Should Museums return looted objects back to their countries of origin?
The Ethical Dilemmas around preserving world cultures by Alex Collado (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
Analysing Music from Classical and Modern Pop periods by Devan Banerjee (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
Living With Synaesthesia by Lorenzo Ingrassia (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
What was the 2021 Myanmar Coup, why did it happen and what does it mean for Myanmar’s future? by George Scholes (Second Year, HELP Level 1)
Creation of a constructed language, Leuiráciu by Sam Field (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
by Siddharth Srivastav (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
The History of Medicine: From the Greeks to the Middle Ages by Esa Saifee (Second Year, HELP Level 1)
Evolution of Art: Ancient China, to Medieval Art, to the Future, by Anthony Simonov (Second Year, HELP Level 1)
Application of Sports Psychology to Football (video project) by Bailey Hornsby-Clifton (Third Year, HELP Level 2)
What is Cryptocurrency? (video project) by George Vincent (Second Year, HELP Level 1)
The Rise of The Grand Piano (video project) by Pierce Bishop (Second Year, HELP Level 1)
FOREWORD
The Hampton Extended Learning Programme (or HELP for short) is a programme of extended learning open to pupils in the Second Year and above.
Now in its fifteenth year, HELP provides an opportunity for Hamptonians to extend their learning in an academic area of their choice.
There are four levels of HELP:
• Level 1 – Second Year
• Level 2 – Third Year
• Level 3 – Fourth/Fifth Year
• Level 4 – Sixth Form
Hamptonians have an exceptionally wide range of interests, and HELP aims to foster a love of learning for learning’s sake, where pupils can pursue these passions free of curriculum and examination constraints. A pupil completing a HELP project pairs with a teacher supervisor who guides them through the process, providing useful mentoring throughout the research and project-writing phases. This gives Hamptonians an invaluable opportunity to develop research, communication, and organisational skills. The only pre-requisite for completing a HELP project is that the topic must be genuinely outside the curriculum.
I thank Mark Cobb, the School’s Reprographics Technician, for designing and compiling this collection of prize-winning Level 1 and 2 projects from the academic year 2023-24. They represent just a small fraction of the scores of projects Hamptonians submit each year. I also thank the dozens of teachers who, each year, devote their time in supervising their HELP mentees. My final thanks go to all the pupils who see a HELP project through from start to finish; they never cease to amaze their teachers with the level of detail and passion that shines through in their projects. I hope that you enjoy reading these highly impressive pieces of work.
Dr J Flanagan Assistant Head and HELP Coordinator
RADAR AND STEALTH AIRCRAFT
BY LUCAS BENNELL
(Second Year – HELP Level 1 – Supervisor: Mrs C Reilly)
RADAR AND STEALTH AIRCRAFT
By Lucas Bennell, 2P.
1 1. I Introduc�on
Over the course of the past century radar technology has developed and become highly advanced while radar countermeasures have also progressed. Radar which stands for RAdio Detec�on And Rangingii is a method of tracking objects and has a variety of uses but in this essay, I will focus on how it is used to detect military aircra� and how stealth aircra� counter this.
2. H History of radar
Radar waves reflec�ng off metal objects were first observed by Heinrich Hertz – a German physicist –in the late 1880siii. German inventor Chris�an Hülsmeyer used it to build a ship detec�on device for foggy weather which he patented n 1904iv Un�l the 1930s there was no need for radar un�l long range bomber aircra� - which could cause great destruc�on - were developedv and had to be detected by radar so they could be intercepted. In the 1930s the Bri�sh Chain Home system (primarily located on the East and South coast) was developed making it the first early warning radar systemvi. In 1940 the acronym radar was coined by the US navyvii
3. H How does
ra dar
work
and h ow does it ca lculate range and velocity with different types of rad ar?
Radar works through radar waves being transmi�edviii. The waves are concentrated into a beam by a shaped objectix. Some of the radar waves will then be bounced off an object, for example an aircra�, and reflected to the radar antennax. The radar receives the reflected waves and processes them to find informa�on about the targetxi. Radar needs to bounce back directly to the antenna otherwise it cannot see the target. Therefore, a plane should be larger than the radar beam to be seen as if it was smaller some of the beam would go around the sides and there would be less energy so less energy reflected backxii. Also, where the object is would be less clear if it was a large beam as it could be anywhere in the beamxiii
A diagram showing how radar worksxiv
A diagram showing a fan beam radar hi�ng a planexv
With this fan beam less electromagne�c energy hits the plane meaning that the echo is not as large so the plane is less conspicuous on radar which is why the plane should be larger than the beam.
3.1 Pulsed radar
One way range is calculated is through sending out pulses. The pulse returns and the �me it took for the pulse to return is precisely measured and another pulse is sent outxvi. The equa�on “distance = speed x �me” is used to calculate the range of the objectxvii. Pulsed radars spend a majority of their
�me (59 minutes and 53 seconds per hour) listening for pulses as it takes a very short amount of �me to send out a pulsexviii. Pulsed radar can see velocity however it takes a long �me to calculate this and it can be confused by the ground which has a huge radar echo.
3.2 Con�nuous wave doppler radar
Doppler radar uses the doppler effect to calculate a target’s velocity but not the speedxix. The doppler effect is when an object moves further or closer to an observer the waves become less or more bunched which changes the frequency of the wavexx. This can be observed when a car moves closer to you at speed and the sound sounds higher pitched when it is close to youxxi. When planes move closer the radar frequency increases or when planes move further away from the target the frequency decreases and the radar can see that the returning frequency is differentxxii. The frequency difference allows the radar to work out the velocity that the plane is movingxxiii.
A diagram showing the frequency change due to movement of an objectxxiv
3.3 Pulsed doppler radar
Pulsed doppler radar uses the doppler effect to work out velocity and �mes the pulses to calculate the rangexxv as talked about earlier in the essay. An important part of pulsed doppler radar is the rate at which pulses are transmi�ed per second which is known as the pulse repe��on frequency (PRF)xxvi. The amount of �me in between the start of one pulse and the start of the next is known as the pulse-repe��on �me (PRT). Low PRF is usually below 3kHzxxvii, medium PRF is from 3kHz to 30kHzxxviii and high PRF is above 30kHzxxix. This is important because a problem it encounters is the “doppler dilemma” which is that a lower pulse-repe��on frequency can allow a radar to calculate a large range accurately will not be able to calculate a large velocity accurately and vice versaxxx. A low PRF allows you to have a larger unambiguous range as if you have a higher PRF the next pulse may be transmi�ed before the first pulse has returned if the object is far awayxxxi. A radar using a PRF below 3kHz (low) can measure range to at least 50kmxxxii. A high PRF can measure a large range of veloci�es that can be measured accurately as the frequency received at the radar a�er the doppler effect has to be lower than the PRF to be unambiguousxxxiii. This means that a medium PRF is usually usedxxxiv. A benefit of pulsed doppler is that it can differen�ate the ground from planes when the radar is looking down as it can see the ground has no velocityxxxv.
3.4 Frequency-modulated con�nuous wave radar
In frequency-modulated con�nuous wave radar the radar transmits different frequencies in a cyclexxxvi. The returning frequency is measured and the distance is known by how long ago that frequency was transmi�edxxxvii. It is a very accurate method of range measurementxxxviii and can measure very short distancesxxxix
4. W What are radar waves and how d o different radar frequencies affect performance?
Radar waves are electromagne�c wavesxl which is the same as visible light wavesxli. However, radar waves are at much lower frequency and have a much higher wavelength then lightxlii. Radar waves are transversexliii meaning that the direc�on of the waves is perpendicular to the direc�on of the vibra�on of the par�clesxliv
A diagram showing the range of electromagne�c wavelengthsxlv
4.1 Longer wavelength radar
Radar waves at a lower frequency have a frequency of between 3MHz and 2GHzxlvi and have longer wavelengthsxlvii from 10 metres for 3MHz to 15cm for 2GHzxlviii. This means they are absorbed less by the atmospherexlix. This is because the wavelengths which are larger are less similar in size to rain droplets and other objects in the atmosphere meaning they can more easily move around theml. The larger wavelengths can also bend around objects like walls that may be smaller than the wavelength meaning the waves are blocked less by objectsli. The electromagne�c energy in the radar waves is turned into heat energy when it hits rain droplets and other par�cles in the atmospherelii. Lower frequencies of between 3-30 MHz can also bounce off the ionosphereliii which is high above the earth. This allows it to see over the horizonliv – further extending its range - as it would otherwise be blocked by the ground. Despite this, due to the wavelength the objects spo�ed could be anywhere within the size of the wavelength meaning if the wavelength is one kilometre the objects could be anywhere within that kilometre range. Low frequency radars increase the size of a radar cross sec�on (the detectability of an object by radarlv which is measured in square metreslvi) meaning that
they have poten�al to track stealth aircra�lvii as these aircra� have small radar cross sec�onslviii However, good signal processing is needed as radar clu�er’s (unwanted echoeslix) cross sec�on is also increasedlx.
4.2 Shorter wavelength radars
Radar waves that have a frequency between 8GHz to 40GHzlxi and a wavelength from 3.8cm and 0.75cmlxii are considered high frequency. High frequency radars have smaller antennaslxiii and have a higher resolu�onlxiv meaning they are o�en used in planes for detec�ng and firing at other planeslxv known as fire control. Despite this, they have a shorter rangelxvi as the waves are absorbed more by the atmospherelxvii. The waves can be shaded by an object larger than the wavelengthlxviii and can also struggle to penetrate obstacleslxix
A diagram showing low and high frequency radar waveslxx
Iden�fica�on friend or foe (IFF) is a system that iden�fies if an object seen by radar is a friendly or enemy aircra�lxxi. A radar interrogator sends out a radar signallxxii which is then received by a transponder in an aircra�lxxiii. The transponder sends a reply at a different frequency which shows that it is a friend to the interrogatorlxxiv. There is a cryptographic computer that encodes signals from the interrogator and transponderlxxv which means that the enemy cannot pretend to be a friend and launch surprise a�ackslxxvi If there is no reply the aircra� is not iden�fied as a foe as the plane could be a civilian plane or have non-func�oning equipmentlxxvii.
6. H How do planes use angles and shapes to improve stealth?
When a radar wave hits a target the law of reflec�on applieslxxviii which says the angle of incidence (the angle between the incoming wave and the perpendicular line of the surfacelxxix) is equal to the angle of reflec�on (the angle between the reflected wave and the perpendicular linelxxx). This is the same as light waves would reflect off a mirrorlxxxi
A plane’s shape significantly affects detectability by radarlxxxiii. This means that a stealth plane should have surfaces that reflect the radar waves away from the direc�on they came from. Convex surfaces usually deflect radar waves in many different direc�ons preven�ng the radar signal from ge�ng back to the antennalxxxiv however concave surfaces - such as where the wing joins the plane - reflect radar waves back to their origin welllxxxv.
A fla�ened fuselage is an important way of making an aircra� more stealthy as a curved shape will reflect radar waves that hit it from any angle but a flat shape will only reflect radar waves if they hit perpendicular to the surfacelxxxvi. Having straight edges on a plane means that the plane will only be
A diagram showing how radar waves reflect off a surfacelxxxii
conspicuous from some angleslxxxvii. Making some of the edges parallel means that only from a very small angle will the edges of the plane be conspicuous to radarlxxxviii.
A diagram showing what happens if you align groups of edges to make the plane conspicuous from a very limited number of angleslxxxix
If looking from the side of the plane ver�cal stabilisers (part of the tail) have a larger radar cross sec�onxc. To make them less visible to radar stealth planes usually either have two ver�cal stabilisers set at an angle to each other or forgo a tailxci. Propellers and jet turbine blades also are conspicuous on radarxcii so stealth aircra� hide the jet turbine fans with an s-shaped “serpen�ne intake”xciii
Protrusions from planes are not stealthy so external weapons and fuel tanks should not be used and an opened door or hatch increases a plane’s radar cross-sec�onxciv
7. H How does an� – radar paint and ra da r a bsorbing materials (R AM) work?
Conduc�ve materials reflect radar waves be�erxcv so many stealth aircra� use insulators insteadxcvi. A type of radar absorbing paint is iron ball paintxcvii. It works by having very small balls coated with iron pentacarbonylxcviii. When radar waves hit the paint, the waves cause molecular oscilla�ons which then turn into heatxcix. This heat then goes into the plane and dispersesc. Behind some radar absorbing materials there are re-entrant trianglesci which trap radar waves as they bounce around in the triangles losing energy in the processcii. This was used on the SR-71 Blackbirdciii. Some planes coat the cockpit with a thin conductor which reflects radar waves so that radar waves don’t get into the cockpit which due to its concave and complex shape could reflect radar waves back to the radarciv The convex shape of the canopy also sca�ers incoming radar wavescv. The film has no nega�ve effects on the pilot’s ability to see through the cockpit as it is thincvi. A fibre mat coa�ng gives more
depth to the coa�ng of RAMcvii. Radar absorbent material in general is more useful against radar waves with a shorter wavelengthcviii.
A diagram showing how iron ball paint workscix
A diagram showing what re-entrant triangles look likecx
8. H How does ch aff work?
Chaff is a radar countermeasurecxi. It works through the dropping of small pieces of aluminium foil, metalized glass fiber or plas�ccxii. This creates a cloud which has a large radar cross sec�on which confuses radarcxiii. However, through the doppler effect radar can work out if something is chaff as it will slow down very quickly to a low velocitycxiv.
References
i h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Mar�n_F-35_Lightning_II
ii h�ps://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zdx4t39/revision/6
iii h�ps://www.britannica.com/technology/radar/History-of-radar
iv h�ps://www.britannica.com/technology/radar/History-of-radar
v h�ps://www.britannica.com/technology/radar/History-of-radar
l h�ps://radar-blog.innosent.de/en/on-the-same-wavelength/
li h�ps://radar-blog.innosent.de/en/on-the-samewavelength/#:~:text=Lower%20frequencies%20have%20longer%20wavelengths,leading%20to%20a%20longer %20range
SHOULD MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS BACK TO THEIR COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN?
THE ETHICAL DILEMMAS AROUND PRESERVING WORLD CULTURES
BY ALEX COLLADO
(Third Year – HELP Level 2 – Supervisor: Mr R Vann-Alexander)
Should Museums return looted objects back to their countries of origin? The Ethical Dilemmas around preserving world cultures.
Alex Collado
Hampton (3F), June 2024
INTRODUCTION
In recent years it has sometimes seemed like every week there is a call from somewhere to repatriate artefacts from western museums to their countries of origin. Some of these have become household names now, like the Elgin Marbles from Greece and the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria. Others are less well-known but can still evoke strong feelings and raise a whole host of issues around ownership, historical significance, legitimacy of how they may have been acquired and where is now legally and morally the most appropriate place for them to be displayed. It can often seem like a clear-cut decision – ‘of course these artefacts should be displayed in their original home’, or ‘of course these artefacts should be displayed in a place where the biggest number of people can see them and learn from them’. However, each case is unique and the ethical issues around them can be complex.
In this project I aim to give brief examples of just a few of the disputed artefacts around the world that have made the news, to give a sense of the scale of the issue, with some additional brief background on the Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes/Magdala Gold. My main focus, however, will be to tell the story of the Asante Gold from the country that is now Ghana. Pieces of this gold have been owned for many years by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum in London. This very special gold caught my imagination as I was beginning this project, when I heard a short news piece on the BBC about it being loaned back to Ghana. I contacted the V&A museum to see if I could find out more and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see it close-up, in advance of its journey back to Ghana. I was able to learn more about how this loan agreement came about and the story behind how it came to be here in the first place, as a legacy of British colonial history in West Africa. Finally, I will apply two different ethical frameworks to the question of what to do with these artefacts – Utilitarianism and virtue ethics - as a way of demonstrating the moral dilemma of different approaches to doing the right thing.
Background
What is a museum?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a museum as “a building where objects of historical, scientific or artistic interest are kept”. In 2022, the International Council of Museums approved a definition of a museum as:
“a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing”.
If museums are places that educate, entertain, preserve and display exhibits in their social, cultural and historical context, it leads to many questions about how we interpret this and what is most “ethical”. Is it most important that exhibits are seen in their country of origin? Or is it more important to show them in a wider context, alongside other artefacts or exhibits that might shed more light on their significance? Or should they be in the place that has the best methods of preservation or protection for them? Western museums have gathered their collections over many, many years now, when ideas about the answers to these questions have been challenged and evolved. Many of the exhibits will have been appreciated and educated millions of people, who will have had access to them. Even the Mona Lisa which is displayed in Paris, was painted by an Italian and some have questioned whether it should really be in Italy! The issue becomes especially sensitive when the ownership itself of the artefacts is disputed and if the way it was acquired is linked to colonialism and looting, it can be even more of an ethical dilemma.
In Recent News
There have been many high-profile stories in recent years. Four examples from around the world that made the headlines in the past year:
In addition, in 2015, Italian authorities were able display 25 looted artefacts that they had managed to retrieve from the United States. These were Greco-Roman artefacts previously looted or stolen from Italy and the Mediterranean. Many of these pieces had been smuggled by an infamous dealer who was convicted for selling hundreds of pieces of stolen art.
Earlier that year, the Cleveland Museum of Art returned a 10th century Hindu statue to Cambodia. It had been stolen from a temple in Siem Reap in the 1960s and ended up being brought from a dealer by the Cleveland Museum in 1982.
Also in 2015, the United States Homeland Security removed seven seven ancient Indian artefacts from the Honolulu Museum of Art. They had been bought from a New York art dealer who, it turned out, had been selling stolen antiquities from India and south-east Asia to private collectors and major museums across the States.
These are examples of modern-day criminal activity in the art world, where investigators have been able to uncover what has happened and where it seems clear that the artefacts have been stolen or smuggled and illegally sold to the museums, even if they bought them in good faith. However, with some of the most controversial artefacts, the issues can be more complex. Many objects were acquired legitimately by the museums, where they may have been displayed for up to 150 years, but the history of how they came to western Europe in the first place tends to be complicated and often related to colonialism.
