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9-9-9 - The Cointest!


Jackalgirl

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Good morning, everyone --

 

I've had a couple of inquiries about the back of the 9-9-9 Multi-Event coin -- it's rather obvious that the glyphs on the back are depictions of the number "9" in various languages. Ah, but which languages?

 

Avroair suggested a cointest. So, here it is: the 9-9-9 Cointest!

 

9-9-9_Cointest.gif

 

Your mission: identify as many languages represented here as you can. I understand that some of the representations shown are used in multiple languages and I will accept any of those languages, where applicable, as a correct answer. Send your lists, listed in order using the numbers here, to cointest@jackalgirl.net. The cointest closes at 1159 ZULU (that is, GMT) on August 15. The person identifying the most of the 27 languages shown wins; in the case of a draw or multiple persons identifying the same top number of languages, I will randomly choose the winner.

 

The Prize: a container, ready to be camo'd and labeled, suitable for using as a cache container, stuffed with as much fun & wacky Japanese 100 Yen store stuff as I can cram in there. There may also be trackable prizes in there as well. The container will be roughly the size of a standard pound cake loaf. I will get this in the mail to you so that, hopefully, it gets to you in time for 9-9-9. I ask (but cannot, of course, require) that the winner or one of the winner's compatriots places the cache in honor of 9-9-9, either at a multi-event or, really, wherever just because.

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I do not know anything about lang., i know a lil jap., but not much. thx tho. :D

 

Heh -- I can tell you for sure that I don't read, write, or speak the vast majority of these 27 languages either (the ones of which I know a little, with the exception of Japanese, all use the western-arabic numeric system, too).

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I do not know anything about lang., i know a lil jap., but not much. thx tho. :D

 

Heh -- I can tell you for sure that I don't read, write, or speak the vast majority of these 27 languages either (the ones of which I know a little, with the exception of Japanese, all use the western-arabic numeric system, too).

oni goshi mas...lol probably spelled wrong, i learned some japanese during my studys of ninpo(art of the ninja) i also met grand master shoto tanamura, during a tai kai. and he learned me some too. i cant speak it fluently, but i like the way it sounds and how it rolls of the tounge. can you speak it fluently?

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I do not know anything about lang., i know a lil jap., but not much. thx tho. :D

 

Heh -- I can tell you for sure that I don't read, write, or speak the vast majority of these 27 languages either (the ones of which I know a little, with the exception of Japanese, all use the western-arabic numeric system, too).

oni goshi mas...lol probably spelled wrong, i learned some japanese during my studys of ninpo(art of the ninja) i also met grand master shoto tanamura, during a tai kai. and he learned me some too. i cant speak it fluently, but i like the way it sounds and how it rolls of the tounge. can you speak it fluently?

 

I wish, but am afraid not. I actually made it to a pretty high level in the local college's courses, but don't have any Japanese friends with whom I spend a significant amount of the day practicing. I can read hiragana and katakana and know a couple (but not nearly enough) kanji and have a very limited list of things I can talk about (the weather, but only if it's good or I'm trying to be sarcastic, thanking people, asking how much stuff costs, etc). Lately, though, I've taken to watching local kiddie cartoons with the Jackalpup, so I'm picking up a little bit more. Japanese amazes me with its grammatical regularity -- someone actually sat down, at some point, and said, "I'm going to regularize this". It is a zillion-fold easier than English but -- as with any natural language -- you need to actually practice it to become fluent. : )

 

As you can probably tell, I like languages. So when Avroair and I were working on the design of this coin and we decided to use language glyphs, I was all over it and very happily so. I found out everything I needed on Teh Interwebs and I don't mind saying that it was a ton of work. I think this cointest is less about mad linguist skillz as it is about mad Google skillz. ; )

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Hmm... I think I have them all, but I didn't understood the price! It will be a container full of things for us or a cache ready to be placed?

 

I am asking because I have a problem with the coordinates in placing a cache! That is why I haven't placed any yet! :D

 

Anyway.... Shall I post my answers here or send you an email??

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Your mission: identify as many languages represented here as you can.

