The Reindeer Herder Who Invented His Own Writing System - Tenevil (Субтитры)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มิ.ย. 2024
- Info Sources
Wikipedia
Omniglot
GOAT Source - Елена Давыдова. Письмена Тыневиля: микроисторический анализ одного изобретения. Музей антропологии и этнографии им. Петра Великого.
(Elena Davydova. Tynevil’s Writing: Micro-historical Analysis of an Invention. Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.) [images taken from here as well]
Т. Н. Дмитриева, Т. И. Щербакова. Животные в Чукотских Связках Семейных Охранителей (по Материалам Коллекции И. П. Лаврова)
Централизованная библиотечная система города Ельца. Народов малых не бывает: Чукчи
Ewan Clayton. A history of writing. British Library.
Чукотское Письмо (www.rbardalzo.narod.ru/4/chuko...)
0:00 - Writing: What's up with that?
2:19 - Chukchi & Pictograms
5:32 - The Researchers
7:06 - The man, the myth, the legend
12:59 - By the way
16:20 - ԓыгъоравэтԓьэн йиԓыйиԓ - บันเทิง
Virgin "the socio-political and economic circumstances make it necessary for us to develop some form of writing" vs Chad "lol, herding is kinda boring, I'm gonna develop some system to eternalize my thoughts" Tenevil.
Honestly though, nowadays it seems kinda obvious to have writing, but to develop the concept completely independant and kinda out of nowhere without any direct need for it is awesome.
The guy would have at least known that Cyrillic existed, so the idea was there.
When I was working in a car factory I also made my own letters. I was feeding a machine with crankcases but the machine was too slow to keep me busy. So I would fill up the queue and then I would have some time to scribble some shapes on an old inventory tag.
I designed the letters to be minimalistic and to be unguessable for someone who knows latin based alphabets. The result of this is that I can't remember my own script.
Why Anarcho-Communism?
What is so virgin about it? Innovate is chad whatever the reason is
But there is no contradiction, he used it a lot for his socio-political and economic circumstances.
Consider also Sequoyah, who invented Cherokee script in the early 19th century; and Shong Lue Yang, the "Mother of Writing," who invented the Pahahw script for the Hmong language in the middle of the 20th century.
The difference is Sequoyah had lots of contact with white settlers and he saw them writing letters and knew not having written language was a detriment. However Tenevil had no such Inspiration. It’s like the difference of seeing a bicycle and attempting to make your own version of it, compared to never seeing one and independently inventing a bicycle from scratch.
@@gj1234567899999 Yep Sequoyah had seen writing but had no idea how it worked. That's why he invented a not-quite-syllabary after having seen an alphabet. I was gonna bring it up regarding "not even every century" as it's pretty much an exact century before Tenevil's invention pretty much an exact century before now.
They knew about writing. It would seem this man didn't.
@Ggdivhjkjl he must have heard about writing and possibly seen others writing their language. Sometimes, things spread by idea diffusion. People hear that others are recording words by making marks, and then someone with some time says I could do that, and they do. If he wrote left to right, he almost certainly observed others writing, probably Russian. If he writes top to bottom, then Chinese. If he wrote back and forth, then he only heard of it. If he had paper and pen or pencil, he saw others.
@@joanhuffman2166чукчи недалеко от русских мужиков были, большую часть истории крестьяне писать не учились. Был монастырь и они знали письменность, а остальные и так эффективно работали в поле. Наверное так же к письменности относились и чукчи, знали о существовании, но была ни к чему.
Абсолютно невероятная история, которая заслуживает отдельного документального фильма! Продолжай делать видео в том же духе!
Honestly, the story of Tenevil sending a letter to his son who immediately told his teacher who immediately organised for more bear traps was a great example of Soviet planning.
Seems to me like a poor one, if it were a good case for soviet planning the manager of the farm would've been able to ask for the bear traps more directly, not go to a third unrelated person.
@@LeavingGoose046that’s the exact point of their comment……
Amazing video, it’s a shame the tribe didn’t pick up tenevils writing system, it might’ve started something incredible for the region
Puts into perspective how many times writing was independently discovered but forgotten because it failed to catch on and no extant works survive.
@@gasun1274*invented
Russian Cyrillic was just too dominant, why learn his script when everyone writes in Russian Cyrillic?
@@gasun1274 even from languages and scripts that did catch on(as in it was spoken/writtenin the past) a lot of times we don’t know a lot about, we still have scripts we can’t read.