The British Museum in London was founded in 1753 and describes itself on its website as “the first national public museum of the world”. It aims for its collections to be representative of all world cultures, to carefully preserve them, tell their story in a wider context of human history, and to make their collections publicly available and accessible to as many people as possible. The Museum acknowledges that many of the items in the collections have been acquired in circumstance that would not be acceptable today, such as during conflicts or as part of colonialism. The
Elgin Marbles might be the most well-known disputed items, followed by the Benin Bronzes.
The Elgin Marbles
What are they?
These marble sculptures that are over 2,500 years old, decorated the Parthenon temple in Athens. They made up a significant part of a frieze around the Parthenon, one of the world’s greatest historical monuments that is visited 7.2 million times per year. In Greece they are seen as symbols of freedom and are known as the Parthenon Marbles. About 50% of the original sculptures have survived and about half of them are in Athens and half in the British Museum.
How did they get here?
In the early 19th Century, Athens was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and Lord Elgin was the British Ambassador. As a lover of classical art and architecture, he claimed that he wanted to rescue artefacts from the Ottomans who were letting them fall into a state of disrepair and transport them to London so that they could be preserved and appreciated. The British Museum states that Elgin acquired a permit
from the Ottomans to remove them, and that there was a through parliamentary inquiry into his actions at the time, which concluded that his actions were legal. In 1816 they became part of the Museum’s collection as an Act of Parliament.
What do the Greeks say?
In 1983 Greece formally requested the permanent return of the Marbles. The Greek government believes the Marbles were stolen, because it was the Ottomans, not the Greeks, who gave them up to Lord Elgin. They believe the marbles should be displayed in the Acropolis Museum, which is a relatively new museum that houses the rest of the marbles, and that then the sculptures would be seen in their proper context as part of the Parthenon and ancient Greek history.
What does the British Museum say?
The British Museum offers a unique opportunity to tell the story of all world cultures from pre-historic times, where the marbles can be seen in a much broader context that complements the Acropolis Museum’s detailed view of the history of Athens. In the British Museum, the marbles can be seen by a vast global audience, which will promote a wide understanding of Ancient Greece, while showing the marbles in their worldwide historical context that demonstrates the shared influences between Ancient Greece, Egypt, Persia and Rome.
Current Status?
Discussions are ongoing, but the British Museum do point out that they have never received a formal request for a loan, only for permanent return. So perhaps a loan is something that might get considered in the future.
The Benin Bronzes
What are they?
These brass or bronze sculptures were created from around the 16th century in the West African Kingdom of Benin which is in modern day Nigeria. They include royal regalia and ornaments, and many pieces were commissioned for ancestral altars, used in rituals or decorated the royal palace of Benins. They provide significant cultural and historical information about the Kingdom of Benin. Some of the carved plaques record aspects of the historical contact between Benin and Portugal, regarding trade and diplomatic negotiations. There are over 900 pieces in the British Museum, many of which go on loan around the world. Many of the ancient rituals associated with the pieces, are still performed today.
How did they get here?
Benin City became part of the British Empire from 1897 to 1960. In the late 19th century Britain was aggressively expanding its colonial power in West Africa. As part of this, a British trade mission was attacked on its way to Benin resulting in a number of British and African deaths. Britain retaliated with military force and captured the city of Benin in February 1897. The occupation was violent and many of the population were killed or injured. The Benin Royal Palace was burned down, partially destroyed and was ‘looted’ by British soldiers. Objects were removed from ancestral shrines, including over 900 brass plaques from the palace walls, which were of great historical and cultural significance.
The British government loaned some of these items to the British Museum in late 1897. After petitioning for them, many of these were later officially donated, while others were sold to British and German museums or private dealers. The collection continued to grown over many years, as the Museum acquired a number of major private collections. In the early 1950s, the Museum sold or donated around 25 items to the Protectorate of Nigeria and the government of the Gold Coast. The Horniman Museum in south London also had 72 items from Benin, which it returned in 2022.
What does Nigeria say?
In 2021, the Nigerian government wrote to the British Museum and a number of other museums around the world to formally request the return of Nigerian antiquities. Representative of the Benin Royal Palace have also made public statements asking for Benin objects to be repatriated.
What does the British Museum say?
In public, the British Museum mainly talks about dialogue and cooperation with Nigerian institutions to explore ‘new initiatives’, though they are not specific about what these might be. They are also a member of the Benin Dialogue Group, which brings together museum directors from museums in the UK, Austria, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Nigerian representatives from their museums and the Royal Palace (see below). The British Museum also reminds us that many museums around the world also continue to hold on to Benin Bronzes, including across the USA.
Current status?
As stated above, the Horniman Museum has already returned 72 items to Nigeria, based on a moral argument that because they were looted, they should be repatriated. However, they are not subject to the same legislation as museums like the British Museum and the V&A, who are not allowed to simply give up items in their collection, (as explained below). The members of the Benin Dialogue Group are collaborating to establish a museum in Benin City that will be able to house a permanent display of items that are currently dispersed in museums around the world. In the meantime, Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments continues to call for their return.
The Asante Gold
What is it? A Brief Background
The Asante Gold artefacts are a collection of intricately designed metalwork items that are the equivalent of being Ghana’s crown jewels that come from the West African Kingdom of Asante, which is located in modern-day Ghana. The collection includes personal jewellery, royal regalia that would have been worn by the Asantehene (king of the Asante people) and includes emblems of his authority and of historical and spiritual significance to the Asante people, such as a ceremonial peace pipe and badges worn by the king’s ‘soul-washer’. The items are symbols of the Asante royal government and are believed to embody the spirits of previous Asantehenes. They are closely linked to British colonial history in West Africa and were looted from the royal palace in Kumasi during the Anglo-Asante wars in the 19th Century. Many pieces were later sold at auctions and ended up with private collectors or in museums including the V&A (17 items), the British Museum (around 200 items), the Wallace Collection and military museums.
In January 2024, it was announced that the V&A would lend 17 pieces of gold to Ghana and the British Museum would lend 15 pieces. The pieces would go on display in the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the capital of the Asante region, as part of the silver jubilee celebrations for the current Asantehene. The loan is a way of sharing items whose ownership is disputed, or requested to be repatriated, between the UK
institution who owns the gold (according to UK law) and its country of origin. It gets around the UK legislation that restricts museums like the V&A from permanently returning disputed artefacts.
How It Got Here - The Raid on Kumasi, February 1874
The Kingdom of Asante became a powerful region in what Europeans came to call the Gold Coast of West Africa. It became known for its wealth and Europeans like the British and the Dutch traded weapons and metals with Asante, in return for gold, spices and enslaved people who were sent to work on plantations in other colonies. When the Asante people rose up against Britain’s steps to increase their dominance, the British Army retaliated with a ‘punitive expedition’ against the Asante people. On the 6th February 1874, they burned down the Kumasi Palace and looted royal regalia. This would have been to destroy the Asante King’s symbols of government, so was very political. The V&A also has a diary of a soldier who took part in the raid, that gives an eyewitness account of the looting.
Illustration of the British raid on Kumasi, February 1874
Interview with Angus Patterson, Senior Curator of Metalwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 6th February 2024.
I was really inspired when I read the news about the loan agreement between the V&A, the British Museum and the Manhyia Palace Museum. I reached out to the Director of the V&A to see if it was possible to interview one of his colleagues to help inform my project. I was extremely fortunate to hear back from Angus Patterson, who was instrumental in securing the loan agreement, and who informed me that the following week, the 6th February 2024 was the 150th Anniversary of the raid on Kumasi. He invited me to visit him at the V&A on that very day, which was especially poignant, and offered to get the gold items out of storage to show to me, and kindly agreed that I could interview him at the same time.
I am extremely grateful for the time that he gave to me, and I felt very privileged to see the gold close-up. Below is a transcript, which I hope will bring to life the story of the Asante gold, the loan agreement and the sensitive issues that it raises.
1. Thank you so much for showing me the gold and taking the time to talk to me. How was the loan agreement negotiated and how long did it take?
It’s taken a long time and there has been quite a big team of people in the museum working on it. We have an International Liaison Officer who went to Ghana with me, but our Director had also gone before that. There was originally an approach from the Asantahene to start negotiations, and originally we were working alone.
So, they approached you first? Initially, yes. It coincided with a lot of work we had been doing on this material anyway. So, 2007 was 200 years since the Parliamentary abolition of the slave trade, and it was also 50 years since Ghanaian independence – that’s when this material started to emerge into the limelight a bit more, and we had a research project where we had some people start to write this up and catalogue it (the cataloguing has moved on). We have a Director who is very open to creating honest and holistic, round histories of these sorts of objects, and not seeing these as something that’s focused on British military glory or anything like that, but understanding what these mean now in a museum, to the Asante, who don’t have them.
So, the negotiations have been on and off since I was furloughed during Covid, and I came back out of furlough to work on this, in September 2020. We had meetings then to discuss what we might do. Initially we were working with the Ghanaian government which is a much more complex process, and there was discussion about whether these would go on show in Accra in the national museum. But it was going to be a very long and slow process – governments come and go of course,
because you have elections, and the one thing that was constant was the Asantahene and the Asante royal family. It’s 25 years this year since the Asantahene came to the throne, so it’s his Silver Jubilee and there are big celebrations in Ghana. It’s also obviously 150 years [since the raid] – mixed feelings in Ghana obviously about how that might be commemorated – but it seems like the right moment to do something.
2. You just said that it had taken over 3 years of negotiating, what were the factors that led to the success of the negotiations?
Just lots of discussion and support. We went into a three-way partnership with the British Museum, and the Manhiya Palace Museum which is the royal palace museum Kumasi. The British Museum has been really helpful. They have long standing relationships with Manhiya Palace Museum anyway, and so what we are doing is the same as we do with any international loan to any country. There is nothing unusual about this loan, it’s just relatively unusual to lend material that has been looted because there are historical questions over the ownership of it. The loan agreement is for 3 years and it’s renewable, just like all our other loans. But then we have things like UK Facilities reports – we have loan agreements; we have insurance agreements; when things reach a certain financial value they need an Export Licence, so there is a huge amount of bureaucracy and paperwork to go through. And there has been a huge amount of discussion around – the palace in Kumasi doesn’t have environmental controls in it, the show cases that they have there at the moment wouldn’t meet our loan agreement standards, so there’s been lots of discussion around that, because every question in those documents can feel like a stumbling block. I think if I was in Manhiya Palace Museum answering those questions, I’d think, “if I don’t
say our showcases are this standard, will that stop the loan?” What’s happening in the end is that the British Museum has three spare showcases that are going to go out, and they meet those standards. Normally, a borrowing institution would pay for conservation, couriering, freight and that sort of thing for the objects to go out, and where this is different is that the museums here are paying for it to go out, because it is an unusual loan.
3. When the loan period is over, do you think there might be any resistance to returning the items?
Certainly not with the Manhyia Palace Museum. They’ve signed an agreement and they’ve given us every indication that they intend to meet that agreement. Their representative has been in the press recently and he has categorically confirmed – and they are signing legal agreements. There’s a huge amount more Asante materials in other museums, so it would be odd for them to say no. But there will be resistance internally, certainly in the popular press in Ghana, and that sort of thing about why should these be sent back? There is already some controversy and anger about the idea of why we are ‘lending’ back material that was looted.
So has that been the general public reaction?
You always brace yourself for the social media onslaught, but also you keep going knowing that - because we know the full story of it. You’ll see in some of the newspapers they are saying that we are trying to get round the legislation, that as soon as this material goes back it will just end up in a Swiss Bank vault because the Asante will sell it. That is borne out of white supremacist thinking, people don’t realise they have it
– unconscious bias. There is nothing we’ve been given to believe that this is a loan agreement that isn’t going to be honoured. So yes, we are pretty confident. At the end of the agreement there is an option to renew it for a further three years, and then usually they last six years and it would be looked at again. We’ve got some other long-term loans out –we’ve got bits of armour in a museum in New Zealand that have been there for about 30 years. So it could go on being a loan or it could come back, but the agreement is at the moment, that it will come back.
4. Is there an argument that the gold would be viewed more by more people in a British museum?
It’s difficult because if these were on display all the time, yes, there is one argument that could be made for that, but I’m not sure it’s the right argument, because these have spiritual significance. Here they become decontextualised and they become pieces of ornament. To the Asante, these represent a national trauma, but they also represent, the regalia contains the spirits of previous Asantahenes. So, it seems like a bigger issue. There is a huge Ghanaian diaspora in Britain, we’ve done events here in the past. A few pieces of this gold – this is not all the regalia, there are three pieces which are out on display – and we have had people in London who are of Ghanaian background who have said that in some ways they will be sad to see it go back because they won’t have the chance to see it. But the bigger picture is that these have high spiritual significance to the Asante people, so there’s lots of things to balance.
Have these pieces ever been on display downstairs?
They have a long time ago, but not for a while. They came out in 2007 for a display but it was short-lived. I’ve always felt slightly embarrassed that they’re not on display. If the loan agreement hadn’t gone ahead, I would have put these out into our silver galleries and got them onto display, but the loan agreement is going ahead, and one day when they come back, they will go out on display.
How come they were taken out of display?
It’s funny, because we have never systematically collected African metalwork, or African material culture. Now we are collecting contemporary artists to try and diversify our contemporary artworks, so we have three African curators appointed now, plus we have someone diversifying our jewellery, but historically we never systematically collected it. So, within the metalwork collections, we have three pockets of material: the Asante gold, we’ve got about 70 pieces from Magdala in Ethiopia which was also a British raid in 1868, and we have some South African jewellery from the late 19th Century. All these three things represent British Imperial interests in the African continent in the 19th century and they were acquired by the Museum before we would divide it up into materials by department. So, the Magdala materials has textiles in there, photographs, all sorts of things that were associated with that raid and they were then split up into different areas. The Asante material – because we’ve never had an African metalwork specialist (I’m not an African metalwork specialist at all - so I know far more about the provenance of these materials since they were looted than I do prior to 1874). The vast majority of our collections are European-based, we’ve employed European specialists – our history of gallery displays is focused on European collecting, and these were kind of put in store and not really studied for quite a long time except for the odd individual, and
they didn’t have the traction then that they do now. So if these don’t stay on long-term loan, I would certainly make sure they would be going out on a long-term display here.
5. In the debate about whether artifacts like this should be returned, I know you write about this briefly in one of your pieces, do you think it makes a difference whether they were acquired legitimately or looted/ taken by force?
Yes – the legislation in Britain is pretty cold, so because the Museum bought these at Garrards in 1874, legally - in Britain at least - these legitimately belong to the V&A. The Asante don’t necessarily see it that way, so that’s a big gap that we’ve had to negotiate. We certainly can’t and don’t want to break the law here. We’re governed by the National Heritage Act of 1983, so these things have the same status within this Museum legally, as everything else. Certainly, to the Asante, there’s a different feeling. So morally and ethically, with this material that has this spiritual significance, we want to do everything we can to work within the law, but to ensure that somehow it gets to Ghana. Other communities that had material looted from them, haven’t necessarily been as receptive to the idea of a loan, because there is paperwork that means you have to acknowledge an ‘owner’ and a ‘borrower’, and that thinking can be the stumbling block.
But I think it does certainly make a difference, if we acquire it legitimately. We have an Asante sword that’s in the collection, that came to us in 1920 from a military family and it had been given to a Colonel Sladen in 1901 and he was an administrator at the Cape Coast and the Ghana Coast, and it was given to him by a Chief called Yaw Boake and
it was given in exchange for access to the coast to obtain provisions and things. There’s quite a sad story that comes with it, there’s a letter that’s written by a British clerk in the army and then signed with a cross by Yaw Boake to say, “I know you wanted a golden stool, but here’s a sword instead and I hope that’s ok.” So that was acquired in colonial circumstances that seem unfair, but legitimately, legally it came through a family and then to this museum, so that’s a less clean-cut case than these pieces that we know were looted. That one is an exchange or a trade, that was possibly under unfair circumstances.
Like the Elgin Marbles?
Yes. That’s the thing with this… I don’t know if you know about the Savoy/Sarr Report in France? President Macron commissioned it 5 years ago and made a pledge that all things in French museums that were looted, ought to be back in the countries they were looted from within the next 5 years. That was a pretty bold claim, but also utterly unrealistic because you have to look at every case individually, and the thing that unites all those things is the European thing of wanting to do the right thing, but each one is a totally separate circumstance, and the objects mean different things to different countries so everything has to be done on a case by case basis.
6. You mentioned the law. Could you tell me a bit about it and who has overall control, and whether you think it might need to be reviewed now?
Well, it’s a really interesting question, because we’ve only come under that law since 1983. We used to be part of the civil service, but from 1983 we became an arms-length organisation, administered by a trust
that’s appointed by the government. The National Heritage Act of 1983 lies down this new organisation for us. There are only 2 circumstances in which objects can be disposed of from the collection. In fact, I’m going through one of them at the moment; it’s an object that’s in such poor condition it can never be used again. It’s a plaster cast of a cast-iron fire that is just crumbling so we’re going to dispose of that. And then the other reason is if they are identical objects and there is no need for it to be in the collection because you’ve got an identical one. There was an amendment to that in about 2009 around Nazi loot. Britain’s very good at looking across the Channel and wagging its finger about Nazi loot and spoliation, but not so good at looking inwards! And so, we are restricted by the 1983 Act. It’s possible that the law will change - in fact our Director said last year that it’s 40 years since that Act, isn’t it time it was looked at? It was debated in Parliament, and it was thrown out pretty quickly. He’s a former politician – he knew it would be, but he is still just keeping that idea alive. I suspect one day the law will be changed, but it takes a long time to do it, and it does require an Act of Parliament, it does require MPs to get involved, and in the past there’s a long history of MPs saying it’s a matter for museums because they don’t understand museums’ constitutions, and the museums are saying it isn’t, we need a change of law so it’s a matter for MPs. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to tease out the nature of looting a bit, because people associate looting with people running around and chaos, but actually it’s important to understand that it was War Office policy, Government policy so it does put the onus back on the Government in some ways to take ownership of that history. It was left to individual army generals as to how they conducted that looting and what was looted. In this case, Garnet Wolsey appointed prize agents. One was from the Navy and two were from the Army and they went round with clipboards selecting what bits were to
come out. But it was an official policy as a way of partly paying for the raid and partly removing symbols of office. So I think the law will change one say, I think it is likely to, as there is a groundswell of people who are starting to recognise the issues around these things, but while it’s still there…. We have returned pieces of the Burmese regalia in the 1960s, but we can’t do that now. People don’t realise that. They think that museums have been pretty intransigent about it since the 19th Century, but it’s not. It’s just since 1983. So, I suspect it will change one day, though there’s no sign of it at the moment. Our Director Is quite good at keeping it alive in the press!