 

1. English pi Math

2. Wiccan (you should see a whole word!)

3. Dwarven (solid to the earth)

4. Elvish (almost like a musical horn)

5. Ewok (oh yes! it's a primitive dialect!)

6. Dotty (well there are two of them so it's plural)

7. Hobbitt (eeeeeeeeeeeee!)

8. Harry Potterish (the 9 that shall not be named!)

9. Dunno, but it has a lot of legs!

 

:blink:

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Your mission: identify as many languages represented here as you can.

 

1. English pi Math

2. Wiccan (you should see a whole word!)

3. Dwarven (solid to the earth)

4. Elvish (almost like a musical horn)

5. Ewok (oh yes! it's a primitive dialect!)

6. Dotty (well there are two of them so it's plural)

7. Hobbitt (eeeeeeeeeeeee!)

8. Harry Potterish (the 9 that shall not be named!)

9. Dunno, but it has a lot of legs!

 

:blink:

 

I should also clarify: feel free to post guesses or other discussion of what the glyphs may or may not be here -- you can certainly help each other out if you like. However, you've got to send your entries to "cointest@jackalgirl.net" if you have an actual entry for the cointest. And, oh yes, I won't be providing any feedback (sorry! Or perhaps I should say "muh hah hah hah hah!").

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Hmm... I think I have them all, but I didn't understood the price! It will be a container full of things for us or a cache ready to be placed?

 

Yes! That is to say, you'll get a container that's suitable for a cache stuffed with stuff. What you use the stuff for is entirely up to you -- you can keep it for swag, trade it, gift it, just plain keep it, or use it to stock caches.

 

I am asking because I have a problem with the coordinates in placing a cache! That is why I haven't placed any yet! :blink:

 

No worries -- you don't have to place a cache. I just ask that you do (if you can). Not everyone likes to place caches, or has the motivation and/or wherewithal to maintain caches they've placed. If placing caches isn't your thing, that's totally okay. However, if you have a friend who does like to place caches, it would be very cool (assuming you win) if you'd pass the cache container to him or her with a couple of pieces of swag in it to hide in honor of 9-9-9.

 

If you want to place a cache and you need help getting the coordinates in the right format, that is no problem. Just post a request for help in the "Geocaching Topics" or "Geocaching.com website" forum and you will probably get the right answer in about five minutes. ; )

 

Anyway.... Shall I post my answers here or send you an email??

 

In order to have a legit entry for the cointest, you need to send your answers to "cointest@jackalgirl.net". Whether or not you post your answers here (for others' benefit) is entirely up to you.

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When I get home tonight, I'll turn up the contrast on the graphic. Check back in another, oh, 6 hours and it should be easier to see.

 

Gatoulis: you're correct. If you're wrong, you'll stay wrong unless you realize that you were wrong. I won't be providing any feedback, though I will let you know that I'm in receipt. Right now I'm actually at work so I don't who's recently sent submissions. I'll find out in a few hours. : )

 

Thanks, everyone!

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Also, to add some clarity: you can enter more than once. That is, let's say you find 20 of the 27. Then, later, you stumble upon an extra three. Just send another email with an updated list or say "add these three to my list". Totally cool.

May I update a number I already sent to you? ( I am not sure about one or two)

At the moment 2 are missing. What is worse: on my travel through deepest_space_nine I have seen one of the missing signs, I just don't remember where :wub:

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Also, to add some clarity: you can enter more than once. That is, let's say you find 20 of the 27. Then, later, you stumble upon an extra three. Just send another email with an updated list or say "add these three to my list". Totally cool.

May I update a number I already sent to you? ( I am not sure about one or two)

At the moment 2 are missing. What is worse: on my travel through deepest_space_nine I have seen one of the missing signs, I just don't remember where :)

 

No worries at all. Just shoot me an email and either give me an entirely new list or tell me how I should modify the old one. As long as you get your entries & revisions in by the 1159 GMT on the 15th, you're good to go.