@@rubenskiii In a lot of cases where a script succeeds, in modern times at least, it's because the extant dominant writing systems are insufficient or inappropriate. For exemple, Africa is currently living through a golden age of new writing systems precisely because Latin and Arabic are just not good enough. However, these writing systems take time to catch on and require a lot investment on teaching the script, something which Tenevil didn't have the opportunity to do a whole lot.
The Tale of Tenevil The Reindeer Herder would be a cool name for a book.
this video has inspired me to try to start learning chukchi again.
presuming you’re a westerner, why did you choose to learn chukchi in particular? i write fantasy books and give characters, locations and technical terms names from certain obscure languages without becoming fluent, but i can’t imagine the timesink for a language with so few speakers. i would learn osage or something if i was friends with someone that spoke it, but that’s pretty much it. is it because of yuri rytkheu?
I wonder if Tenevil knew about the concept of writing before he made his system. For instance, was he surprised when he learned about Russian and the Cyrillic script? Did he express any sentiment like "it turns out my brilliant new idea isn't so new after all"? I imagine if he truly invented the notion of writing independently, he would have felt something when he found out that people had done it before him (in the same way an entrepreneur thinking of a "business idea" would feel sad if they found out their idea was already a thing, or a mathematician would feel sad if they found out their "new theorem" was actually proven by Euler 250 years ago).
I would guess that he had seen writing, and he may have even been in possession of objects with some form of writing on them.
A smart person will figure out what it is, even if they have no way of interpret the actual meaning of it.
This may be the far side of earth, but I find it hard to believe, that at this point in time, his tribe had never been contacted by outsiders.
Even if he had never met an ethnic Russian before, he would likely have obtained some modern artefacts through trade.
The runic alphabet of the old Norse is assumed to have been created by the norse, but they most certainly got the idea from interactions with other people.
In viking age hoards and grave offerings, there are lots of objects with writing in Latin, cyrillic and Arabic. The Viking trade network stretched at least as far as India and the silk road. Objects travel farther than people.
They have found little Buddha figurines in Viking graves, as well as exotic gold and silver coins that seem to have been in circulation for centuries before being buried in a grave in modern day Sweden.
INCREDIBLE VIDEO. Never heard such an incredible story like this, and barely holding on to history, and you my friend made such a service to the world in retelling it. You should write an academic paper on this, like a translation yourself!
what a legend Tenevil was! this makes me happy somehow (even if it's sad his writing didn't catch on)
Very interesting video! There is really very little information on the Teneville hieroglyphs on Wikipedia. Other indigenous peoples of the North also have their own scripts (for example, Canadian syllabic writing), I would like the Teneville letter to be revived and become part of the Chukchi culture #Chukchi.
Canadian syllabic writing was inspired by shorthand and Indian scripts though, tbf
"Teneville " 💀
Wasn't the Canadian one created by a missionary?
@@napoleonfeanoryep
Tenevil, Sequoya, King Sejong and Zamenhof all geniuses of Language and writing systems.
Это реально очень интересно и вдохновило учить больше, спасибо за важное дело:)
Ever since watching Golden Kamuy, I love that corner of the world and especially that time.
Очень информативно 👍
Thank you for bringing this up! The names of Tenevil, Rytkheu and Tan-Bohorad should never be forgotten.
Tenevil is basically russian sequoyah
so it's a nickname?
@@RenegadeShepard69 nein. Das ist echte Name.
@@RenegadeShepard69 what? no. Tenevil is the man's own name.
*chuckhi sequoyah
Sadly, He wasnt succesful...
Wow Shawn thanks a lot for telling this crazy story, I don’t know where else I would’ve learnt about him. Very interesting and inspirational even!
(Also, what’s up with all the cars lol!)
This is interesting. I have been making my writing systems since I was 5. I currently have several with a few being defunct. The oldest I still use is Cifrilian, and the newest ones are Fiyukara, Spara and Vulgar Uruna-ean. All the new ones are almost 1:1 to a alphabet so they are easiest to use. So I love it when people make their own writing systems that are not 1:1 and more complicated.
This was a really cool story! Thanks for putting together such a well researched video. Hopefully more is found out about Tenevil's life and writing system.
Thank you for this video! Very fascinating and you present it so well, with all your heart. Watching made me remember that "Chukche" is a name given by Russians coming into Siberia, so I looked up Wikipedia and the page states that the people of Tenevil call themselves "Luorawetlat". Like their for their relatives further East (on Turtle Island, US of A) as for any other indigenous civilization, indeed 1000 more generations would be wonderful.
Unlucky guy could’ve been a professor today, instead he lived such a rough life he died in half the time we do nowadays.