7. I saw the diary of the soldier that you sent me. How was that acquired and what do you think are the ethics of acquiring items like that now, given the current debates about glorifying colonial history?
There’s an interesting fear that some people have that if you start to talk about the less pleasant aspects of British history, that you’re somehow rewriting history or erasing history, and it’s the opposite of that. What you are doing is adding a bigger picture to help understand who we are, because this is in all our identity. Some people find that uncomfortable and some people are ok with it. Something like the diary was a very interesting discussion that we had in the Museum. The first thought was that because it wasn’t a metalwork object, it had to be proposed through the National Art Library, and there was nervousness in the Library about acquiring something that clearly glorified the British soldiers’ actions in the Asante War. The first time it went through our Collections Committee, it got rejected because of that, and possibly the people who were putting the case forward didn’t really support it, because it’s not a work of art.
So, I had a bit of a grumble to the Director in the corridor one day and he said he was surprised it didn’t go through and the next thing I knew, I was invited to go and present it at the next meeting! We had a meeting to discuss the issues – they had felt it ought to be in a military museum because it’s a military diary, but actually my argument was that the context was a lot wider than that, and what it does do – certainly from a British soldier’s perspective anyway – it sheds light on the circumstances around which this was acquired. This museum in particular is doing a lot of work on provenance research, and we’ve got a Spoliation Officer. Provenance is ownership history, and spoliation is about looking at the future of material that is known to have been looted and looking at how that might be returned, if possible. A couple of things have gone from the Gilbert Collection here, on long-term loans to the V&A, and that’s managed by a different constitution and they have returned a piece there, a gold ewer to Turkey that was looted – but we don’t have that option.
The diary was interesting because the whole idea of it is that it’s not about reviving that soldier’s voice, but it is about revealing it – because it tells us what the thinking was behind us acquiring these pieces. Although he doesn’t specifically mention the gold, he does witness looting taking place and then he takes part in the burning down of the palace. So, taking the gold regalia was about removing the symbols of government and in burning down the palace, you’re removing the historical seat of power. They are two very political acts. So it did throw up this interesting debate. We have a cup in the store that’s silver, that commemorates the British raid on Magdala and it was used as a shooting trophy in India in the 1870s for troops that came under Robert
Napier who had led the raid in Magdala. It was all about creating this huge reputation for him and this hero worship of him as a Victorian hero. There were debates about whether we should acquire that, because we were buying it, it wasn’t a gift, we paid £10,000 for that. But the whole point of it was that it is a piece of propaganda art, and art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Art comes out of a political, social and geographic context that is really important to help give meaning.
The diary really gives that context doesn’t it and helps to tell the whole story of what happened?
Yes, absolutely, and they have been really interested in it in Ghana as well, because there are some written records in Ghana but not much, and obviously an awful lot in the Palace was destroyed, so there has been a lot of interest.
8. Could you tell me how you came to work in this job?
I did History at University of Sydney, in Australia. I grew up in Warwickshire, but I went out to Australia to university (my mother is Australian). My first job in Australia was in the wine trade, and I got fed up with that because I was working really long hours. I’d always loved museums and I’d loved historic objects and history, and I was standing in a queue at the university, a sort of graduate’s queue to look at possible careers and I saw a Museum Studies course offered and thought ‘That’s what I want to do!’ so I enrolled in that. My first job, as a volunteer, was working at a museum at the University of Sydney – this was in 1993, so a long time ago – and they were on top of these issues a long time before British museums were and so that was a 19th century natural history and science museum, and when you look at settler colonies like
New Zealand, Australia and Canada, a lot of their national museums and some smaller museums were built in the image of British museums and they also had a lot of looted material. The museum I worked in was the Macleay Museum, a natural history museum, smaller version of the one over the road, and like the one over the road it has ethnic, Aboriginal human remains and art in it. It was a sign in the 19th Century, that they treated Aboriginal people as part of natural history rather than human history, so there’s a big problem there already. But they were human remains and material looted, and the very first display I ever did at that museum was about material looted from an Aboriginal camp, and that threw up all sorts of different issues because it was labelled by a 19th century collector as from Derby in western Australia, and that’s an area about the size of Britain, so it wasn’t known which community it actually came from. Some of the material was sacred and some not, and the sacred material is kept separately, access is kept to a minimum. It was kept in a store in the university grounds, and no-one is allowed access without going through a certain p – so some of these issues affected me early on in my career and it’s been a surprise to pick them up here. When I started working here 27 years ago, I started off as an assistant curator on a 3-month contract and about 2 days in I got offered a longerterm job because the museum was starting a silver gallery, so that was my first exposure to metalwork. I didn’t have any clue about metalwork at all when I started here, but I had ‘museum skills’ that I had learnt, and then I fell in love with metalwork straightaway as soon as I started working with it. I am lucky enough that my job has changed, and I cover a large area of metal. I cover about 600 years of metal. We’ve got some specialists who work just with jewellery – you saw Claire who is an amazing jewellery historian, a silver specialist, but I like to cover all of it.
I do architectural ironwork, brass, pewter, electro-metallurgy, all sorts of stuff.
There is a museum studies course at Leicester, but there are also vocational courses you can do if you get a job in a museum, you can do the museums’ associateship courses that teach you skills on the job and you have mentors working with you and they will try and steer your work towards things that will enable you to pass that course. Museum work is hard to get into – I got discouraged by lots of people who said “you’ll never get a job” – but I wouldn’t let them discourage me. Someone has to get the job, so I made sure I could do everything to make yourself as indispensable as you can! I always say that I am happy to research, write and deliver a lecture internationally, but I am also happy to run up a ladder and change a lightbulb! Just be prepared to do everything!
9. Finally – is there anything else that I haven’t asked you that I think I could have or should have?
No! I think you have done well and asked some good questions. What would you like to see happen with this gold?
AC: I’m not sure. I think the loan is a good solution in the short-term, but I think in the end it is probably better for it to go back to Ghana. I think it is probably more appreciated there and it has much more significance, even if it’s seen by less people than if it was displayed here. I think in the long-term it would be better for it to go back to Ghana permanently.
AP: Have you discussed this with any of your friends at school? Do they have similar views? What is the feeling of people your age towards this material?
AC: I think the general feeling is that it should go back. Mentions slavery in Democratic Republic of Congo.
AP: Different countries abolished slave trading at different times. Britain did it in 1807 and I think Denmark was a few years earlier. Britain always says we were first, but we weren’t, I think Denmark did it earlier and then other countries followed suit. That’s when Britain really tried to exert stronger control over the west coast of Africa, where Ghana, Nigeria and Togo are. By the 1870s,- this is what triggers this – when Britain takes control of El Mina from the Dutch – I mean you can’t think of anything much more colonial than that, the Dutch selling Britain parts of West Africa along the coastline – that’s when the Asante had a long claim to El Mina even though it was out of their territory. That’s when they attacked the garrison and it sets off this enormous, punitive raid - again it’s a horrible imperialist term to punish somebody for interfering with your economic interests. It’s an interesting debate, and I think there are a lot of people here who are afraid of feeling any sense of guilt. I think guilt is a natural reaction when you start to learn this history, but it probably isn’t something that you want to carry on feeling for a while. I think it’s an acknowledgment and understanding that it’s in all of us, that we all have this history that’s come out of this, and we’ve all benefitted from things that make us feel uncomfortable, and I think that while we’re not
personally responsible for what happened in the 19th century, we are responsible for what happens now. So that’s the way that I look at it.
Art history is becoming more engaged with other parts of history and sometimes you’d look at a design written up 20 years ago and all they talk about is the designer and the patron and the way the object looks, isn’t it pretty and it conforms to these classical ideals (that sort of thing). There’s no sense of the money that went into in, where it might come from, quite often the money is legitimate or it’s illegal, but other times –there is a place in Bexleyheath, a Palladian style country villa with landscaped grounds, it was all paid for by somebody called John Boyd who had a massive windfall because his father had a partnership in the Royal Africa Company which had a monopoly on the Transatlantic trade, so the labour had been slave people that had paid for this landscape that still exists. So that creates a different context to the background. Boyd was a social climber, so it was new money. It was frowned upon in the 18th century to have new money, so they were building themselves palaces and almost creating a sense of antiquity to their own family, because they were social climbing. This house was very visible to the road and normally a country estate would be hidden by trees, but he made it visible because it was his social elevation. I think when you start to read buildings and understand their background, the buildings and these objects start to make a bit more sense. It’s all part of adding a bigger history. It’s not taking history away. It’s adding a bigger story to it. It exists, it’s all there. It’s not taking a negative view of British history –there’s an awful lot to be proud of that comes out of it, and there are things that feed into it that we don’t necessarily feel comfortable with.
Update on “Homecoming” of Asante Gold to Kumasi
In April of this year, several weeks after our interview, Angus Patterson accompanied the Asante gold on its journey back to Ghana. He worked with colleagues from the British Museum and the Manhyia Palace Museum to get the gold ready to go on display there for the first time since it was taken in the raid on Kumasi. He shared with me a blog he wrote on his return, in which he says:
“While the loan of the Asante gold follows similar arrangements to our other international loans, in collaboration with Manhiya Palace Museum and the British Museum we have developed this further into a cultural partnership based around the exchange of knowledge and skills. V&A and British Museum staff have contributed to the installation of the exhibition, coaching Manhyia Palace Museum staff in object presentation, environmental control and gallery writing. In turn, Manhyia Palace Museum colleagues have taught us more about the items in our care, bringing new insights into the meanings behind each piece.”
Manhyia Palace Museum team, 1 May 2024
The “Homecoming” exhibition celebrates three anniversaries. This year is 150 years since the British looting of Kumasi; it is also 100 years since the return of the Asante King from exile; and 2024 is also the silver jubilee of the current Asantehene, Osei Tut II, who formally opened the exhibition. He can be seen here wearing some of the gold regalia that signifies his royal status. He also has next to him the Golden Stool, which is only shown in public once every 5 years. No-one ever sits on the stool as it contains the spirits of former Asante kings. Instead, it is placed near the Asantehene’s throne.
Philosophy and Ethics
As stated above, the ethical dilemmas that are raised in this area are many and complex. Sometimes, it may be the case that western museums could have a role in protecting and preserving artefacts, which is what Lord Elgin argued about the marbles he removed from Athens. More recently, for example, ISIS controlled the regions around Palmyra in Syria. Palmyra contained many ancient ruins dating back to at least
Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, picture courtesy of Barima Owusu-Nyantekyi
the 2nd millennium BC, of cultural significance to the ancient world, and in 2015 ISIS caused significant damage and destruction of many of the monuments there. ISIS were suspected of stealing artefacts to sell in the international antiquities market. UNESCO have been involved in trying to conserve the site, but I believe that museums could have a role in helping to preserve parts of the site, with a view to returning them in the future.
With the Asante gold, the museums in London may be legally entitled to keep the artefacts because they bought them legitimately and are bound by the The National Heritage Act of 1983. But that may not mean that morally we should keep them, if they were originally looted in a punitive raid which was not just about acquiring wealth but was a political act to remove the Asante’s symbols of authority to stop them regaining power.
One ethical theory that could be used to determine whether or not to return stolen artefacts is Bentham’s utilitarianism, suggesting doing whatever causes the maximum net happiness. This would mean that you would consider whether maximum net happiness is caused by retaining or returning artefacts, such as the Elgin marbles or Asante gold, before making a final decision on keeping or returning the items. This could be affected by factors such as exposure to the public as larger net happiness will be heavily affected by how many people see the items. This could be seen as a flaw as keeping items such as the Asante gold in England may cause a larger net happiness due to it being seen by more people but is not what I believe should be done and could be seen as morally wrong.
Another principle that could be used to determine whether to give stolen artefacts back or keep them is virtue ethics, created by Aristotle. Virtue ethics teaches that an action is only right if it is something that a ‘virtuous person’ would do. A person is considered to be a virtuous person when they ‘possess and live the virtues’. A virtue is defined as a ‘moral characteristic that a person needs to live well’. There are nine virtues: wisdom, prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity and temperance.
Virtue ethics could be useful in the context of returning stolen artefacts as it encourages one to think if keeping or returning the artefact is moral and ethically correct as opposed to being selfish and using other, less moral, factors when choosing to return or keep stolen artefacts. Using the Asante gold as an example, virtue ethics would say to return the gold to Ghana. One virtue which would reason to return the gold is justice. This is because we took the gold, that was never ours, without good reason (other than punishment). We looted it as an act of revenge, which is in itself un-virtuous. The gold belongs in Ghana where people believe it contains the spirits of their kings and it is not just for us to keep it.
Other possible solutions?
Where it is not possible to return disputed artefacts, a loan seems to be a good solution, especially when it is accompanied by real collaboration. However, sometimes, this may also not be possible, as in the case of the Magdala gold that the V&A sought to loan back to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian officials, simply could not agree to the legal contracts that declared a UK museum as the “owner” of artefacts that the Ethiopians considered are rightfully theirs. In Madrid, the Factum Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that uses advanced digital techniques to make replicas of artefacts and cultural heritage sites. They have recently reconstructed the Colossus of Constantine statue which is being displayed in a museum in Rome, but would have originally been in the Roman Forum. They have reproduced many other artefacts, such as interiors of Egyptian tombs or African stone carvings. They worked with the Chrysler Museum in Virginia to provide them with a replica of a Nigerian stone carving, so that the museum could return the original.
It is possible that replicas could play a role in some cases – perhaps the British Museum could display replicas of the Elgin Marbles if they returned the originals to the Parthenon Museum, so that their other artefacts still had that context. Or maybe museums should not display copies? However, it would clearly not be a solution in cases like the Asante gold, where the artefacts themselves are believed to be invested with deep cultural and spiritual significance.
Conclusion
I have learned that the question of whether disputed artefacts should be returned is so much more complex than it often appears in news headlines, which often do not reflect the amount of thought, work and discussion that may be going on behind the scenes. The circumstances of acquisition, the best way to preserve antiquities for future generations and the cultural significance of each piece are just some of the issues to consider. I doubt there is one solution that would fit every disputed artefact – each needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. However, I do believe that we should consider our moral obligation, not just our legal duty. The loan agreement between the V&A, the British Museum and the Manhyia Palace Museum is a good example of museums taking seriously their moral responsibility to share their collections. It shows how much can be learned by all the parties if they work together and form a cultural partnership, where both sides can increase their understanding. The V&A is not trying to deny the difficult history of the artefacts but is demonstrating how we can learn from that history by acknowledging it and using it to build relationships for the future.
Sources:
Interview with Angus Patterson, Senior Curator of Metalwork, Decorative Art & Sculpture at the V&A Museum – by Alex Collado, 6th February 2024 at the V&A Museum, Kensington.
Print media:
The Week Junior magazine (various news pieces)
The Telegraph Magazine (2 March 2024)
Online research:
BBC online news articles (various on Asante gold, Elgin Marbles, Benin Bronzes, Palmyra)
The New York Times (“When a Visit to a Museum Becomes and Ethical Dilemma”, June 2023)
UNESCO
The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation
ANALYSING MUSIC FROM CLASSICAL AND MODERN POP PERIODS
BY DEVAN BANERJEE
(Third Year – HELP Level 2 – Supervisor: Mr D Roland)
Vaughan Williams – The Vagabond
Context
The Vagabond was originally set for voice and piano and is part of a larger song cycle called ‘Songs of Travel’. Composed between 1901-1904, this was Vaughan Williams’ first major offering in the world of vocal music. Songs of Travel is a nine-part song cycle, with text drawn from the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection. Although Songs of Travel was originally written for voice and piano, it has also been orchestrated for orchestra and voice. Vaughan himself orchestrated the first, third and eighth songs, and his assistant Roy Douglas orchestrated the remaining songs in the cycle. Even though the orchestral versions are still performed in concert halls, the intimacy and pure emotion of the original chamber version is often preferred.
The Music and Poem
The Vagabond is the first song in the cycle and sets the scene for the traveller. The style that starts off this song cycle is a clear mirror for Williams’ love for Romanticism that came before. A vagabond is normally used to describe someone who travels a lot without a home or job, which sets the scene for this song. The lyrics and text are taken from Stevenson’s poem of the same name seen below.
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heavn’ above,
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with start to see,
Bread I dip in the river –
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around, And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek the heavn’ above, And the road below me.
Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger, Silencing the bird on tree, Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield, Not to winter even!
Let the blow fall soon or late, let what will be o’er me; Give the face of earth around, And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love, Not a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heavn’ above, And the road below me.
Analysis
The piece opens with heavy marching chords which signify the steady and purposeful journey of the traveller as they make their way down the open road. The ascending triplet figure acts as almost a glimmer of hope as the vagabond makes their way through what we assume is the British countryside. The instrumental introduction foreshadows the vocal melody a few bars later showing a clear example of imitation. The dotted rhythms above the firm March chords below, could represent the contrast between the traveller's head and feet. The vocal line is light in style, even with it being originally sung by a baritone voice, and the delicate movement in the ascending phrases is a pleasant relief from the heaviness expressed by the accompaniment.
The accompaniment consists of the left hand acting as a steady bass, changing between tonic and dominant chords for a large proportion of the song. This is very typical of a marching band and is a clear example of word painting as it is both mimicking and painting the movement of his steps. The right hand moves in unison with the voice, offering harmonic colour to the structure of the song.
Vaughan Williams utilises the words of Stevenson’s poem to emphasise certain rhythms and pitches to create a really expressive piece of work using the technique word painting. In the first stanza the line ‘Give the jolly heavn’ above’ is full of very subtle musical accentuation. Firstly, the bouncy dotted rhythms represent the idea of jolliness perfectly. Secondly, the ascending phrase is a great example of word painting, as it is like the traveller is heading to heaven one day or is remembering those passed on. These subtle links between the music and lyrics make The Vagabond a very clear example of carefully crafted word painting and scene setting.
