Research, Concentration & Tangents

I was exploring the origins of various languages and consequently peoples and culture. For instance, I was looking at German origins. Interestingly, modern German comprises 3 different forms, it went through many dynamic changes with some as recent as 1998 and 2006. Moved onto English, then Celtic / Gaelic. Again, origins were various languages that formed the whole. And, unsurprisingly, I got to the origins of Chinese. According to one article, the original Chinese were nomadic, immigrating from elsewhere, not indigenous to what is now China. But I was interrupted.

A colleague came into the room and was discussing pricing with the manager. Normally, disruptions are pushed aside. However, said colleague has a loud monotone whenever they use English and was mainly using nouns with sprinklings of articles and conjunctions, etc. Understandable though. However, it’s a discussion to which I paid some attention. Private comments running through my mind at the time: “It’s taken this colleague and their team this long to reach this conclusion? That pricing, actual work and product presentation are all related and that some accompanying documents should be more graphics than text?”

My experience aside, when you see instructions, do you expect at least an equal amount of graphics and text? Ideally, graphics should dominate. (Btw, I advocated more graphics than text at a former company; they kind of listened.)

Returning to my research was easy once my colleague left. The interruption was unwelcome, but provided a break and some interesting information.

Paleoanthropologists, by-the-bye, are still debating the origins of the Chinese people – migratory or indigenous? Certainly, the people and the language have been around for a long time. Archaeological discoveries have found evidence of rice paddy fields dating back to around 4600 BC (Tangjiagang culture) and archaeological cultures represented in one part by Hemudu (around 5500 BC, Neolithic period). Discoveries of earlier cultures have led back to 7000 BC (e.g., Pengtoushan). (Oh, quick note: the Chinese calendar records that 2015 is approximately the 78^th / 79^th of a 60-year cycle. The Chinese calendar was said to have been invented in 2637 BC.)

And there goes my day – working in multiple languages. While mostly an uneventful day, I very much appreciated the silence, the peace, the relaxed atmosphere.