There's a soviet joke about a chukcha guy who buys a refrigerator to get warm
Just came across your channel and went on a watching marathon. Instantly subbed, amazing content.
Благодарность автору за наличие ру. субтитров
Absolutely heartdreaking❤
Look also at the Naxi Dongba script. It likely started with a lone genius with encouragement from the community.
Absolutely fantastic! Greetings from a Swedish linguist
Thank you for video. it’s really interesting, you did an amazing work
Super interesting video - thanks for making it!
Wow, He was REALLY passionate person about his people's culture and future. I appriciate your video.
Another recent writing system is Avoiuli from Pentecost island in Vanuatu, see Wikipedia entry. The letters are derived from the local sand drawing tradition.
Had he become a shaman, he may have made history for the chukchi and not just linguists
Incredibly based man tbh
yet another very interesting video, thank you
In my observation writing systems that are most successful tend to be associated with religions. Cyrillic comes from the church Slavonic translation of the Christian Bible, Hebrew is obvious here, Arabic with the Quran, the Punjabi writing system from India that is called Gumukhi was used in the Sikh scripture that is called the Guru Granth Sahib, etc.
Bit of a stretch, don't you think?
Most Eastern writing systems are notable exceptions; since they had no scriptural religions yet have tremendously well documented writing systems. In reference to Chinese, Hangeul and the three kanas.
@@chinmayjoshi3592 I would count Chinese too because it was influenced by Bone Oracle script
@@chinmayjoshi3592 tao te jing, analects of confucius
@@chinmayjoshi3592kanji is an adaptation of hanzi (so they got the system almost "finished" already) and both hiragana and katakana were created by buddhist monks for trascription of the pronunciation of scripture or the commentary of it, then adapted and simplified further from their original forms to be used by lay people over the centuries.
Очень интересно! Пожалуй, можно было бы ввести его письмо вместе с озвучкой в мою говорящую программу. И в ней запросто выучить чукотский.
Только пиктограммы нужно оцифровать в знаки алфавита. Хотя, а успел ли он сделать алфавит?
Wait, I thought you were a much much larger channel. I have seen so many of your videos over the years, I just now saw the view and subscriber counts. Wow. Great job on the research and video!
If he had come up with this alphabet never having seen another alphabet, then I would be impressed.
you think it wouldn´t be impressive if he encountered writing before?
Intetesting. That shows that a writing system really can be invented by an individual.
Always thought that report of the invention of the egyptian hieroglyphs as a gift of the gods was very strange. However, this shows it can happen.
This clever man did what a lot of others did, he wrote pictographs of what he experienced.
So body parts would feature in his collection for a start also sun, moon and stars, water sea and land. This is how ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Chinese scripts got started. Even the North American Indians would communicate with matchstick men cartoons.
This is how all scripts got started.
But in the 19th century BCE something extra ordinary happened ...a very clever Egyptian used the temple script to depict Semetic words. Hence the compound word AlphaBet. (Alef Beth/ Ox House)
This was a script based on an entirely different approach to record language. Phenomes.
So a sound produced by tongue, teeth and throat could be possible.
So virtually anyone could learn it.
This is why the script of the Indus valley remains unknown. Because its pictographic
This begs the question WHY WAS WRITING INVENTED ? and contrary to what this video stated it wasnt to write a journal it was to record business transactions because of the old adage and Maxim
"MEN DO NOT HONOUR THEIR WORDS"
A phenome based system has many advantages over a pictographic system.
1. Less characters to learn
,(on average 26 but 30 plus is not unusual).
2. A full pictographic system needs a thousand minimum but can be three thousand in the case of Japanese.
is there a comprehensive guide to tenevils writing system?
This is the only example we have ever had of the leap from spoken to written language.
The unknown scientist named at the end of the video is actually economist Alexander Mikhailovich Mindalevich, head of a Chukotka Arctic Exploration Mission (1931-33). He published his work in 1934 and was caught in Stalinist purges due to his ethnicity (Jewish, as evident by his name as well), sentenced to the death penalty and shot in 1938. There is a lot of info about him online.
Машинки классные на фоне. Ну и видео впринципе тоже неплохое получилось.
What an interesting story. Thank you so much for this. Subscribed.
What a marvel he was
I have invented 2 writing systems myself when I was bored
אוקיי, זה מגניב.
זה כל כך מגניב שאני יודע שאני יכול פשוט לדבר עברית ואתה עדיין תבין אותי כשאני מדבר
Thanks! Very cool!