Moreover, the line ‘There’s a life for a man like me’ is also a key feature within the song. Before, there is a dynamic build up (crescendo), and then the line is proclaimed loud and proud, showing the attitude and feeling of the traveller. In addition to this, there is an increase in pitch and note length, and as a result of this line being drawn out, loud and high, it links to the proud and assertive statement. This evidently shows his self pride in being a vagabond, and the stanza ends with ‘There is a life forever’ showing his acceptance to his lifestyle lasting forever. The strength and boldness heard through the voice in these two lines is repeats throughout the song on multiple occasions.
The third stanza is where the atmosphere begins to change, mainly due to a drastic change in the accompaniment. The lyrics in this verse are as follows:
Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger, Silencing the bird on tree, Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –Warm the fireside haven –Not to autumn will I yield, Not to winter even!
It is reasonable to assume that the change in atmosphere here is due to the changing of seasons in the text – Summer to Autumn. Williams uses more word painting in this section to create a variety of different emotions. The second line, ‘Where afield I linger’ is important in this section as the vocalist actually lingers on the word ‘linger’ to create some sort of tension which is continued through this whole section. This is done through longer note lengths (minims) and also rubato (stretching out the tempo – typical romantic technique).
The atmosphere then yet again changes on the line ‘White as the meal the frosty field’, with the colour white representing something pure and innocent. A key example of the singer’s interpretation of the song can be seen here, as in the recording I listen to (Bryn Terfel), he accents and uses an interesting sharp timbre on the word ‘frosty’. This is a clear representation of the atmosphere associated with frost. Contributing to this, the piano accompaniment plays a delicate sequence of arpeggiated chords, whilst the voice decreases the dynamics and also takes a much more delicate approach, additionally, the melodic contour also descends after reaching a climax a bar before on ‘blue’. The next line starts in the word ‘warm’ and the music mimics this by dropping down an octave in the accompaniment. It then rumbles up again creating a fire like interpretation. The whole section builds to somewhat of a dazzling climax, which is then quickly eradicated in the next section.
The final verse is a complete repeat of the second verse of the song; however, the atmosphere again has been changed. Dissolved down to a weak whisper, this final section starts at a very quiet dynamic. The original starting structure is back with the steady bass chords from the accompaniment and the dotted triplet figures from the melody and vocalist. We are led to the idea that the traveller is not asking for wealth, hope, love or friends, but instead the want to just continue on his journey with the idea of heaven and the road below him. The penultimate line, ‘All I ask, the heavn’ above’ is exclaimed as though he is actually talking to a higher power above. Then the final line, ‘And the road below me’ is back down to a gentle and quiet statement, as he is undoubtedly closer to the road then the skies and heavens above.
The accompaniment repeats the chords once more, but this time playing them in such manner that is no longer a steady march, but now relieving signifying the traveller beginning to stop his journey. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece, The Vagabond, portrays many different readings, from spiritual, to romantic. But as stated in both Classical and modern POP music, it is purely down to the listener to, interpret, and figure such things out. The rest of the cycle is about the traveller and the trials and tribulations of travelling also containing many famous pieces of Williams’ work.
Overall, we can see that there is lot to be said about this particular piece and Vaughan Williams’ works all round. He is a master of the nuanced style of word painting and
other composing musical techniques and many of his vocal works are full of these subtle, yet important, musical messages.
* https://youtu.be/ITjLHDi7UPg
Adele – Someone Like You
Context
Someone Like You, originally sung by Adele, is a POP ballad written for solo female voice and piano accompaniment. Released in 2011 as a star song in her album 21, it became a global success. It topped the charts in nineteen counties and reached the top 10 in various other regions. The song became Adele’s first number one single in the UK and became the best-selling single of the year. 21 was a stylistically diverse set of material, with singles ranging from the earthy gospel, and disco-inflected, ‘Rolling on the Deep’, to the affecting breakup ballad Someone Like you.
The Music and Lyrics
The song is a bout a boyfriend who broke up with Adele, and throughout the song, she expresses the hardship and struggles that she entailed through the separation. The track sums up the now defunct relationship that the album 21 is all about. Lyrically, the song talks about the end of Adele’s first “real relationship” with her long-time friend and lover and shows her confronting his new marriage. The lyrics are as follows:
I heard that you're settled down
That you found a girl and you're married now
I heard that your dreams came true
Guess she gave you things, I didn't give to you
Old friend, why are you so shy?
I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it
I had hoped you'd see my face
And that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over
You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the time of our lives
We were born and raised in a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days
Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you, too
"Don't forget me, " I beg I remember you said, "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead" "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"
Analysis
The song begins with the piano accompaniment playing repeated semi-quaver broken chords in the right hand, and long-drawn-out chords in the left. These broken chords establish a good flow in the accompaniment, and although the notes vary, this structural pattern of the accompaniment mostly sustains throughout the piece. It begins at an adagio tempo with a simple time signature of 4/4. All these musical components show how Adele, and most POP artists, focused on telling the story behind the song through the lyrics, and kept the storytelling through the musical aspects simplistic and minimal.
The melody begins on the 4th beat of the bar. This example of anacrusis almost energises the ongoing lines in a way that simple continuation does not. Additionally, as the note is tied and thus lengthened, it contributes to the solemn atmosphere and the endengered feeling of sorrow in a powerful way. This first verse consists of small phrases in which they all descend, following the same shape and lasting only a single bars length. Each of these repetitive phrases all have the same melodic shape eventhough the rhythms vary slightly. These descending phrases represent Adele’s sorrow and inability to let go as she repeats the same things over and over in the same upset manner. The mid to low vocal range also suggests this idea. Furthermore, the line ‘I heard that your dreams came true, guess she gave you things I didn’t give to you’ is a clear presentation of Adele’s feelings and response to the breakup. It suggests the idea of Adele almost being jealous as he is know living his best life with a ‘perfect girlfirend’ whilst she is still longing for him back.
Adkins uses the arrangement of the piece and poignant lyrics in order to express emotions which are easy for listeners to identify with. Examples such as pauses, phrasing, and key changes all reflect emotional turmoil. A clear example of this can be seen from the pre-chorus then leeding into the chorus. The pre-chorus is nine bars long instead of the usual eight. This extra bar, which changes from 4/4 time to 2/4, is like holding your breath a little too long before the chorus hits portraying her exaggeration and loning for him.
The chorus is where the atmospheric extension and emotion is now released which is expressed through Adele’s lyrics, dynamics and pitch. The lyrics are as follows:
Never mind I’ll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too.
“Don’t forget me,” I beg
I remember you said,
“Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead”
“Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead”
Adele begins by saying ‘Nevermind, I’ll find someone like you…I wish nothing but the best for you, too’. This evidently shows that she is finally accepting of the situation and that she is moving on, and in doing so hoping the best for him aswell. However, the musical accentuation towards this suggests otherwise, and additionally her own presentation of the line. The line is proclaimed in a forte dynamic, relatively high in pitch, and expressed with an underlying tone of bitterness. This suggests that she is being sarcastic and clearly shows her anger and jealousy towards the event. In contrast, only a line further, the musical aspects and her lyrics propose the complete opposite idea. Adele says, ‘Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead’ and while doing so, she slowly descends in pitch and dynamic. This reflects her regret and rejection as she becomes quieter and sings lower down almost fading away in misery. In addition to this, she goes on to repeat the line once more also decreasing the tempo, dynamic and pitch.
Furthermore, scattered all over the song, and clearly heard in the chorus, are ornamental notes. Someone like you creates such emotional reactions, and musically, the reaction is due to small, unexpected changes in the melody. These ornamental notes create melancholic tension. Ballads like this often move from soft to loud and contain dramatic shifts at key moments. The jump from the pre-chorus to chorus is an example where Adele’s voice jumps an octave and becomes much louder in the entry to the chorus. Adding the heartfelt lyrics on top, in addition to this musical accuentation, the song creates huge emotional ties which easily connect to the audience.
Overall, we can see that there is a lot to be said about Someone Like You and Adele’s pieces all round. She incooperates a vast number of musical techniques and is able to connect with her audience through this, and additionally her true and heartfelt lyrics.
Conclusion
Overall, from the two periods, we can see that classical music is often portrayed and considered as more sophisticated and complex, whilst modern pop music is more accessible and focused on emotion. However, classical music has had a large influence on modern music which roots go back centuries. The baroque period, for example, saw the emergence of the concerto, a form that continues to influence modern music to this day. Additionally, the romantic period also brought forth the development of the symphony, which would later influence modern music in other genres such as rock.
From the set pieces we looked at by Adele and Vaughan Williams, we can also see both distinct differences, and similarities between the two periods. The vagabond differs in that the musical language itself is often more formal and structured. The lyrics are written and exclaimed more formally than Someone Like You, moreover, it is structured more formally as it has a complex chord progression with sections in the piece completely changing in key and structural pattern in order to create a change in atmosphere. However, Someone Like You maintains the usual and simple four repeated chord progression throughout the piece, showing its simplistic and less formal approach. It portrays emotion and changing in atmosphere through a variety of other ways such as its relatable lyrics connecting with the audience. Thus, from the two set pieces, we can see clear similarities and differences between the two periods.
In conclusion, after analysing a piece from Adele (POP), and a piece by Vaughan Williams (Classical), we can see how modern-day music has been influenced by classical music and in doing so, their sharing of many qualities. Nevertheless, distinct differences still remain and vast contrasts in the audiences between the two. Both periods of music are still listened to to this day, although pop music is more targeted at the younger people of the society we live in. As a result, it is more widely listened to, however, both are still respected and portray different ideas yet still carry with them great amounts of subtle similarities.
LIVING WITH SYNAESTHESIA
BY LORENZO INGRASSIA
(Third Year – HELP Level 2 – Supervisor: Mrs R O’Connor)
Introduction:
Synaesthesia, a neurological mystery for scientists and a reality for many Manifesting differently in each individual, synaesthesia entails the combination of senses to produce a unique experience, one that can enrichen or worsen someone’s life in unexpected ways.
What is Synaesthesia:
syn·aes·the·sia
[ˌsɪnɪsˈθiːzɪə] noun physiology psychology
1. the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
Synaesthesia is a neurological and perceptual phenomenon which combines various senses like auditory processing, colour processing, taste, and smell. Synesthetes – people who experiences synaesthesia – report sensations, like reading letters in colour, tasting colours, or feeling a sound.
The discovery, or rather first credited research, of synaesthesia is attributed to German physician Georg Tobias Ludwing Sachs in 1812, in a scientific paper about albinism, a condition that causes the lack of pigmentation in an organism, that briefly alluded to days of the week, time periods, letters, numbers and notes all having colour properties. He may well have been the first documented synesthete. Then, in 1871, Gustav Flechner, a prominent psychologist at the time, submitted a study on 73 synesthetes about their colour-letter associations; this work was later continued by Francis Galton, a British eugenicist, in the 1880s. During the late 20th century, during a period of scientific discovery known as the Cognitive Revolution, research into psychology and the inner workings of the human brain were at an all-time peak. Scientists were becoming fascinated again with synaesthesia, and dozens of studies and papers were published to the effect of raising global awareness about this trait. In the 1990s, positronic emission technology (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Functional MRI or fMRI) allowed scientists to track and observe the bursts of neural signals in the brain. By observing the brain’s activity while synaesthesia occurs gave some of the first hard evidence of its existence, at least perceptually. Currently we are at a new level of understanding about the human brain and consequently synaesthesia, and new studies continue to reveal how this phenomenon occurs.
An Aside – PET Scanning: A radiopharmaceutical – a radioisotope attached to a drug – is injected into the body as a tracer. When the radiopharmaceutical undergoes radioactive decay, a positively charged particle called a positron is emitted, and when the positron interacts with an ordinary electron, the two particles annihilate, and two gamma rays are emitted in opposite directions. These gamma rays are detected by two gamma cameras to form a three-dimensional image. The decay of the radiopharmaceutical shows the position of cancerous tumours and brain activity through measuring blood flow to different areas of the brain, mapping signal hotspots
To explain synaesthesia, we must first understand how the brain functions at a basic level. First, information is transmitted via sensory nodes like the eyes or ears. Nerves are situated everywhere in the body, which collect information when triggered by stimuli (anything you can feel, i.e. seeing a dog or smelling a flower). Messages are transmitted through vast expanses of nerve networks via chemical or bio-electrical signals. Different signals from different sources will trigger different areas in the brain, which has many sub-parts, or cortexes, that process specific kinds of data. In short, the brain receives then processes the information, so that your conscious self can understand what your senses are trying to tell you.
In a synesthete’s brain, two or more sensory nodes will both communicate chemical signals to describe their surroundings, and this produces the unique experience of synaesthesia. About 2 – 4% of the world population experiences this, and there has been evidence that this may also be a hereditary trait, passed on through generations. (Max Planck Institute and Radboud University in the Netherlands, the UK Cambridge University joint study)
Synaesthesia is likely genetic; a slight change in nitrogen-containing base pairs – which make up a strand of DNA – can give rise to synesthetic traits. Synaesthesia-like traits are common in new-borns or toddlers – this discovery is often accredited with the work of Charles and Daphne Maurer - when the brain is at a developmentary acceleration This is known as the semantic vacuum hypothesis, and states that the first abstract concepts a child is exposed to can form common synaesthetic traits like grapheme-colour or number-form synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is also developed from early exposure to sensory inputs, which may form the basis of a synesthetic connection. According to recent studies, an individual with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) has up to triple the chance of developing and retaining synaesthesia. There are many recorded incidents of brain damage causing synaesthesia, after a trauma to the head or brain; these are known to not be as long-lasting as its developmentary counterpart, and are not as common either. There is also evidence of drug-induced synaesthesia, but however this is known to be temporary and not a ‘genuine’ type of synaesthesia, although still valid from a scientific research perspective. This is caused by consumption of ‘psychedelic’ drugs like LSD or DMT, which alter your perception and influence the brain’s ability to make neural connections, which may cause synaesthesia-like traits. An interesting feature of synaesthesia is that no two experiences are the same. Two grapheme-colour synesthetes may report different colours for the same letter, some may see ‘A’ as red, others may see it as green. Every person’s brain will process this slightly differently, giving way to a huge spectrum of interpretations about letters, sounds, feelings, words, and tastes.
Types of Syneasthesia:
Grapheme-colour synaesthesia: This is probably the most common type, and involves seeing grahemes – letters, numbers or symbols – in many different colours. As a member of the graphemecolour synaesthesia community, I view the alphabet and numbers like this:
Chromesthesia: This type is common amongst musicians and singers, and describes the association of a sound or pitch with a different colour or shape Many musicians use this to make music that ‘feels’ good in their minds.
Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia: Words trigger certain tastes, maybe ‘Alan’ tastes like raspberry and ‘labrador’ tastes like mint. Tastes are not necessarily overwhelmingly strong, though there is firsthand evidence that people say they may be put off being near a person with a name that tastes bad.
Auditory tactile synaesthesia: sounds trigger certain feelings like being touched on the arm or feeling something. Listening to music can become unpleasant if the generated sensations are irritating or uncomfortable, but this varies from person to person.
Mirror touch synaesthesia: seeing touch induces a feeling of touch, this can be the same or different to the input touch vision. This can often be the case with pain, if the synesthete sees someone else having been inflicted pain, they may feel the same or similar degrees of pain or other feelings of the same order.
Ordinal linguistic personification: Words and sequences have distinct personalities, maybe ‘Monday’ is jovial and energetic, whereas ‘sandwich’ is an irritable miser.
The following is an extract of a study of a person with ordinal linguistic synaesthesia by Professor Mary Whiton Calkins of Wellesley College in 1892, when these phenomena were largely estranged and isolated incidents, not well known amongst the scientific community and especially not the public:
" T's are generally crabbed, ungenerous creatures. U is a soulless sort of thing. 4 is honest, but mathematically angular and ungraceful. 3 I cannot trust, though it is fairly good-looking in personal appearance. 1 is dark in complexion. 9 is dark, a gentleman, tall and graceful, but politic under his suavity." For numbers, I entertain either a like or a dislike; for instance, 11, 13 and 17 are especially disliked, I suppose because they are prime. My feeling for 11 is almost one of pity."
"The letters are very individual, for instance, B; seems like a young woman, a friend of L, which seems like a daughter to M. N seems to be a sort of maiden aunt, sister to M. O is a young man connected with M as a nephew. He connects M and N with P, an older friend of his. Q is odd and stands by himself as rather an eccentric middle-aged man. R is like a maiden lady, an advisory friend of S, a young, handsome girl. T is the devoted admirer of S."
Number-form synaesthesia: Numbers and number sequences take a certain shape or position in the person’s mind.
Tickertape synaesthesia: The person ‘sees’ a string of words as a person is talking, like subtitles. This can heighten awareness of spelling and grammar errors.
Misophonia: This is arguably the worst type of synaesthesia, and is categorised as a neurological disorder. It describes hearing a sound then feeling a negative emotion like anger or sadness, and goes beyond just being annoyed about a sound.
Synaesthesia has a huge number of combinations of each sense with another, and then the personal attributes of these are even more wild by comparison. There are known incidents of correlation between synesthetic experiences, for example, with grapheme-colour synaesthesia, a common interpretation of ‘A’ is red. More often than not, each person manifests their own experiences, especially with more abstract forms of synaesthesia.
Types of synaesthesia relating to words are not limited to English, in fact synaesthesia is the same when reading in Kanji (Japanese characters), Arabic, Hindu and many more languages and dialects.
Living With Synaesthesia:
Approximately 3 to 5 percent of the global population has synaesthesia, but who it affects more is an unanswered question. It is speculated that women are up to six times more likely to develop synaesthesia than men, though the evidence may be down to a higher percentage of women signing up these studies, not a higher synesthete percentage in the population. There is no visibly extreme correlation between race, age, and gender with the development of synaesthesia, though it is likely that many members of the same family will have synaesthesia, passed on genetically.
