• beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    Fun fact, in the Arabic alphabet it starts out Alif and Ba just like alpha and beta here, and then veers way away from this chart into its own awesomely weird territory (thought German was “guttural”? try this nonvowel nonconsonant so far back in the throat you need consent and a physician’s referral) but JUST when you think you’ve lost your way, RIGHT the alphabet nears its end, you stop and stare because right there are four letters, in this same exact order, so familiar it might be a song you learned as a child: the letters K L M N.

    The Phoencians took this invention to other places too, and this cluster of familiarity crystallised in the Arabic alphabet in the same order. Almost like a gene we could point to that says we had a common ancestor centuries ago, we were once so close that we learned the same thing from the same people.

    • Belgdore@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      “Almost like a gene we could point to that says we had a common ancestor centuries ago, we were once so close that we learned the same thing from the same people.“

      Cultural genes are called memes. It’s kind of unfortunate that we usually only think of memes as jokes.