3:15 Base 20 counting system is used in Wales known as a vigesimal system. 40 = deugain = deu 2 × hugain 20. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the Mayans used a vigesimal system also. So perhaps it's an ancient universal system used in many places.
well, in languages that use the same word for fingers and toes humans have 20 of those ⏝
Tenés que cerrar la cancha, Tenevil... ¡Lo' genio' hacen eso!
I love your videos so much.
Вот бы вы ещё щелкающий "язык" из Африки на видео повторили:)
what an incredible story and vid
Спасибо
Привет 👋
Nice story
insane story
How much writing systems were developed and forgotten within 1-2 generations?
What is going on at the end there? I'm guessing you are reading something in chukchi written in russian/cyrillic script?
could you link the english translation of elena davydovas article?
wow, pretty interesting
The system was clearly too complicated to gain traction. That only works when the state authority enforces one. Mao originally wanted to abolish the Chinese script because of his general dislike of tradition. Something similar to Hangul would have made things easier. But even in Korea, intelectuals kept preferring Chinese.
A true Renaissance man
Do a video about the Nushu Language plz!
A small correction, it's pronounced Dev-naa-ga-ri, not Dev-a-na-ga-ri. Keep up the brilliant work!
huh. When I learned Sanskrit in Uni, our professors all pronounced it the latter way. And as far as I know there aren't any silent letters in Sanskrit (I mean, the "a" is there, why would it be silent?)
@@anniestumpy9918 Well do let me know if I'm wrong, it's how I've heard it being pronounced. I'm quite sure it's a syllable which is not emphasised too much. I know for sure the second last syllable is not that long.
@@anniestumpy9918 It seems I was wrong and that was just my impression from hearing it spoken quickly. However, I was right about all the syllables excluding the first being correct.
Virgin fully phonetic Sanskrit script vs chad modern Indian language schwa deletion
(Note: this is a joke, all these languages are beautiful)
Haven't watched the video, but I have to insert a famous punchline to a Russian joke right here. "Chukchi not reader. Chukchi writer!"
I would so love to make a font of these glyphs. Over 1000 glyphs, but only 72 + a handful of logograms seem to be readily available on line. I researched this in the 1980s but gave up. I would be more than willing to make a font (freely accessible) if someone would give me a full list of the glyphs.
i love alphabets, i make my own for art and other projects all the time.
making a conlang however, is pretty hard for me.
Was Tenevil already aware that writing was a thing - by which I mean, that other peoples had ways to represent their language with shapes? Or did people have no idea about that yet
In the early 20th century, he would have almost certainly been aware of writing as a technology.
@@bjhale Fair point, I feel unsure because I have no clue how isolated from outside developments he (or his community) might have been. It sure seems unlikely, but it's sort of being implied when it's stated he "independently" created a writing system, as on Wikipedia
@@dhooth I've read much of Vladimir Bogoras's work, the anthropologist mentioned in the video, as well as an account of a Russian geographer who traveled in the Far East in the first decade of the 20th century to find potential locations for coaling stations for ships along the Arctic coast and who depended on the Chukchi. They were regular consumers of goods of Russian (especially vodka), Chinese (especially tea), and American (especially guns) origin. All of these had writing on them. Bogoras even describes many of his folktale sources as "Russianized." It is difficult for me to believe any of them would be so remote as to be completely unfamiliar with writing at this time.
@@bjhale Thanks for the info
@@bjhalewouldnt only the coastal populations be russified?
imagine thinking "i can describe everything i think with more tha. 66 very ornate and tiny doodles". or "i really need to leave something passive agressive and contrived on this refridgerator. "
Not being able to write or read would be pretty funny because then I'd invent my own writing system.
Привет, дай совет как учить язики
Did he write on paper? Did he use a pen or pencil?
Just because the oppressor uses something that doesn't make it "a tool of the oppressor"
I have also lived in Russia and my older cuzen has invented his own sigil system that we have used to write "secret notes" to each other. Not a big deal. Some other kids at school have done the same. You do know there were writing systems in Russia long before "Cyrillic" right? Right? The two brothers just revamped one of them to make it look more "legitimate" for the church crowd. The bibles were only supposed to be written in Greek/Latin, so they have made up a mixture of the Greek/Latin and some of the local sigils.
Is this the real original conlang ever?
Unsuccessful herder gets government job overseeing herders, sounds about right
Wonderful video. You, unwittingly, perhaps, destroyed the popular notion that human writing "evolved" from earlier states, or arbitrarily designated times of "enlightenment.
The dam is breached. Man has always put his words in writing. Man has always kept records, both against his own memory and against the slander of those sure to arise against him.
Man was never "primitive" as a race. The antediluvians are proof enough of that. Go build an Ark without geometry, if you want to test that notion.