Some people report many benefits of synaesthesia, aside from being interesting table talk or a convenient party trick. People often say they have improved memory of important things like names or dates, because they can find the colour or feeling they associated with them then use that to narrow down options until they remember the original information again.
Example:
1. Bob has forgotten John’s name (which is John)
2. He remembers that the name was orange at the start
3. He knows that orange letters are ‘J’ and ‘F’
4. He thinks it started with ‘J’
5. Names beginning with ‘J’… Jim, Jacob, Johnathan... John!
This process of recall is also personally useful, and as a synesthete I find it aids recollection of key names and dates, especially within an academic or school context, where in some subjects this is an incredibly important aspect of the curriculum, like History.
There are negative aspects as well, especially within types like misophonia and mirror-touch. With misophonia and auditory-tactile synaesthesia, there can be a benefit, like deeply appreciating music that generates a positive emotion or sensation, but there can be colossal issues. Some people report feeling sensations like ‘electric zaps or ‘insides being scraped by a rusty shovel’, even ‘claws ripping down [their] forearms’ in contact with certain pitches or sounds. While these accounts may be slightly exaggerated, they all bear testament to the difficulty of navigating a world where a sound can cause immense pain or emotions. People have to find ways to mitigate these painful experiences, whether by using earplugs or avoiding these sounds in the first place. Many synesthetes will have more than one type of synaesthesia, which logically will stack the impact of each type.
There are no cures for synaesthesia, whether hereditary, drug-induced, or trauma-induced, and while some synesthetes may feel as though their synaesthesia is more of a burden than a gift, in my personal opinion it should be embraced as a part of your identity, instead of trying to remove it from yourself.
Famous synesthetes:
As synesthetes, people may feel alone or estranged from other ‘neurotypical’ people, but it is important to realise that others share your experience, and celebrities are role models for these synesthetes. Synesthetes have been scientists and inventors, like Nikola Tesla and Richard Feynman, musicians or composers, like Billie Eilish, Pharrell Williams and Beyoncé, or artists like David Hockney or authors like Patricia Lynne Duffy. Role models like these are important to buoy a synesthetes’s sense of purpose and belonging, even if they see the world through a different lens.
Conclusion:
So, what now? Well, it is still a developing field in neuroscience, and every day people still discover their own synaesthesia. It is an evolving condition, with new varieties being discovered by the growing synesthete community, and scientists continue to make new advances into explaining this phenomenon. There is still debate about the cause of synaesthesia, though technological improvements in brain scanning and activity mapping continue to generate proof of the condition, but also give reason to the things people experience; scientists can use this knowledge to explore how the brain works at a fundamental level, outside of merely studying this neurological difference. I feel lucky to be a part of this community and learn about my own and others synaesthesia alongside them.
Bibliography:
A Statistical Study of Pseudo-Chromesthesia and of Mental-Forms on JSTOR
What Are The Different Types Of Synesthesia? | BetterHelp
Synesthesia in Infants and Very Young Children | Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
Synesthesia: What It Is, Causes, Symptoms, Types & Treatment (clevelandclinic.org)
Synesthesia: Definition, Examples, Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment (healthline.com)
Synesthesia Meditation - discover your synesthetic abilities
UKSA – UK Synaesthesia Association
Home | The MULTISENSE Synaesthesia Toolkit (syntoolkit.org)
About synaesthesia (updated FAQs) | The MULTISENSE Synaesthesia Toolkit (syntoolkit.org)
Synesthesia - Wikipedia
Good news & bad news: Auditory-tactile synesthesia : r/Synesthesia (reddit.com)
Synesthetes Unite! (reddit.com)
WHAT WAS THE 2021 MYANMAR COUP, WHY DID IT HAPPEN
AND
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR MYANMAR’S FUTURE?
BY GEORGE SCHOLES
(Second Year – HELP Level 1 – Supervisor: Mr M Cross)
“First country since 1945 to experience three mass killings simultaneously*” – What was the 2021 Myanmar Coup, why did it happen and what does it mean for Myanmar’s future?
HELP Project – Level One
By George Scholes, 2H and supervised by Mr Cross, History Department
*[Source 0]
Contents:
1. Introduction
Introduction to the project
Key Information about the project
2. Events Leading to the Coup
Political History since World War II Emergence of Democracy
2020 Election
3. The 2021 Myanmar Coup
Allegations
Seizing of Power
Response from the Public
4. The Aftermath of the Coup
Declining Resources Restrictions on the Public Government Brutality
5. Reaction by other Countries Statements Sanctions Support?
7. Conclusion
Conclusion
8. Sources
Interviews
Online Sources
Introduction
Introduction to the project
In this project, I will attempt to explain the underpublicised situation of the Myanmar Coup of 2021 in an equitable manner. This will also include the events leading to it, the manner of the coup and the events following. This event was covered largely in the media in the duration of the major moments of action, however it was quickly overshadowed by other stories in the news after a short period, despite still being detrimental for the country’s future. The information surrounding this situation will likely have an element of propaganda outside of the major trusted sources (e.g. the BBC and the UN), thus I will try to refrain from using sources which are not universally trusted.
“On 1 February 2021 the Myanmar military (also known as the Tatmadaw [or the military junta after the coup]) launched a coup against the civilian government, declaring the results of the November 2020 general election invalid and instating a one-year state of emergency [Source 1]” Many senior officials were arrested on grounds of widespread fraud despite, to this day, no evidence presented against their party and protesters were dealt with brutally, with many killed or injured when peacefully protesting.
Key Information about the project
Myanmar is a country in South-East Asia with a population of 53,800,000 people. “Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948, but its post-independence history has been characterised by unrest and conflict, with long-standing struggles for ethnic and sub-national autonomy [Source 2]”.
Though commonly referred to as ‘Burma’ by the likes of the United States Government due to “not recognising the legitimacy or authority of the military government [of Burma when they changed their official name in 1989]” [Source 3.1], I will be referring to the country in question as ‘Myanmar’ throughout this project as it is the frequently used name which is more recognisable to a reader without any prior knowledge on the subject. In any quotation referring to ‘Burma’, please assume its meaning as ‘Myanmar’ for these purposes.
This project has been conducted in a manner which does not investigate violence in any more detail than statistics. This is because many tragedies have occurred in this horrible event and thus it would not be appropriate to cover this, especially as this is a Second Year project and therefore it would not enhance the project to specify violence any further.
Events leading to the Coup
“Throughout its decades of independence, Myanmar has struggled with military rule, civil war, poor governance, and widespread poverty. A military coup in February 2021 dashed hopes for democratic reforms in the Southeast Asian nation” [Source 4]. In the decade prior to the coup, unrest had not been abolished, yet Myanmar began to reap the rewards of their attempts at peace and political ease, mostly lead by the National League of Democracy (NLD)
Political History since World War II
[Section uses Source 3.2 for information and quotes]
Travelling back to World War II, Myanmar, then named ‘Burma’, had been threatened by Japan, an Axis power, that they would invade Burma. The two countries eventually came to an agreement which formed a provisional Burmese government, but Burma was under partial control from the Japanese. This meant that the rule of the British, which had been present since 1886, was no longer applicable. Japan then declared Burma, in theory, an independent state. It is believed that this action by the Japanese was to minimise threats from the British in the war, since it would be highly unlikely that Burma would now join Britain in the potential attack of Japan.
It soon became apparent that Japanese promises of Independence were not likely to hold true, so, on the 27th of March 1945, the Burma National Army rose up in a nationwide rebellion against the Japanese and soon after, they joined the Allies officially. This remained until the end of the war and after the war Myanmar was back under British rule. 170,000 to 250,000 civilians died under the short Japanese rule.
“The new executive council, which now had increased credibility in the country, began negotiations for Burmese independence, which were concluded successfully in London as the Aung SanAttlee Agreement on 27 January 1947.” Aung San also succeeded in concluding an agreement with ethnic minorities for a unified Burma at the Panglong Conference on 12 February, celebrated since as 'Union Day'. This formed the Union of Burma.
On 2nd March 1962, General Ne Win led a military coup that toppled the democratic government of Burma and established a military regime that would rule the country for more than five decades.
“In September 1987, Burma's de facto ruler U Ne Win suddenly cancelled certain currency notes, which caused a great down-turn in the economy. The main reason for the cancellation of these notes was superstition on U Ne Win's part, as he considered the number nine his lucky number he only allowed 45 and 90 kyat notes, because these were divisible by nine. Burma's admittance to Least Developed Country status by the UN the following December highlighted its economic bankruptcy.” This shows the amount of control that the leaders had on Burma at the time, and also shows the kleptocratic nature of the country, as a simple superstition from a leader can determine the entire country’s economic future.
Emergence of Democracy
[Section uses Source 3.1 for quotes and information]
“In August 2003, Kyin Nyunt announced a seven-step "roadmap to democracy", which the government claims it is in the process of implementing. There is no timetable associated with the government's plan, or any conditionality or independent mechanism for verifying that it is moving forward. For these reasons, most Western governments and Burma's neighbours have been sceptical and critical of the roadmap.”
“On 17 February 2005, the government reconvened the National Convention, for the first time since 1993, in an attempt to rewrite the Constitution. However, major pro-democracy organisations and parties, including the National League of Democracy, were barred from participating, the military allowing only selected smaller parties. It was adjourned once again in January 2006.”
By 2012, Myanmar were starting to loosen their restrictions on their citizens. They were now allowed social media and exposure to western cultural ideas, and they even released Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD leader and daughter of Aung San, from her 10 year house arrest to participate in politics once again. At this time, Barack Obama became the first United States of America President to visit Myanmar.
Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League of Democracy, participated in by-elections held on 1 April 2012 after the government abolished laws that led to the NLD's boycott of the 2010 general election. She led the NLD in winning the by-elections in a landslide, winning 41 out of 44 of the contested seats. The 2015 election results gave the National League for Democracy an absolute majority of seats in both chambers of the Burmese parliament, enough to ensure that its candidate would become president, while NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from the presidency.
The 2020 Election
“At the general election on 8th November 2020, the National League of Democracy won 396 out of 476 seats in parliament, an even larger margin of victory than in the 2015 election. The military's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, won only 33 seats. [Source 3.1]” This was a monumental victory all across the country as it symbolised the final hurdle on their attempt of democracy. Their economy and human rights were to be dramatically improved, in addition to the prospect of a free country with relationships across the globe, and all was positive in Myanmar.
The 2021 Myanmar Coup
Allegations
The coup in Myanmar began on the morning of 1st February, 2021, when the Tatmadaw unlawfully deposed the democratically elected leaders of the country, the National League of Democracy, on the basis of falsifying the results of the November 2020 general election. In a document outlining the racial inequality of the elections before they happened, it was said that “Myanmar’s electoral process is undermined by systemic problems and rights abuses that will deprive people of their right to fairly elect their government [Source 6.1]”. Although this shows that the election was not conducted in a fair manner, this cannot be used as a basis for another election, as this was caused by the racism of the military. In addition, it would be likely that these excluded ethnic groups would vote for the National League of Democracy, and even if they did not, it would not be enough to change the result of the election. Electoral problems also included discriminatory citizenship and other laws that bar most Rohingya Muslim voters and candidates, not to mention the reservation of 25 percent of parliamentary seats for the Tatmadaw.
“It’s a milestone for Myanmar to be holding a second multiparty election, but however long the lines are to vote, this election will be fundamentally flawed,” said Brad Adams, Executive Director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “The election can’t be free and fair so long as a quarter of the seats are reserved for the military, access to state media isn’t equal, government critics face censorship or arrest, and Rohingya are denied participation in the vote.” It should also be noted that this was claimed before the election and thus was not a reflection of the events to come.
The cause of why some ethnic groups were left out of the election was - according to the Myanmar government – announced to be a result of “ongoing conflict with armed ethnic groups”, however it is widely believed by outsiders that this was a continuation of their concurrent racial discrimination. The exemption of the Rakhine state, among others, was due to “government forces using heavy weapons and burning, looting, and killing in cities, towns, and villages [Source 0]”. Though the military are right that the ongoing conflict could alter their perception on their political standpoint, there are many counters to this argument. Surely, with the Tatmadaw attacking their villages, they would vote for the NLD as they are against this. This means that if they were to vote, the outcome would only be more against the military, showing that the military controlled the election to their preferences, and still lost. Additionally, the voices of all people should still be heard even though they are in a conflict. The military closed down their voting opportunities because they feared that they would vote for the National League of Democracy, but this is simply unjust as all votes should count for the same. By doing this, Myanmar indirectly declared themselves a kleptocracy.
Seizing of Power
The acting president, Myint Swe, proclaimed a year-long state of emergency and declared that power had been transferred to the Commander-in-Chief of Defensive Services, Min Aung Hlaing. The intention was to hold another election at the end of this state of emergency.
The coup d'état occurred the day before the Parliament of Myanmar was to swear in the members elected in the 2020 election, thereby preventing this from occurring. President Wini Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi were detained, along with ministers, their deputies, and members of Parliament
A compulsory curfew was instated for all citizens, and all of the detained National League of Democracy members were replaced by members of the Tatmadaw, the Union Solidarity and Development Party. In a letter written before her impending detention, Aung San Suu Kyi said that the military’s actions would put the country back under a dictatorship.
Response from the Public
Following the coup, many protests were staged by the public in opposition to the sudden capture of control. Protesters mostly employed peaceful and nonviolent forms of protest, which included acts of civil disobedience, labour strikes, a military boycott campaign, a pot-banging movement, a red ribbon campaign, and formal recognition of the election results by elected representatives. The colour red, which is associated with the National League of Democracy, has been donned by many protesters.
“In response to the growing protest movement, the military leaders of the coup enacted a number of countermeasures. These included internet and social media blackouts, a media blackout, pursuit of arrests and criminal sentences against protesters, the spread of disinformation, political overtures to competing political parties to participate in the self-appointed State Administration Council (to replace the elected government body), deployment of pro-military protesters and instigators, and the violent use of force to suppress protests.
On 6 February 2021, several political parties, including the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS), the Karen National Party, and Asho Chin National Party, announced they had rejected the military's offer to participate in the State Administration Council. The Karenni National Progressive Party has publicly denounced the military coup and the coup's detrimental effect on controlling the COVID-19 Pandemic and ongoing peace talks, and called for the NLD and Armed Forces to compromise, in order to resolve the country's political stalemate. [Source 3.3]”
The Aftermath of the Coup
Declining Resources
Although Myanmar have had a long history of being sanctioned by other countries, they have always had many natural resources, usually enough to be self-sustaining. When interviewing Laura Ossa, a former peace worker in Myanmar and citizen of Myanmar, about the matter, she said that “what the Tatmadaw are good at doing is that they also have all these businesses in the country, so they don’t need to rely on anyone else. While we [England] need to rely on the rest of the world to keep our
economy going, the Tatmadaw have been really invested into getting their own resources, so they make their own beer, they make their own clothes, they make their own income and are very selfsustaining. They’ve got some international connections in regards to their arms, so for instance Russia supplies a lot of their weapons.”
“From 2011 to 2019, Myanmar experienced high economic growth, averaging 6 percent [growth] per year, coupled with significant reduction in poverty. [Source 7]” This was due to the requirement for import and export licences being removed for 600 products, which encouraged an increase in gas production, services, construction, and strong commodity exports.
““The coup has brought economic turmoil, wiping out modest gains in poverty reduction made over the past decade. The economy shrank by nearly 20 percent in 2021. Additionally, the health-care system has collapsed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of people are facing hunger, and tens of thousands have fled to other parts of Myanmar or across the borders. Because of the coup, Myanmar has become a failing state,” CFR’s Joshua Kurlantzick says” [Source 4].
Not only is there a large economic impact following the coup, but their population growth is also severely declining. In the graph above, it shows that in the previous decade, the yearly population growth rate had fallen dramatically, and it had only got worse after the coup. In 2021, the amount of live births in Myanmar was below that of Myanmar in 1961 [Source 3.2]. In 1961, the population of the world was just 3.06 billion, just 38% of today’s global population. Not only that, in 2021, they experienced the second most amount of deaths since 1950 [Source 3.2], just behind 2008, which contained Cyclone Nargis that contributed roughly 138,000 casualties.
Another reason for a decline in population is due to many people fleeing the country as refugees. According to UN estimates, more than 1.1 million people have been internally displaced in Myanmar, and following the coup it is estimated that at least 72,000 people have fled to outside the country. Thailand, who shares a border with Myanmar, has sheltered 90,000 refugees from Myanmar across nine refugee camps since the mid-1980s. After the February 2021 Coup in Myanmar, at least 45,000 additional Myanmar refugees fled to Thailand.
Restrictions on the Public
Following the coup, a general nationwide curfew was imposed between 8pm and 4am and has yet to be removed. There is also a ban in effect at all times against gatherings of more than 5 people in public spaces. This is in an attempt to stop protests and other rebellious activities.
“As part of its attempt to crush dissent and maintain power, the military junta shut down internet service, blocked social media platforms and websites, seized control of the telecommunications infrastructure, and ramped up intrusive surveillance. Despite these and other obstacles, including detentions and egregious physical violence, people in Myanmar continued to use digital tools to organize and voice opposition to the coup whenever possible. [Source 8]”
Using the scale of “Freedom on the Net”, we can see the drastic contrast between the ability to access the internet in Myanmar and that of other countries. This data is a score out of 100 measuring freedom which citizens experience on the internet, an 100 rating being completely free and 0 meaning there is no access at all [Source 8]. Note that these statistics were taken at the start of the year, so the 2021 statistic was before the 2021 Coup.
Myanmar’s population is not only being supressed from voicing their opinions online, they are also significantly restricted in real life by the military. We can use the data from “ Freedom House” by looking at their metric of “Freedom in the World” which represents how freely people can speak out about problems and how much they are restricted in their day to day lives [Source 8]. Note that these statistics were taken at the start of the year, so the 2021 statistic was before the 2021 Coup.
This source puts into perspective how terrible the conditions are in Myanmar in the past few years in comparison with other countries. While there are countless new articles expressing how supressed countries like Russia are, Myanmar, which is much worse in terms of freedom, is left unnoticed to the media.