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I'm glad you all are having a good time looking this stuff up -- I had a great time putting it together in the first place. : ) ("I've suffered for my art, now you will too.") ; )

 

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that there is approximately 7 hours and 40 minutes left until I close out submissions. At 2059 my time (I'm in Japan), I'll dig into the mail box. I should have an announcement later tonight (again, my time) or tomorrow morning (ditto). Thank you all for participating! : )

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Good evening, everyone -- the cointest is now CLOSED! I'll be tallying up the answers and will post the winner tomorrow (Sunday, my time and Australia's time [thereabouts] too), probably Saturday night for most people on the other side of the planet).

 

Thanks to everyone who provided a submission and stay tuned for the winner's announcement!

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Hello, everyone!

 

First off, a big congratulations! to Ashallond, who is the winner with 24 out of 27!

 

You could actually call it "25 out of 27", because I was going to give anyone who guessed "Middle Egyptian" or "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" for the Linear B answer -- for those who like to get in the weeds of things, the Egyptian 9 is vertical (a stack of three bundles of three marks each, one on top of the other) and that wouldn't have worked for the coin, so I went with Linear B, which depicts the marks horizontally. Makes no difference, though -- either way, everyone got it wrong (or right).

 

The two that gave everyone fits are Tagalog (and the number is actually spelled out in Tagalog, so it was particularly tricky) and Syloti Nagri, which is (according to Omniglot), used to write "Sylheti, an eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 10 million in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh and in parts of India. Sylheti is closely related to Bengali (Bangla) and most speakers are bilingual in Sylheti and Bengali.".

 

Here is the full map for those who are interested. Please feel free to use this graphic in any 9-9-9 multi-event-related materials you produce.

 

9-9-9_Glyph-Map.gif

 

Ashallond, could you shoot me your address via email? Also, let me know if there's any particular kind of quirky Japanese stuff you'd like in your cache. I usually end up picking up stuff like plastic and soft-sculpture sushi keychains and stuff like that, but the Japanese are mad for Hello Kitty, Lilo & Stitch (well, anything Disney, actually), etc. So if you like any particular theme, let me know and I'll see what I can find.

 

Thank you everyone for participating! This was not an easy assignment/cointest and I really appreciate the work you put into it. In fact, it was so difficult that only four people entered: Gatoulis, PastorJon, and CUTT4, could you also shoot me your postal addresses? I'll tuck away a runner's up prize in the mail for you, too, to thank you for playing! : )

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Hello, everyone!

 

First off, a big congratulations! to Ashallond, who is the winner with 24 out of 27!

 

You could actually call it "25 out of 27", because I was going to give anyone who guessed "Middle Egyptian" or "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" for the Linear B answer -- for those who like to get in the weeds of things, the Egyptian 9 is vertical (a stack of three bundles of three marks each, one on top of the other) and that wouldn't have worked for the coin, so I went with Linear B, which depicts the marks horizontally. Makes no difference, though -- either way, everyone got it wrong (or right).

 

The two that gave everyone fits are Tagalog (and the number is actually spelled out in Tagalog, so it was particularly tricky) and Syloti Nagri, which is (according to Omniglot), used to write "Sylheti, an eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 10 million in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh and in parts of India. Sylheti is closely related to Bengali (Bangla) and most speakers are bilingual in Sylheti and Bengali.".

 

Here is the full map for those who are interested. Please feel free to use this graphic in any 9-9-9 multi-event-related materials you produce.

 

9-9-9_Glyph-Map.gif

 

Ashallond, could you shoot me your address via email? Also, let me know if there's any particular kind of quirky Japanese stuff you'd like in your cache. I usually end up picking up stuff like plastic and soft-sculpture sushi keychains and stuff like that, but the Japanese are mad for Hello Kitty, Lilo & Stitch (well, anything Disney, actually), etc. So if you like any particular theme, let me know and I'll see what I can find.

 

Thank you everyone for participating! This was not an easy assignment/cointest and I really appreciate the work you put into it. In fact, it was so difficult that only four people entered: Gatoulis, PastorJon, and CUTT4, could you also shoot me your postal addresses? I'll tuck away a runner's up prize in the mail for you, too, to thank you for playing! : )

 

Congrats to Ashallond thats a keen eye, well done.