Writing sprang up in the aftermath of the Flood in several well known cultures. The confusion of the languages at Babel gave it impetus.
So leave off with the "caveman" theories. They lived at the same times as the high civilizations that formed in the wake of the Flood.
The genius of this Chulchi native isn't the anomaly we've been taught he is. He's a normal, intelligent human being operating outside the realm of foreign influence. I'd say he's typical of men of his ilk found in every culture.
Там некоторые иероглифы схожи с маньчжурскими
Get me a multiple transvestigation and where would somebody get shots for that? I'm a smartass and I'm just saying
Get on my lawn
- та можеш и ти и може свако
- ма које знакове ставиш на постојећа слова и ето
Такова судьба, глобализация. Маленьким культурам уготована смерть
Thanks so much bro im really interested in kamchatka culture. Secluded from usa extermination of the native cultures and exposed to the dark empire of the Russians. Because Russia tells so little of its native cultures to the outside world and because these inuit like tribes are relatives of the oldest tribes of South America im very interested in there culture because my dad is half Peruvian and almost all south american Natives are treated as lesser as opposed to the christian governments.
These days, there are many Russian propaganda videos on the Internet telling how well the minorities there are treated. When in reality, minorities are exploited and oppressed - in cases when the minorities even exist any more. Russia is the last great colonial Empire. And "Russian Far East" rather is "Russian colonized Far East". I should also mention that some relatives of mine, eager Communists, were executed in the Soviet Union just because of their ethnicity.
ahh... well, russia didn't exactly treat native peoples well either. manifested their destiny all the way to the other side of the pacific, just like the americans did. a lot of native languages have died.
@@comradewindowsill4253 native languages died not with their people, but because they stopped being useful to those people. The natives of Siberia and the Far East for the most part didn't have the concept of a state, so they just never bothered to oppose it at any scale large enough to warrant a genocide. Peoples that we did genocide survived it, cuz they were big enough that wiping literally all of them out wasn't feasible. Nor needed. We treated our natives way better than any other colonial empire. Not because we're inherently morally superior, but because it was more profitable this way.
so is he the first conlang creator?
Ummm no? His language existed, just the writing system. A conlang isn’t just English with another writing system y’know?
@@tonydai782 ohhh... yeah whoops. I thought he made a completely new language with new writing system
Nice video but let's keep aliens out of science videos shall we
Why?
what? where?
The year is 1930 a man invents writing. The local shaman proclaims it a gift from the spirits. Bruh
Мне не нравится ваша неприязнь к керилице, зачем вы её противопоставляет теневилеце? Почему они не могут существовать вместе? Иероглифическая и буквенная письменность имеют свои преимущества и ничто не мешает им существовать вместе, меня например посетила мысль сделать икроглофическцю форму русской письменности на основе теневилецы. Да и обстоятельство русификации Чукотки печально, но это помогло этому краю быстро развиваться при помощи уже развитого языка с развитой письменностью, к тому же имеющему большое количество переведённой литературы, позднее ставшему международным языком и вторым языком науки. Это печально, но плюсов очень и очень много.
You didn't say anything about the grammer, inventing a writing system is not difficult if you create an alphabet or 500 pictograms without any grammer rules or deep understanding what you are doing, I assume that guy had no education and just played around when he finally got more free time working as a manager.
What is your real name though? We all know it isn't Shawn or Shaun.Or even Sean. So how about a bit less opacity?
Fun Fact:
English is a Pictographic writing system with 26 radicals. 😂
every child has done this
why did he become famous for it
I made my own language in high school lots of people do
It’s about the script, he didn’t come up with a language just the script with pretty minimal influences
@@user-dz4eb5rb3g I am aware
Same
This guy must not be familiar with the dozen of subsaharan African scripts invented around a century or so ago as well as many others around the world.
Every other kid does this so they can have a secret language their parents don't understand. I don't see any exceptionalism here. I would do anything to avoid apeaking Russian too....
But not every nation eventually acquires a letter. Especially living in a world where there is no concept of writing at all.
you lost me when you said we’ve been hunting and killing each other until we invented writing. a glance at the cliff arts from around the world shows how wrong and ill-informed you are about human civilization and the role of writing. Humans left drawings m of their surrounding life from the earliest dawn of their history. The used all sorts of mediums and tools to carve that story in their dwellings, weaponry and mundane accessories. There is no reason to believe that human beings had to wait millenniums to learn and they taught each other.
I find a chukchi "ԓ" sounds like mongolian "л"🤔 the one of hardest thing for mongolian learners.
And now absolutely need to read Рытхэу's book.