In addition, the Bamar (the first race to inhabit Myanmar) supremacy has only become more prominent following the coup. Myanmar is the first country since 1945 to experience three masskillings, or genocides, simultaneously [Source 0]. Unfortunately, the Muslim Rohingya people are the recipients of a majority of these tragedies. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, which resulted in the world’s largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and South-East Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider this “ethnic cleansing”, meaning the elimination of an unwanted ethnic group or groups from a society, as by forced emigration or genocide
The data above [Source 0] shows how likely countries are to experience a new mass killing in 202223 (written in 2021). Lots of tension has been growing between ethnic groups, as many groups such as the Karen and the Asho Chin have openly been against the military control of power, and therefore a new genocide against Myanmar’s own population is more likely than ever.
Government Brutality
“A “raging fire of brutality” is engulfing Myanmar, where military forces have killed more than 4,000 civilians since seizing power in a 2021 coup, according to an independent United Nations expert on Myanmar. [Source 6.2]”
“Since taking power, the military junta has unlawfully attacked villages in areas controlled by antijunta forces and ethnic armed groups, including schools, hospitals, and camps for displaced people. Airstrikes in some regions have increased more than 300 percent in the past year. The special rapporteur, Thomas Andrews, said the security forces have executed civilians in custody, “at times in mass killings.” They have “[hurt*] bodies in an apparent attempt to terrorize the civilian population. [Source 6.2]”
*Source was too graphic in violence to bodies so changed appropriately
It has already been proven that the government has exercised extreme and cruel measures to supress their public, commonly exercising rape and sexual crimes. Unfortunately, there is no clear way for this process to be stopped, and although the United Nations have been monitoring the actions of Myanmar, nothing can really be done in retaliation apart from sanctioning or waiting for a fair government to be created.
Reaction by Other Countries
Statements
Many countries, in response to the horrific situation in Myanmar, have issued statements regarding their stance on the conflict. Marking the three year anniversary of the coup, the Foreign Ministers of eight countries, such as the UK, the US and Australia, along with the EU, gave a statement relating to their countries’ opinions on the coup, and the necessary steps to de-escalate tension.
[Source 10] This statement firstly addressed the “thousands jailed, tortured and killed” and named the exile of the Rohingyas as “systematic discrimination”. Additionally, they proposed that “the military’s actions have fuelled a growing humanitarian crisis with 2.6 million people displaced from their homes, and more than 18 million people in need.”
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the military regime’s ongoing atrocities and human rights violations, such as sexual and gender-based violence, and the restriction of fundamental freedoms including freedom of expression, through peaceful protests and the media. We reiterate our call for the Commander-in-Chief and the military to change course, immediately ceasing violence against civilians, releasing all unjustly detained political prisoners, allowing full humanitarian access and creating space for inclusive dialogue with all stakeholders. [Source 10]”
They called for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to be more proactive in resolving this crisis and also called on all members of the international community to support efforts of ceasefire. “Three years on from the military coup, we continue to stand in solidarity with the Myanmar people and their desire for an inclusive and genuine democracy in Myanmar. [Source 10]”
Unfortunately, there is no way to change the actions of the junta currently; “our ability to influence the government is zero [Source: Laura Ossa]”. Additionally, ASEAN cannot be fully trusted in dealing with the problem, as “they don’t have a good record in calling out human rights abuses [Source: Laura Ossa]”.
Sanctions
Many countries have also issued sanctions towards Myanmar in their countries, denying a growth of economy from outside their country.
In the UK, many people and businesses originating from, or affiliating with Myanmar have been economically sanctioned. In the “Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK” [Source 11] for the regime of Myanmar, 31 organisations and 39 individuals have been listed, including Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander in Chief; Maung Maung Kyaw, the Commander in Chief of the Air Force; and Tin Aung San, the Commander in Chief of the Myanmar Navy.
Canada, the USA and the EU have all enacted sanctions alike to those of the UK, with the USA being slightly more severe in punishment compared to the others.
The EU has many restrictive measures against Myanmar, including: prohibition of arms export, frozen assets of individuals abusing power such as the Commander in Chief, travel restrictions on the aforementioned individuals, restrictions on the import of equipment which could be used as a means of oppression and restrictions on military training for the Tatmadaw [Source 12].
“While we [England] need to rely on the rest of the world to keep our economy going, the Tatmadaw have been really invested into getting their own resources, so they make their own beer, they make their own clothes, they make their own income and are very self-sustaining [Source: Laura Ossa].”
This means that the sanctions are not really that impactful for Myanmar as they can source it from their own natural resources, however, if enough countries placed sanctions, they would soon run out of resources and the price would increase inside the country, causing the Tatmadaw to satisfy the demands of other countries to re-open trade.
Above: Chart showing sanctions imposed against parts of the Tatmadaw and those affiliated with the military [Source 13]
Support?
As seen in the figure above, India, Japan and South Korea have not supported the worldwide efforts of financial sanctions on Myanmar, and instead “are implicated in ongoing business with the military junta [Source 13]”.
“For instance, the Japanese State-backed Y Complex project involves payments to the Myanmar Army’s Office of the Quartermaster General, although payments have reportedly been suspended since February 1, 2021 [Source 13]” and “[t]he Shwe Gas project, which involves a collaboration between South Korea’s state-owned company, KOGAS, POSCO International and the juntacontrolled Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), bankrolls the junta [Source 13].”
“China is depicted in Western media as having hegemony over Myanmar. China and Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning the coup. China and Russia are reportedly the main suppliers of weapons to the Myanmar Army. Chinese foreign direct investment in Myanmar totalled $19 billion in 2019, compared with $700 million from the EU. The Financial
Times argues that Russia is supportive of the junta in order to sell more arms to them [Source 3.1].” This shows the dominance which China and Russia can exert on other countries in which they can bypass global legislation to grow their economy as the threat of major warfare if conflict arises may be detrimental, which is far more crucial then stopping a trade link.
It should be noted that “Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam explicitly refused to support either side, characterising the coup as an internal matter [Source 3.1]”. Although this should not be considered support, this shows that the bordering countries are more careful surrounding condemning nearby action as the events, although not primarily involving them, may impact their country or their citizens.
The Future of Myanmar Leaders
Currently, there is no information to show that a change in power is imminent. However, the authority of the military junta has been decreasing rapidly recently. Following the coup, resistance has been prominent, and many civilians have begun fighting against the rebels.
Above: Map showing regions of Myanmar controlled by different (ethnic) groups [Source 3.4].
As of October 2023, the Tatmadaw controlled under 40% of the country, despite being the leading party. At this time, they began facing manpower issues, with desertions and low moral being extremely common [Source 3.4].
The Tatmadaw have made it obligatory for all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve two years in the military. However, this has had the opposite effect for them, as this has forced individuals at that age to choose sides in battle, as they will either have to serve in the military or fight for the rebels, and for most people, the obvious choice is the latter. Additionally, “the younger population, because they have had this exposure to phones and western idea, there is this sense that they are more likely to resist [Source: Laura Ossa]”.
As of February 2024, thousands of the junta’s soldiers have surrendered without a fight, including six generals of the Tatmadaw. In response, the junta has used terror tactics against the population, including a massive aerial bombing campaign that has displaced nearly 3,000,000 people [Source 3.4].
In late March 2024, anti-junta forces in Southeastern Myanmar captured Demoso and Papun, bringing the number of district level towns captured by anti-junta forces up to six [Source 3.4].
Although this does not mean that a deposition of the Tatmadaw from power is going to happen quickly, this shows the resistance from the Myanmar civilians is growing and may result in change of power in the future.
Freedom
Unfortunately, the Tatmadaw show no signs of loosening their grip on their public The brutality on civilians is not slowing down at all and, if anything, the civil war is showing an increasing level of violence and concealment from the military.
Since the coup, 50,000 people have been killed, including at least 8,000 civilians. More than 26,500 people have been detained for opposing the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners for Myanmar [Source 14].
Above: Graph showing amount of people displaced from their homes per month in Myanmar [Source 14]
The graph above clearly shows the growth of conflict in Myanmar, rather than the expected decline after the climax of the coup. This shows that the conflict, and thus the public’s freedom, shows no sign of resolving soon. In order for the freedom to be relaxed, it seems as though the only solution is a complete successful rebellion, in which the military does not have the majority of the control.
Alliances
Currently, the junta are allied with Russia and China, the latter a shaky relationship, while the relationship with Japan and India is still not deteriorated. Nearly all other countries have condemned the coup, placed sanctions and/or stopped trading resources with Myanmar.
Russia
2007 – “Alongside China, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning alleged human rights abuses and atrocities at the hands of the Myanmar government [Source 3.5].”
July 2022 (After the Coup) – “Evidence was discovered that Myanmar has supplied 120mm to Russia for the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine [Source 3.5].”
August 2022 – “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described Myanmar as a “friendly and longstanding partner” [Source 3.5].”
Today – “Today Russia, along with China, remain part of the UN security council, which occasionally shields Myanmar from global pressure and criticism, and remains a strong Tatmadaw ally [Source 3.6].”
Analysis – Both countries are currently fighting a war, and so the trade links are very likely to continue. However, Russia is clearly the dominant force in this relationship, and so Russia may condemn Myanmar in order to create a better global image for themselves amid times of scrutiny.
China
August 2009 – After the Kokang Incident (conflict on the Myanmar side of their border with China which many Chinese people were living in and resulted in many killed), “some Chinese analysts […] played down the relationship between Myanmar and China, saying “They’re not great friends. They don’t listen to what China says” [Source 3.7].”
2015 – During conflict in Myanmar, “bombs dropped by the Myanmar government landed in China, killing five Chinese citizens [Source 3.7].” China viewed the Tatmadaw as having acted with disregard for Chinese security.
2018 – “China opposed British efforts for the UN Security Council to issue a statement calling on Myanmar to prosecute those responsible for attacks on the Rohingya [Source 3.7].”
July 2019 – “UN ambassadors from 50 countries, including Myanmar, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region [Source 3.7].” It should be noted that Myanmar also mistreat Muslim minority groups, so for China to be convicted would mean Myanmar would also likely be convicted.
Analysis – The relationship, in the eyes of Myanmar, is crucial to be kept positive, as China protects them in many global matters which Myanmar is not authorised to participate in. Additionally, they share a common trait of abusing Muslim groups, and so they must fight together as, if one is persecuted for the crimes, the other will likely face a similar fate. Thus, this relationship has a very low chance of being broken
Overall, the only likely change in their allegiances would be the chance of India and Japan no longer co-operating with Myanmar if the UN or ASEAN (or another similar association) would condemn their support of Myanmar which would force a change. The relationships between Myanmar and China/Russia are both strong, and the nations require each other for resources or information.
Unless the coup suddenly ends, it seems that the rest of the world are showing no signs of loosening sanctions, if anything they will be increasing them.
Conclusion
The Myanmar coup, starting on February 1st, 2021, was a tragic event in the history of Myanmar, sparking a civil war between the military junta and their own citizens. Their rich culture and unique perseverance for freedom and equality has been overshadowed by their troubled history of a neverending hunt for democracy. The end of battle between the military and the anti-junta forces has no end in sight, and we can only hope that a resolution can be met before the damage to their country is irreversible.
The mistreatment of ethnic groups is a huge issue in the reign of the Tatmadaw. The Rohingyas, especially, are being subject to an ethnic cleansing alike to that of the Nazis against the Jews in World War Two (though not equivalent in size). The Tatmadaw “think that they represent the Bamar and so they prosecute the races which are not allied with their own, such as the Rakhine and the Kachin. It isn’t really a military; yes, it’s filled with other ethnic groups within but it’s really there to defend the Bamar. In some ways, you could see it as an ethnic control system [Source: Laura Ossa].” However, despite the extremity of the actions by the junta, the situation has not been made known through the news or social media, and so many people have no idea that Myanmar is in a civil war, let alone with three concurrent genocides against their own people.
The only way to stop this conflict from outside the country is making people aware and restricting the military’s sources of income Countries around the world are not doing enough to prevent the Myanmar civil war from escalating. The sanctions are barely impactful, as not enough countries are committing which causes Myanmar to source whatever they need from the countries which are not restricting them. The solution to this is strict sanctions enforced by a global organisation without exception. There should also be more awareness spread by governments about the extreme situation, as this may encourage fundraising or humanitarian aid to be sent to Myanmar or neighbouring countries in order to house refugees.
Sources
Interviews
Laura Ossa – Previous Peace Worker and Citizen of Myanmar
Can you summarise your experience living and working in Myanmar?
We went to Myanmar when [my son] was 9 months old, so 2012. When I got there, the country was very closed. There was a dictatorship, and the beginnings of democracy were starting, but they still hadn’t had an election when Aung San Suu Kyi’s party had participated because they did not see the election as democratic. It was still closed so you couldn’t get anything on the internet so you couldn’t get into Facebook, or whatever was relevant then. All the technology couldn’t be accessed, and it was all shut down. To get a SIM card in your phone, you had to pay like $100, so no one had SIM cards; there was no telecommunication. And when I first arrived, they used to tap my phone to try and listen in [to my calls] and it was very controlled; there weren’t very many international people living and working there. But what happened then was the country started to open up, one of the things was that they started to release political prisoners. They had lots of people in prison
before for having different political views, but they did a release of them, and this started western countries becoming interested in Myanmar and thinking “we’re going to start doing business with them as they are better on human rights”. The country went through this massive change when I was there and the NLD (Aung San Suu Kyi’s party) started to participate in politics. And so suddenly this country went through a massive change, there were suddenly cars you could buy: before, when we first arrived you couldn’t buy a car and all of the taxis had holes in the bottom! But then the new stuff started to come in: business, cafes, restaurants and loads of the international community came. So I was there in the phase of big growth in terms of investment and lots of trade. And then in 2015 Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won the general election by a landslide, like it was a historic moment, nearly everyone in the country voted for her and it was this real sense that everything was changing for Myanmar. Huge positivity. The thing is, though there was a lot more democracy in the country, the constitution didn’t change so what happened was the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces was still in control of some of the ministries, and those ministries are the ones that are in charge of the police, the borders, immigration: so very powerful ministries. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party was in control of the ‘softer’ ministries such as education, health and social welfare. So she wasn’t really in charge of everything. So this is where the problem comes now. Although there was lots of democracy and positivity, in the constitution, the way which the country was governed, there was this problem. The military was in control of the strong ministries which can enact violence on people and provide security, which exercises lots of control. And she [Aung San Suu Kyi] only had control over the softer bits of government. Around this time as well, there was the huge persecution of the Rohingya community, so, if you think about it, the Commander in Chief had all the power to squash and do things to this community. But Aung San Suu Kyi was the face of ruling the country, and so they [the military] started to play with this dynamic. Some say she wasn’t strong enough to put an end to it, because she had all this democratic support, but others say she was very powerless. But slowly, and this was after I left, the military began to get worried about how much power she had and so they clamped down on her and basically removed the opportunity for her to become complete leader of the country; they took back control of the country for themselves.
My role, when I first went there, I worked to demobilise children from the military, so part of that big opening was that the international community were allowed to do things which they had never been allowed to before; the military became very open. The motive for the military to allow us to go into their battalions and start nosing around, looking for children to demobilise, was that they wanted to be part of peace-keeping forces, to be part of the international community and to be an open society, but then… things changed. So that was my first four years which I spent working with all the military structures on designing protocols for how we get children out of the military. Then I went on to work on the Rohingya crisis and I documented all the human rights abuses for that community, which later became evidence for the court cases [against Myanmar]. My last job was working in the peace process between the different ethnic groups, as the other ethnic groups besides the Bamar [the Burmese people] were outcrying about the constitution where the military were not controlled by the government, and were also angry about how the main population, the Bamar, were taking valuable resources from their land, such as jade and gold, all these natural resources but then they [the Bamar] don’t provide anything back: no education, no health services and plus they do very severe security operations into them, so they terrible, unsafe things in those areas.
What do you think other countries should do about the situation in Myanmar?
My current job is all about this. This is a hard situation because it [Myanmar] is basically closed and the UK ambassador was actually removed and they took him back to Myanmar. Our ability to influence the government is zero. So what we talk about at work a lot is: what is the role of other states? Sometimes we talk about whether ASEAN [Asian version of the EU] can play a role, but if you
look at the news on ASEAN, they don’t have a good record in calling out human rights abuses. So we are in this big problem: how do you influence Myanmar? I know that lots of people think that there should be more support to the Civil Society [people whose jobs are to help the country]. For example, one thing which other countries could think of doing is attempting to monitor what’s going into the country through social media or supporting some people inside the country to document information and get it out of the country.
When you get to a situation where a country doesn’t engage and interact with other countries, it’s really tough to influence the government. It’s completely closed off and what the Tatmadaw are good at doing is that they also have all these businesses in the country, so they don’t need to rely on anyone else. While we [England] need to rely on the rest of the world to keep our economy going, the Tatmadaw have been really invested into getting their own resources, so they make their own beer, they make their own clothes, they make their own income and are very self-sustaining. They’ve got some international connections in regard to their arms, so for instance Russia supplies a lot of their weapons.
It’s certainly a question which our government is constantly thinking about.
How do you think the civilians will regain control without starting a larger conflict?
The civilians are rising up against the military at the minute and their resisting military control. Some things that we [England] look at is the way which the military is organised. I think that the current Commander in Chief could be the better option [in terms of an individual to target] because the people who are waiting in the wings are actually more ruthless. To be honest, I don’t have a good answer for you because it’s a question which everyone is trying to answer. Could you bring other people to the negotiating table? How would you do it? What has happened is that, as Aung San Suu Kyi is in prison now, there is no longer a key figure in the civilian side that people can really get behind, the resistance is very fragmented. It would be good to think about how that civilian side is organised: how do you get them to co-ordinate, so they can speak and negotiate with the military. At the moment, it’s so fragmented that I don’t see how you could bring that together for rebellion. What I’ve heard is that Min Aung Hlaing - he’s terrible - but maybe he’s a better option to target.
Do you think that Myanmar is on a positive or negative trajectory in terms of freedom and quality of life?