 

But now I know how much went into it Kat I have to say your amazing! The design is such a nice one that has really lent its self to all the different colour variations and now we discover how much more has gone into the design, my hat is off to you. :P

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Woo hoo! Tagalong I had no idea. It looked familar, as if I had seen it before, but couldn't place it. The other one all I could come up with was brahmi numerals, which as best as i can tell was a pre-cursor to many languages in the area...which is why 9 looked sort of like the one used here.

 

I have this itching for pocky sometimes, and my daughter loves anything disney, minnie mouse, stitch, things like that. I personally like little drawings or simple written characters.

 

But in all honestly, I'm all for surprises. I don't get packages from out of country very often.

 

Also, thank you for the cointest. There isn't a 9-9-9 event within easy access of where I live, so this was about the only chance I was going to have to play with the multi-event. I really can't take a day off in the middle of the week to go travel since I'm a school teacher.

 

 

And if I get the cache before 9-9-9, it will be used for a cache for that day. :P I was trying to figure out where/what I was going to put out that day as it was...half that problem just got simplified.

 

Addy will be sent via email.

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Congratulations Ashallond!!! :laughing:

 

Thank you jackalgirl for the cointest!!! :P It was fun to search!!!

 

Can I just ask some things, just for the record??

 

In 2, the Hangul, I had korean! well... hangul is korean right?

 

In 13, The siloti nagri, I found that the same symbol was in use by Guptas, in the 4th century too!

 

In 20, the Hmong.... I wrote ancient Egyptian and Pre Brahmi period in India! Both had these for 9! :lol:

 

And last... ASL? While I was searching, I found that this symbol in hands was and is in use as a hand gesture for the Mandarin number 9, in Taiwan and Hong Kong!

 

Were these wrong??

 

Hey, I am not saying anything for the winning!! Even if I had these correct, I go to 24, but Ashallong must take the ancient egyptian as right too, so he is at 25! :)

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Hanguk is how the Koreans say their own language. Like Deutsch is for Germany. So you are ok with #2.

 

I think I found the same symbol name for 13 that you did. That one I COULD not find...best I could do was find a precursor language that had a similar but not exact symbol. I was just hoping it was a font thing...like khmer was, but then I found a picture with 4 dialects of khmer which one of them had the symbol jackalgirl used.

 

I answered the 9 dashes as hieroglyphs because I found numerous places that said the symbols can be written vertically or horizontally. If that wasn't it...I had no idea.

 

The one that I really worried on was 16, as everything I found for greek numbers stated there should be a vertical line after the theta, while cyrillic didn't need it.

 

Good thing I submitted both answers. :P

 

Also, did I ever mention I am a math teacher? I already knew about a third of them for one reason or another before I started hunting. (evil grin)

I was curious how close it was. I kept worrying someone would sneak past me.

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Congratulations Ashallond!!! :P

 

Thank you jackalgirl for the cointest!!! :( It was fun to search!!!

 

Can I just ask some things, just for the record??

 

In 2, the Hangul, I had korean! well... hangul is korean right?

 

Yup!

 

 

In 13, The siloti nagri, I found that the same symbol was in use by Guptas, in the 4th century too!

 

Could you cite your source? I find plenty of references to Gupta numerals, but not the actual numerals themselves. The closest thing I can find is Brahmi numerals, and the figure for "9" does look like it was definitely the origin of the syloti nagri script (but neither is it exactly the same).

 

In 20, the Hmong.... I wrote ancient Egyptian and Pre Brahmi period in India! Both had these for 9! :)

 

It looks like you're talking about multiple glyphs here; if you're talking about symbol #20, please note that I would have given that to anyone (and that it didn't matter, since everyone either got it equally right or wrong).

 

And last... ASL? While I was searching, I found that this symbol in hands was and is in use as a hand gesture for the Mandarin number 9, in Taiwan and Hong Kong!

 

Again, could you cite? I only ask because I checked that bastion of accuracy, Wikipedia (I'm being sarcastic here -- Wikipedia is not always a very reliable source, so I'm saying that I could be wrong here) and it says of nine:

 

"The index finger makes a hook, other fingers closed, sometimes with the palm facing the signer." (Wikipedia: Chinese Number Gestures)

 

In other words, it looks like the ASL sign for the letter "x". Here's the difference, graphically, and I apologize for the large size of the pictures:

 

American Sign Language "Nine":

asl_zzz_9.png

 

Chinese number gesture "Nine" (as described by Wiki, above):

asl_x.png

(Note that I imagine the thumb could be on top of the other fingers rather than tucked in, but the important thing is that in this gesture, the forefinger is hooked and the other fingers are closed, whereas in the ASL "9", the thumb is holding down the tip of the forefinger and the other fingers are extended.

