly the same and is too much like to be a co-incidence.

I don't know what to do from here though.

[Kradlum]

Good work fretty! I was trying to compare it to various subway maps.

[Kradlum]

Thoughts:

The puzzle requires a 2 word answer.
Googling "pinyin clinical" brings up lots of results for acupuncture.
The pinyin tones indicate the direction to read the code (unlikely to be a simple substitution as there are too many repeated letters).

[Kradlum]

On closer inspection, I see another colour - the bottom right symbol and the blue delta (on the diagram) are a different shade on my card. They are more blue, while the others in that diagonal are purple and turquoise.

[manleym]

[mobius]

It's not

[doublecross]

devjoe: (hi) the red character in row 5 is not a hollow one, maybe not clear on the scan.

If the deltas were hollow (as they could well have a line missing in the empty square, for example, and there is no corresponding fuller symbol, so it could go either way) then the 'shi' thing would still work.

[yggdrasila]

[yggdrasila]

ok. Here's where I'm thinking the tone contour chart points us: we need to find a way to convert the chart BACK into its source sounds(? tones? syllables?) ...which is where I'm struggling a bit. Summary of what I've found so far:

The reason the pinyin chart is similar but not exact is because we are not looking at pinyin. All tone contour charts will bear some resemblance to the graph produced by the card. I am not yet certain what language our tone contour represents, but I seem to have ruled out Mandarin and Pinyin (non-conclusive? hopefully someone else can confirm this for me.)

Languages are converted into tone contours by virtue of either or both numerical values represented as such: /33/, or special characters developed by a man named Chao, also widely credited with the development of the concept of tone contours.

I am having trouble determining if it is possible to convert FROM a tone contour chart INTO a specific word or phrase. Disparate sources show tone contours for an entire language, versus some (much harder to locate/understand) applications of the charts that appear to be for language units (syllables/words.)

It is possible that the symbols on the card will be involved with the word or phrase we're looking for. An earlier poster mentioned that they are somewhat garbage, however, they may need to be combined - or may even represent syllables or other elements. I know zero Chinese of any dialect, so I'm a bit lost there.

This link looks awfully relevant to me, but I'm not quite there yet (maybe arranging the syllables by color in the grid we have, and reading in order? Even with that theory we'd need to find a way to translate the tone contour, in order to correctly locate which tone goes where) - http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/

I had a possible lead to a possible expert (?) named Johanna Barry, associated with Oxford, but her pages on Oxford's site are all dead and gone.

As an aside, the greenery in the background looks similar to ginkgo biloba to me, based specifically on its bi-vein presentation which is unique to the plant.

ygg

Edit to add the attachments - as you can see, the "absolute" lines are too "steppy" to represent a precise tone contour. The averaged version, however, is basically dead-on. It seems possible/likely that the tone contour is telling us which language specifically rather than giving us the words themselves.

[jazzychad]

[yggdrasila]

excellent simulpost there, Jazzychad - I just updated that post with a bit more info + new graphics. What I'd love to see is something with a display of the tone contours for a wide variety of languages and dialects....I think that might point us in the right direction, but I'm having trouble finding such a page. Everything just gives one or two examples. I'm also not sure of the strictness with which each tone is given its label and/or color, i.e., is the first tone always red?

ygg