Well, Myanmar is still very high up on our index for genocide probability, so I would probably say that things aren’t getting better. I can imagine it’s a very dangerous place to live right now and even myself, I wouldn’t feel good about visiting there. I think my sense of it, it’s really bad and on our index it’s one of the highest as for atrocities to civilians, so I would say it’s getting worse, and its probably not going to improve for a while. I think, when you look at the Rohingya, just that situation alone, is absolutely [terrible]… I mean the two court cases against Myanmar for genocide, which is the worst crime, I think that shows how bad it’s getting. With any situation, you never really know what life is like, and it will be different in different parts of the country. So, for example, I can imagine that while the military is attacking the Bamar areas, because it’s fighting against those who are uprising it, there is probably less operations in the ethnic areas, but that’s just speculation.
Do you think that the Myanmar public is going to eventually support the Tatmadaw, or will they continue to be with the civil government in opposition to the military?
I think that they [the Myanmar population] are very pragmatic people and they have lived under a dictatorship for many, many years but what I have heard from others is that the younger population,
because they have had this exposure to phones and western idea, there is this sense are more likely to resist whereas there was a lot of pragmatism in the older population, and I think that’s their protective mechanism for not challenging authority because historically it’s been so dangerous, so its hard to say: I think that there is an older population who are not likely to resist and instead weathers the storm, but maybe there is a younger generation who have seen, through social media, how things are in other countries and thus might be more willing to be part of the resistance, and fight.
What do you think is the motivation of the Tatmadaw to take their violent leadership?
The Tatmadaw think that the country is theirs. They think that they represent the Bamar and so they prosecute the races which are not allied with their own, such as the Rakhine and the Kachin. It isn’t really a military; yes, it’s filled with other ethnic groups within but its really there to defend the Bamar. In some ways, you could see it as an ethnic control system and, famously, Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, who was very important in the Tatmadaw, had the job of bringing all of these ethnic groups together, and what happened is that another Bamar military person at this big meeting where they were all going to decide how to rule this country, came in and shot everyone dead: all the ethnic leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s father. And so that’s why it’s so important and then they just took control in the country. It all really stems from the belief that it is the right of the Bamar to rule over all of these ethnic territories and that has extended to this huge control system that they have across the country. All of their wealth also comes from this power and control because they have control of where all the jade and rubber comes from
Numbered Online Sources
No Artificial Intelligence sources were used when writing this project
Source 0 – Early Warning Project – Countries at Risk for Mass Killing 2022-23 https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/reports/countries-at-risk-for-mass-killing-2022-23-earlywarning-project-statistical-risk-assessment-resultsy
The Early Warning Project was used to gather information about the situation between the Military and the ethnic groups such as the Rohingya.
Source 1 - Government of Australia – The Myanmar Coup: A quick guide https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pu bs/rp/rp2122/Quick_Guides/MyanmarCoup
The Government of Australia’s guide to the Myanmar coup provided me with a basic level of understanding of the coup as I was starting the project.
Source 2 – BBC News – Myanmar Country Profile https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12990563
Source 3 – Wikipedia – Myanmar, History of Myanmar, Myanmar Protests (2021-present), Myanmar civil war (2021-present), Myanmar-Russia Relations, Foreign Relations of Myanmar, China-Myanmar Relations
Wikipedia was used as a source for information to use as quotations. This source is highly reliable and was a baseline for most information in this project.
Source 4 – Council on Foreign Relations - Myanmar’s Troubled History: Coups, Military Rule, and Ethnic Conflict
The Council on Foreign Relation’s information on Myanmar was useful because it gave me many pieces of information to put into the writing to make it more interesting.
Source 5 – BBC - Myanmar Coup: No Evidence in Election Fraud, Observers say https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57144397
The BBC published a piece on the Myanmar election “fraud” which was useful as the BBC is a very trustworthy source and it covered a topic which hadn’t been covered in as much detail by other news sources.
Source 6 – Human Rights Watch – Myanmar: Election Fundamentally Flawed; UN Expert Reports on Myanmar’s ‘Raging Fire of Brutality’
Human Rights Watch was a great source as it showed an in-depth analysis of the cruel regimes which have been utilised by the junta, especially relating to the cruelty to the minority ethnic groups
Freedom House was an amazing source as it gave quantifiable statistics about the freedom of Myanmar in comparison to many other countries around the world.
The HM Treasury’s list of sanctioned individuals and groups was used as a source to see the different people who were sanctioned by the UK, which was helpful in the “Sanctions” section of the project.
Source 12 – Sanctions Map – EU Sanctions Map
https://www.sanctionsmap.eu/#/main
The Sanctions Map was useful for seeing the different sanctions adopted by different countries against Myanmar.
Source 13 – Justice for Myanmar – International Sanctions since the Myanmar Military’s Illegal Attempted Coup
Justice for Myanmar provided a valuable source about how different countries were responding to the coup, and about some of Myanmar’s relationships with other countries.
Source 14 – New York Times – What’s Happening in Myanmar’s Civil War?
New York Times was a valuable source as they had an accurate map of the regions controlled by different (ethnic) groups, and also had lots of statistics to use.
CREATION OF A CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE, LEUIRÁCIU
BY SAM FIELD
(Third Year – HELP Level 2 - Supervisor: Miss A Winstock)
A CONLANG BY SAMUEL FIELD
Leuiráciu
LEUIRÁCIU
Table of Contents
Introduction
My HELP project is to design the most realistic (to some extent) language possible. It is called Leuiráciu, and is spoken in Corsica. The way I have done this is by researching what causes different languages to have certain properties. Most of the paper will be the language itself, and there will be a final chapter at the end showing why the language is as it is, for many reasons including geographical, meteorological and cultural factors.
Characters indicated in brackets are allophones of other sounds, so Leuiráciu speakers do not consciously distinguish them.
Vowels
BACKNESS HEIGHT
Front
a /a/ -> o /o/ Open e /e/ -> i /i/ e /ɛ/ -> ę /ə/ a /a/ -> o /o/ i /i/ -> u /u/ ä /æ/ -> o /o/ OR ę /ə/ ä /æ/ -> ą /ɑ/ ą /ɑ/ -> u /u/
Neutral Neutral ę /ə/
All diphthongs excl ao,ei
All accented letters
All diphthongs
All accented letters
Back ą /ɑ/ Close i /i/ o /o/ u /u/ u /u/ ę /ə/ o /o/
The arrows indicate what sound that sound goes to when a vowel harmony change is needed. This is reversible.
Leuiráciu has an intricate vowel harmony system. Harmonization is a process in which vowels in a word change to assimilate with one another, so all vowels must be front vowels, for example. Most noun and verb declining and conjugating endings harmonize
Glota
to their endings. Whether by backness or height have different grammatical functions, as we will later see.
Other grammatical prefixes and suffixes harmonize themselves to the noun stem. Wether they change vowel or simply place an acute accent above to indicate ‘phantom harmony’, whereby harmony should be present but is omitted, is indicated by [harm.] for vowel changes and [harm.acc] for accents.
The arrow
Phonotactics
Romanization of all characters
Letter
Notes
b b /b/ /ʋ/ when word starting and followed by /o/ or /u/
c c /s/ before a, o, u /ʃ/ before e, i /ç/ in syllable coda
d d /d/ /ð˕/ (voiced dental approximant) when surrounded by two vowels
e e /ɛ/
/ə/ f f /f/
g g /g/
Merges towards /Φ/ allophonically when after a bilabial
Becomes /ɣ˕/ between two vowels ģ ģ /ɣ/ h h /h/ i i /i/
j j/ʝ /j/ /ʝ/ when between two vowels (can be across a word)
k k /kh/
l l /l/ m m /m/
n n /n/
Becomes /ŋ/ when followed by velar or uvular
ŋ /ŋ/ /ŋg/ when next word starts with a vowel
o o /o/
p p /ph/
r r /r/
Very rarely tap or flap when in close proximity to another ‘r’ s s /s/ /z/ when surrounded by two vowels
t t /t/
u u /u/ /(w)uw/ (and in some dialects /w/) when followed by a vowel
v v /v/ Allophonically approximated to /ʋ/ when followed by rounded vowel (/o/ or /u/)
z z /z/ /ts/ in German loanwords
Diphthongs & Digraphs
Letter Leuiráciu Script IPA
Notes ae ae /æ/
oe œ /ɞ/
ei ei /eɪ/ /aɪ/ when syllable stressed
cj cj /ç/ Palatalized further before vowels
oi/eui Oi, eui /oɪ j/ Palatalization removed when starting a word cq x /x/ yl y /ʎ/ ch k /kx/
Other than ff, double consonants and double vowels are pronounced no different than one of those characters.
Structure (1C*)(3C*)V(2C)(1Cx)
C* excludes ŋ Cx excludes ŋ when not world final or vowel-bordering. Number before group character indicates relative sonority (i.e. +2/-3, not lvl2/lvl3).
Syllable onsets
Onset consonant clusters must be increasing in sonority, and phones following plosives must increase by at least two places.
Syllable nuclei
There are no syllabic consonants. All vowels and diphthongs are permitted, and a diphthong in a codaless syllable followed by a nucleus-only syllable bind to form a triphthong. ‘Tjoei’; the oe forms ɞ and the ‘i’ is /i/, which blend to /ɞi/. Illegal onsetless (coda-only) diphthongs: oe, ae
Syllable codas
Coda clusters must decrease in sonority. The phone before a plosive in the coda must be at least two levels of sonority higher - /etsp/ not permitted, /efp/ is. The digraph ‘yl’ cannot be in a word-final syllable coda.
Intersyllabic constraints
Syllables do not (usually) react with one another - /etsp/ isn’t permitted but /etspe/ is because the /ts/ and /p/ are part of different syllables.
Word order
Flexible, but mostly SOV.
Foundational Grammar
Cases
There are seven cases:
Addressive
Receptive
Demireceptive
Pragmatic Genitive
Afirimenic Genitive
Prodirectional
Abdirectional
Statodirectional
Alternate
Pluralities
AD Grammatical subject or person being called
RC Grammatical object, and arithmetic addition
DR Indirect object, and arithmetic subtraction
PG Indicates ownership of something physical “a man’s home”, and for arithmetic division
AG Indicates ownership of a property “the shirt’s color”
DI-P Used with prepositions of motion towards, and arithmetic multiplication
DI-A Used with prepositions of motion away from
DI-S Used with prepositions of position, or of relatively unchanging motion
AL Used for a variety of things
Unlike English, which has two pluralities, Leuiráciu has three pluralities:
Singular: Refers to one
Plural: Refers to more than one
Partial: Refers to less than one
Nouns adapt to all three of these; people and determiners adapt to only the singular and plural. Indefinite and definite determiners can be paired with partial or plural nouns, resulting in different instances:
In the table below, ‘cheese’ is used to represent countable nouns and ‘information’ to represent uncountable nouns.
Structure Name
Definite
Indefinite
Partitive
Minimal
Leuiráciu Structure
Def + sing/plu: the [noun(s)]
Indef + sing/plu: a/some [noun(s)]
Def + part: some [(uncountable) noun]
Indef + part: a bit of [(uncountable) noun]
English Example
The cheese /the cheeses
A cheese /some cheeses
Some information/some cheese
A bit of information/a bit of cheese
As you can see, uncountable nouns can only be in the partial plurality. Countable nouns can take the partial plurality but are not restricted to it.
Stress
If you want to stress a certain part of a sentence, you place ‘úla’ before it.
Apostrophes
If two vowels of the same harmony level are next to each other across two words, the first one (at the end of the first word) may be replaced by an apostrophe. Words made of a single vowel cannot do this.
Chapter II
Determiners
Determiners take the same ending as the noun they are with. Their stem depends on whether they are definite or indefinite, and what group of noun they are coupled with.
Group 2 -os r- j-
Group 3 -et l- yl-
Determiners are optional, usually used for effect or differentiation between different noun duplicates. However, when you are referring to a noun generally (when you drop the determiner in English), the following must be used:
Singular non-acc: tan
Singular Acc: tun
Plural non-acc: ten
Plural Acc: tin
These determiners do not harmonize – but an accent is placed on the vowel should a harmonization conflict arise with the vowel it uses.
As you can see, a differentiation is only made when the plurality changes or it becomes accusative.
Nouns
Declensions
There are three declensions – 1, 2 and 3. Within those declensions, nouns are either binding or nonbinding (binding & nonbinding nouns within the same declension have the same endings). Binding noun stems harmonize their vowels with the ending. They align on backness when being used with the definite article*, height with indefinite*. Harmonization is not required in the general. If the ending is neutral, the harmonization is not required either for any determination. But nonbinding nouns, the most common and the simplest, do not do any of this. An accent is simply placed on vowels in the stem that do not match with the ending as specified previously – if ‘ae’ was added to the stem ‘olsur’, ‘ólsúrae’ would be the result. Around 60% of nouns are nonbinding and the rest are binding.
*when not being used with an article, the harmonization type still reflects determination.
Stems
Each noun has two stems – the primary and secondary stems. The primary stem is used in the addressive and all of the directional cases, and the non-subject everywhere else. Subject stems are essentially the noun itself but adapted to always end with a consonant if necessary, usually by losing a vowel. Non-subject stems can be a little more complex – the stem is made from the noun with the last syllable’s coda is slimmed down to one consonant, e.g. cjeluŋord becomes cjeluŋor-. However, nouns ending in vowels often have irregular stems, instead of just losing a vowel.
DI-A -iú -iúe -iúr
DI-S -iä -ioe -iär
AL -óa -úe -ur
Group 2 -os S P R
AD -os -a -or
RC -on -ane -onor
DR, PG, AG, DI, AL equivalent to Group 1
Group 3 -et S P R
AD -et -a -eter
RC -ad -ede -ader
DR, PG, AG, DI, AL equivalent to Group 1
Names & Places
Names and places can end in anything. They can only take the singular plurality and do not take a determiner. The endings, which all harmonize on backness, are as follows:
AD
RC ’ u
DR ’ui
PG ’in
AG ’ an
DI ’ oe
AL ’eui
The Genitive Subject
Usually, the subject of a sentence is in the nominative case, but it can be in either of the genitive cases as well. This is called the Genitive Subject. When this is used, it implies that the subject has wealth or power. For example, in the sentence ‘the king is hungry’, ‘the king’ could be made into the pragmatic genitive case to imply that the king is wealthy, or the Afirimenic genitive to imply power or importance.
Negating nouns
If you want to say that you do not have a specific object, simply place (l)oro [harm.acc] as a suffix to the determiner or noun, depending on if the determiner is in use or not. If you wish to say you do not generally have something, you negate the verb instead.
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
The fourth person is the unknown person, but it can also be used if the direct and indirect object are both 3rd person in the same gender – there, one of the objects would be in the 4th person.
Ad Rc Dr Pg Ag Di Al
1st s. ia iu Jia Mia Mija lia Ija
2nd s. ua ui Jui Dua Duja lua Uja
3rd s. a ra ja Ar är ära Jär je jem
4th s. o ro jo Oe ru ju Joe jur ejur Optä opta opt ą =Pg ljeo lje ljo Oj roj jor
1st pl. Ita Itä Ljia Cjia Cjira Lita Ijta
2nd pl. Uta Utä Ljui Dui Duri luta Ujta
3rd pl. Ajn äjn Ljän Tjän Tjäran Lajn Aen
4th pl. To Toj Ljur optjur opetajur leto Tjo
Possessive Pronouns
Ad Rc Dr Pg Ag Di Al
1st s. ira iru tia lia Mila li Ijano
2nd s. ura uri tui lua Dula ylu Ujano
3rd s. ą rą ą ąr rä ąr tär tje tem lä la lą =Pg le leu lon Ajno rajno jarno
4th s. lo leo lo Or lu jo loe lur eur Olä ola olą =Pg lje lej loj Ojno rojno jorno
1st pl. Irta Irtä tjia lia Cjila Lit Ijtano
2nd pl. Urta Urtä tjui lui Duli Lut Ujtano
3rd pl. Artín Ärten tjän län Tjälan Laj Aeno
4th pl. Tro Troj tjur oylur opelatur Let Tjono
Demonstrative Pronouns
Ad Rc Dr Pg Ag Di Al close cí cíl cílu cíeu cíe cíla cei distant ģí ģíl ģílu ģeu ģe ģíla ģei
The character í in the demonstrative pronouns can become á if you are referring to multiple things in the same distance (e.g. ‘this one or this one?’), therefore can become cálu or ģála. Weirdly, however, cá in this instance is still pronounced like cí, /ʃa/ /ʃi/
Chapter III
Introduction to Verbs
Leuirácian verbs have very many declining factors: Tense, Form, Evidentiality, Voice, Segment. We will see how to deal with tense and form in this chapter.
Tenses:
1. Present Repetitive I eat
2. Present Continuous I am eating
3. Past Complete I ate
4. Past Lengthened/Interrupted I was eating
5. Past Distant I had eaten
6. Past Unstarted I was just about to eat
7. Past Future I was going to eat
8. Near Future I am going to eat
9. Distant Future I will eat
Forms:
1. Strong normal
2. Weak I might…
a. First Weak
b. Second Weak
3. Hypothetical If I were to…
4. Consequential [hypothetical clause], I would…
5. Causative I caused…
6. Ethical I should…
7. Permissive I am allowed to…
Verb Structure
Verbs behave in a completely different way to most languages.
There are two conjugations, or rather verb types – transitive and intransitive. The way intransitive verbs are formed is by taking an infinitive, turning it into a noun, known as a nominal participle, and coupling it with an auxiliary, known as a nominal auxiliary (i.e. auxiliaries for nouns that are derived from verbs). Adverbs are not ‘adjectives for verbs’, like in English, but are literally adjectives for the nominal participle. So, ‘I see the man well’ would be literally translated ‘I create good vision of the man’. This can be abbreviated to ‘I create good manvision’ in some dialects.
This is the set of nominal auxiliaries:
Create: jelciun
Have: lärun
Make: präfk
Transitive verbs are formed in a much simpler manner – they simply take the same endings as jelciun and lärun straight to their stem, with no auxiliary required.
‘Create’ is used with about 70% of intransitive verbs, ‘have’ about 25% and ‘make’ about 5%; all verbs can only be used with their own nominal auxiliary. However, modal verbs take the place of the nominal auxiliary.