 

This whole exercise has really widened my idea of what constitutes language, and how easy it is for gestures to be common across languages (though often meaning different things). It certainly made designing the coin interesting, and running the cointest actually pretty difficult. : )

 

I should have the packages out by the end of the week, btw. PastorJon and you too, Gatoulis, could you shoot me your addresses? I'm sending everyone who participated a prize (because I realize how much work I actually gave you good folks). : )

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Oh!!! Now I saw it clearly!!!! The mandarin Hand gesture for 9 used in Taiwan and in hong kong is different!

 

So, I was wrong in that! Sorry! :(

I cound't see it very clearly in the coin...

 

Here is what I found!

 

http://mandarin.about.com/od/chinesecultur...stures/Nine.htm

 

It is strange that Chinese have a different had gesture!!!

 

I will try to find the Gupta of the 4th century numberals again! I foundthem accidently while I was searching for other symbols!

 

Of course this is only for the fun and to see these strange little numberals in other countries! :)

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I should have the packages out by the end of the week, btw. PastorJon and you too, Gatoulis, could you shoot me your addresses? I'm sending everyone who participated a prize (because I realize how much work I actually gave you good folks). : )

 

Hmmm... I thought I sent an email with my address... Let me try again. Let me know if you don't get it.

 

Thanks again for the fun cointest... it was work... but a good bit of fun too! :(

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Hmm, I'd have to say that the gupta numeral is very close to the 9 given for #13. but look at the bottom of the symbol, the syloti doesn't go horizontal while gupta did. But does it surprise you that gupta and syltoi are close on the language tree? a lot of the symbols are very close.

 

This is a great example of how symbols in language morph as time goes along. The closest I had found was the Brahmi numerals. but I could tell it was a precoursor language as it was extinct at this time. So I went looking in all of the daughter languages from brahmi and found a few other 9's but not the syloti. I did look at syloti, but my source didn't have the numeral symbols.

 

I was actually surprised that esperanto or morse code wasn't used on the coin....since they were some of the first languages that I searched since I thought they'd be there...so I have to give jackalgirl kudos for not going for just the modern languages on the coin, but some with a lot of tradition and some used in a very small corners of the world.

 

as for symbols being used, it gets really fun. old story about how richard nixon almost insulted a ton of chinese when he visited because I was told that the american peace sign (first and middle fingers extended into a v) means the same as just the middle finger in chinese culture. (let's just say it's a nice non-verbal insult...) Not sure if this is true, but it makes for a good story.

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as for symbols being used, it gets really fun. old story about how richard nixon almost insulted a ton of chinese when he visited because I was told that the american peace sign (first and middle fingers extended into a v) means the same as just the middle finger in chinese culture. (let's just say it's a nice non-verbal insult...) Not sure if this is true, but it makes for a good story.

 

;):rolleyes::D Why this reminds me one of the movies with Mr bean??? It is the one that Mr bean goes to USA..... and thought that the middle finger was a salute.... :laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

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Update!

 

I got all of the packages in the mail on Wednesday, MUCH later than I'd intended but I got "honored" with a project at work that had me working days and standing watch at night. Glory! It's like being back on the ship!

 

I'm not whining, honest -- I don't mind. However, it did put me significantly behind on non-work projects. So there are now four prize packages in the mail for my 09-09-09 cointest winners. It should take about a week or so for the packages to get to you folks in the US; Gatoulis, it'll probably take a bit longer to reach you in Greece. I really hope you all enjoy your prizes -- and once again, thank you so much for participating!

 

-- JG

 

P.S. I'm posting the update, rather than mailing it, because my OUTSTANDING (blurg) service provider has, once again, disabled all of the various Internet functions that allow you to do anything useful (like send mail, log onto secure websites, etc).

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