Forming nominal participles
Though a lot of verbs do not use the nominal auxiliary/participle structure, all of them can still form a nominal participle as this is needed in some grammatical structures that we will see later on. Verbs can form their nominal participle in one of four ways, each of them identified by ending:
First: ends in conson-vowel, e.g. acqonla. Loses last two letters to form nom-part: acxonla - acqon
Second: ends in conson-conson, e.g. moljoont. Penultimate letter removed and harmonization inverted: moljoont - meljet
Third: ends in vowel-vowel, e.g. iroe. ‘ŋ’ replaced at end: iroe – iroŋ.
Fourth: ends in vowel-conson, e.g. vjestas. Last letter removed: vjestas – vjesta.
Verbs (1)
Here is the table of how nominal auxiliaries jelciun and lärun conjugate.
Verbs that do not take nominal auxiliaries, but rather conjugate as a standalone word, take these same endings.
Jelciun becomes telciun when preceded by a vowel, and lärun becomes ląrun when with back-harmony endings.
cheese cjeir to cough lifáa (lärun, intr.) to eat búlanjeo (--, tr.) to be happy beruleo (--, in.) beruleo is a special verb as it is one of the few intransitive verbs that does not take a nominal auxiliary.
I ate the cheese. Ia cjeiroi búlanjol. Ia cjeiroi búlanjol.
He was coughing into her. A lje ląruylu lifa. A lje ląruyu lifa.
Lit. ‘He to her was having cough’
If you have multiple verbs being conjugated in the same person, the second verb must have its pronoun as a suffix in the alternate case or be omitted, while the rest must only have their pronoun omitted. Here are some examples:
To dance leui (jelciun, intr., leg-)
To sing ídorsa (jelciun, intr., idor-)
To run magarsa (jelciun, intr., mah-)
I sang and I danced and I ran.
Ia telciol ídor tam jelciolija leŋ tam jelciol magar. /ia ‘tɛlʃol ‘ið˕or tam ‘jɛlʃo,liʝa luŋ tam ‘jelʃol ma‘ɣ˕ar/
Weak Form
There are two forms of the weak form. The first form is translated as ‘I might have eaten’, the second form ‘I have danced or run or something…’. The first form means you are questioning wether you even did anything, and the second form means you know you did something but you don’t know what exactly it was.
Place ou before the nominal auxiliary: ia outelce súpe
For the second, place ou before the nominal participle: ia telce ousúpe
Hypothetical form
Here, you place cqeo, meaning ‘if’, as a suffix to the nominal auxiliary and place it at the beginning. If there is no nominal participle, simply place cqeo at the start. Then place –(e)sse [harm.] to the end of the nominal auxiliary.
If I were to inspire, … Cqeotelce ia súpesse,
Consequential form
Here, you simply place –(e)t [harm.] to the end of the nominal auxiliary, or if there is none, the verb itself.
If I were to inspire, I would be happy. Cqeotelce ia súpesse, beruletija.
Causative form
Place the person who caused the action, then the normal verb parts conjugated in the person that received the causation, and the noun/pronoun that received the causation.
I caused him to be happy (translated I was kind to him) Ia berulac a.
Ethical form
Make the verb infinitive and place the verb cheŋ correctly conjugated afterwards:
I should cough. Ia lifáa cheŋu.
Permissive form
Make the verb infinitive and place the verb leŋ correctly conjugated afterwards:
I am allowed to cough. Ia lifáa leŋu.
Verb Negation
If you wish to negate a verb, the word óri [i harmonizing] must be placed directly before the nominal auxiliary (or verb if no nominal auxiliary is in use). This applies to all voices.
They will not inspire you, so you should cough. Ajn jui óro telcelou súpe, fran ui lifáa cheŋeu.
Imperatives
Imperatives are very simple. If the word uses a nominal auxiliary, the stem of its auxiliary is added to the word’s end. If the word does not, the following endings are used:
singular -(u)ru plural -(r)utu
If a noun is present, it must be in the vocative.
This way of making imperatives implies you have more power and are ordering them. If, however, it is necessary that the other person does it (to survive/for their benefit), the word ínht can be used before the main verb to lessen the implied power difference.
Súpetelce! Be inspired!
To negate an imperative, all that is required is o- [acc-harm.] before the verb. This o is always stressed.
óbúlanjutu! Do not eat!
Chapter IV
Verbs (2)
In the last verb section, we covered how tense and form are created. Here, we will talk about evidentiality and voice.
Evidentialities:
1. Direct normal
2. Inferred I deduced that…
3. Experience-inferred I can deduce based on experience/folklore that…
4. Nonvisual I felt/smelt/tasted that…
5. Rumoric I heard that… (not necessarily a rumor)
6. Polyrumoric I heard the he heard that… / The rumor is that…
7. Memential I remember that…
Voices:
1. Active Grammatical subject remains the subject.
2. Passive Grammatical object becomes the subject.
3. Exploitive Grammatical agent/instrument becomes the subject.
Evidentiality
When using any other evidentiality than direct, the main pronoun must be in the alternate case.
To form all evidentialities, the nominal auxiliary is replaced by another verb, the nominal participle remaining the same. If there is no nominal auxiliary, this same verb will be added anyways, but the main verb will become infinitive. Each evidentiality uses a different one of these modal verbs. Here is the list:
Inferred: chan-
Experience-inferred: cqan-
Nonvisual: kan-
Rumoric: leur-
Polyromoric: eleur-
Memential: ojánd-
I inferred that I might have caused him to be happy: Ija chanur ouberulac a.
Passive Voice
The verb is adapted by getting its nominal participle and adding correct conjugation of uréo, ‘to be’, as a word after. The noun (that is receiving the verb, i.e. the food was eaten) is placed into the accusative, and the adjective we have created directly after it. At the beginning of this whole clause, the agent/instrument is placed in the alternate case. If it is a noun it requires the word tran before it. If it is not, this is not needed.
The cheese was eaten by the house.
Tran tagúloa cjeiroi búlanjeŋ uto.
Exploitive Voice
The exploitive is very similar to the passive. What you do is make the same structure as the passive but using the verb kene (ke-), meaning ‘to use’.
door lonssą
The cheese was used by the house to eat the doors. Tran taguloa cjeiroi keutó lonssoei búlanjeo.
Adjectives
Adjectives are simple. They come after the noun they describe and take the endings of the noun too. If they need to be stressed (I want the blue shirt not the red shirt), they replace the determiner, and take the endings of the determiner that would’ve been there. Their infinitive is -eu
Salty tsaleu
Sour oureu
They eat salty cheeses. Ajn cjeiroei tsaloei búlanjen
They eat the salty cheeses, not the sour cheese. Ajn cjeiroei tsaloei, cham ourtoi cjeiroi búlanjen.
Adjective degrees
There are five degrees of adjective:
─ Nihilive - no presence of adjective
─ Positive - normal presence of adjective
─ Comparative - more presence of adjective compared to something else/another adjective
─ Superlative - the most presence of an adjective of all
─ Supreme - a lot of an adjective, but not comparatively like Superlative, i.e. ‘very good’ not ‘the best’
Nihilive
Nihilive adjectives are formed by dropping the normal endings and replacing them with or [harm.acc]. Optionally, to emphasise the negation, you can put su [harm.] before it.
Not beautiful -> tulor
Not beautiful at all -> su tulor
Positive
This is where the normal endings are used, changing according to the noun’s ending.
Beautiful -> tuleu
Comparative
To form the comparative form of the adjective, you place the letters an [harm.acc] between the stem end ending.
Tuleu -> tulaneu
There are then two ways to say ‘than’ - one if you a referring to another pronoun/noun (I am more beautiful than her), and the other if you are referring to the same pronoun/noun but a different adjective (I am more beautiful than clever). The first way is called an ‘alterentic comparative’, and the second way is called an ‘alterscriptive comparative’. Below is how you say ‘than’ in those different comparatives:
Alterentic ‘than’: na + acc.
Alterscriptive ‘than’: nu + acc.
I am more beautiful than the cheese: Ia utu tulaneu na toi cjeiroi. He is more tired than old: A utó anssaneu nu loráneu
Superlative
To form the superlative, you simply remove the ending of the noun and add -i [harm.acc], and put pei before it.
I am the most tired: Ia utu pei anssef.
I created the most beautiful cheeses: Ia cjeroei pei tulí telciol.
Supreme
You simply use the ending ini [harm.]
I created (very very) beautiful cheeses: Ia cjeroei tulono telciol.
Adverbs
English Adverb Types
─ Manner (she ate quietly)
─ Degree (extremely good cheese; extremely quickly)
─ Place (go inside; if verb has an object, prepositions are used instead)
─ Time (see you tomorrow )
─ Duration (it will be broken temproarily)
─ Focusing (I had just one teacher)
─ Relative (This is (the place) where he ate)
Manner
When being used with verbs that form a nominal auxiliary, adjectives are simply used after the nominal auxiliary and are translated as adverbs. The literal translation of ‘I see well’ would be ‘I make good vision’. However, when being used with verbs that do not form this construction, their ending is removed and placed before the verb.
To see cqeroi (lärun, tr., cqer-)
I see well: Ia ląru cqéroŋ tuleu.
I ate well Ia tul búlanjol.
Degree
These are called hyperjectives - see Chapter V
Place, Time, Duration
There are no groups, and they go just after the verb.
Focusing
A negative verb construction is used with the adverb appearing directly before the noun.
Relative
These are indicated by a specific verb ‘segment’ – we will see this in Verbs (3)
Verbs (3)
Verb Segment
The final dimension of conjugation* of verbs is called segment. Here they are:
*Strictly speaking, this is not conjugation; in segment, the verbs can change part of speech into nouns.
Segraments:
1. Regular Verb conjugated as normal e.g. I eat
2. Statutive The noun derived from the state of doing an action e.g. the state of eating
3. Anthrotive The noun derived from a person who does an action e.g. the one who eats
4. Locative The noun derived from the place where an action is done e.g. the place where he eats
Every verb has a part called the segmental participle. Whenever forming a segment other than the regular, this participle is used. Forming tenses in segments other than the regular is done with a special set of endings, as person does not get conjugated for. Here it is:
Endings of -et nouns added to segmental participle with its correct ending.
To eat búlanjeo (--, tr., lanj-) The last term here is the segmental participle.
The state of being about to eat lanjulet
Anthrotive
The same thing happens, but with the endings of -os nouns, and with the anthrotive tense markers.
The one who has eaten Lanjuģos
Locative
The same thing happens, but obviously with the locative tense markers.
The one who is eating Lanjucénos
Voice
Voices can also be applied, simply by placing the correct conjugation of uréo afterwards.
Passive Infinitive
All that happens to make a normal infinitive passive is to place utu [harm.] before it.
Búlanjeo (to eat) -> iti búlanjeo (to be eaten)
Chapter V
Prepositions
Prepositions conjugate as follows:
With a Definite noun With an Indefinite noun
Singular - -or
Plural e- e-or
Prodirectional & Statodirectional
These prepositions go before the noun, and they each use their respective cases, prodirectional (DI-P) and statodirectional (DI-S)
Abdirectional
These prepositions come after the noun.
There are two clauses in which you would use some prepositions: locative (“The cheese is above it”; used to state where something is) and specificative (“The cheese above it”; used to clarify which thing you are referring to). In English this is denoted by the presence of the verb ‘is’, which is the same in Leuiráciu.
To go ecquran (jelciun, intr., eg-) Away from lú (abd.)
I am going away from that door. Ia cíla lonssiú lú telciuc ecqur.
When using a preposition with a noun that has a general determiner, or a place/person, you drop the general determiner if necessary and you hyphenate it with the noun.
To John: pa-Jon’oe
BHW Clauses
A BHW clause is like this: he opened his mouth in (/due to) amazement. To say this, you get the stem of the verb causing the main verb and put -ai on the end, fi before it as a prefix.
to stop toneo (--, intr., ton-) to amaze róneo (lärun, tr., rón-)
He stopped in amazement A firónai tonac.
Hyperjectives
Adjectival Hyperjectives
In English, an adverb can describe a verb, an adjective or another adverb (when describing the latter two quite often the word ‘intensifier’ is used instead of adverb). However, in Leuiráciu, adverbs can only describe verbs, and hyperjectives describe an adjective or another adverb.
Hyperjectives end in -ou, and are usually derived from words of extremities, like ‘mountain’, ‘avalanche’, and ‘distant space’. In colloquial speech, -ou can be placed on a noun to make it become an informal hyperjective.
Extremely krątou
High uporeu
That is extremely high!
Ģí krątou’poreu uto!
Numbers
Cardinal
1-10
Uin
11-20
Uiģe
De Dicjolf
Re Reģe
Varo
Cjif
Sec
Zite
Ocjot
Evo
Tseģe
0: och 100: Cerú
Ordinal
Vaģe
Cjiffeģe
Secjeģe
Ziteģe
Ocjette
Evvoģe
Zutseģe
21-30
Uizuģe
Zuzutseģe
Rezuģe
Varozuģe
Cjizuģe
Secjezuģe
Zitezuģe
Ocjozuģe
Nevozuģe
Retseģe
Ordinal numbers are formed by placing a determiner as a prefix with their cardinal counterparts (treated like -os nouns).
Seventh Roszite
Frequential (once, twice, thrice…)
Formed with the prefix pata- [harm.acc].
Thrice Patare
Prodonouns
Invariable Prodonouns
Prodonouns are nouns that are created from a verb happening. For example, loving someone creates love, and love is the prodonoun. There are two branches of prodonoun; invariable and variable. A variable pronoun means that the verb it came off could have produced something different, and an invariable one means that it is the only thing it could have created. ‘Love’ is an invariable prodonoun - loving someone does not create anything other than love.
All prodonouns are nouns that have been altered to be a prodonoun. If you wanted to say ‘I love you’, you could use the verb ‘to love’ or you could ‘I give you love’. The latter way of saying this requires a prodonoun, but in general, the word ‘love’ is just a normal noun. Prodofication is the process of making a noun into a prodonoun.
To prodoficate the noun ‘love’, you do the following. Firstly, ‘love’ can only become an invariable prodonoun, as the verb ‘to love’ only produces love. Therefore, we will use the invariable prodofication system. This is as simple as placing ‘-ul-’ [harm.] between the noun stem and its normal ending without the first letter. Therefore, if the ending is one letter long, no ending is added.
Love: jesos
Love (pdn.): jeselos
To love jentur
To give gerut
I love you
Ia ui jentu OR ia jeseloi gerú jui
Variable Prodonouns
Forming a variable prodonoun is simple too - all that is required is -ut- [harm.] instead oful-.
Thing: umet
Thing (pdn.): umutet
Chapter VI
Active Participles
Present Active Participle Uses
“We ate the food while laughing”, “We ate the cheese while it was dancing”
All that is required is a -ffe suffix, and the word se (meaning ‘meanwhile’) before it. We ate the cheese while creating the door. Ita toi cjeiroi búlanjoch se jelciffe duroi.
Past Active Participle Uses
“We left having eaten”, “We ate the cheese once it had danced” A -vu suffix, with the word te once again.
We ate the cheese having created the door. Ita toi cjeiroi búlanjoch te jelcivu duroi.
Passive Participles
Present Passive Participle Uses
“We ate the food while being eaten”, “We ate the cheese while it was being built by them”
A -s suffix, and se.
We ate the cheese while being created. Ita toi cjeiroi búlanjoch se jelcis.
Past Passive Participles
Uses
“We left having been eaten”, “We ate the cheese once it had been created”
A -te suffix, and te
We ate the cheese having been created. Ita toi cjeiroi búlanjoch te jelcite.
Collective vs Simultaneous Verbs
All verbs that normally form a nominal auxiliary and participle can be either collective or simultaneous, when used with plural subjects. Collective verbs mean that, in the sentence “We were making computers”, the subjects were all pitching in to make a few computers. Simultaneous verbs mean that, in the same sentence, each subject was making their own computer. Verbs are assumed to be collective unless indicated by the suffix -lai [harm.] on the nominal participle, or conjugated verb if there is no nominal participle.
The General Person
To say ‘one’ does something, it is a simple matter of a pronoun in English. However, this is a much more complex thing in Leuiráciu.
There are four general persons - ‘vague factual’, ‘adressor factual’, ‘vague hypothetical’ and ‘adressor hypothetical’. An English example grid is shown below. The vague is if you have not done the action being done by the general person yourself, and the addressor is if you have.
General Persons
Factual
Hypothetical
Vague When one eats, … If one eats, …
Addressor When you eat, … If you eat, …
General Persons Factual
Hypothetical
Vague es se
Addressor sur lesú
All factual general persons must have the ending -i [harm.acc] to the verb. If one eats too much, one will become fat!
Cqeo se búlanjesse, eŋóetse grateu!
This sentence is quite complex. Usually, when a verb is in the consequential form, -et is added to the infinitive’s sentence, and if the verb is in the same person as the hypothetical verb preceding it, the pronoun is also added as a suffix in the alternate case. But because the word ‘become’ is a
different tense to ‘eat’, it remains conjugated, but still keeps all the normal suffixes involved with the consequential. As the general persons do not change for tenses, the pronoun added remains the same.
Questions
There are many types of questions, each with their own structure. General questions only require the sentence to be arranged into VSO order, and a question mark. The rest of the types require this to happen, but a Question Type Indicator at the start of the question (QTI or EQTI; ignore the latter for now). Here is the list of everything.
Type Usage
English QTI
EQTI
General Takes yes or no Le…?
Logical Takes a method
How? Mol…? Moel…?
Residual Takes a reason Why? Ffa…? ffe…?
Locative Takes a location Where? Acqo…? Ecqo…?
Chronitive Takes a specific time When? Pjeske…? Kepjes…?
Relanchronitive Takes a relative time (e.g. yesterday)
Anthropitive Takes a person / living entity
Pragmatic Takes a thing / dead entity
To chew tsetten (--, tr., tsed-)
How did you chew your cheese?
Mol tsetaģu tui cjeiroi?
To meet aelen (--, tr., ael-) When will we meet him?
Jesk’aeli tä?
When? Jeske…? Kejes…?
Who? Alú…? Aelún…?
What? Ake…? Aekún…?
If the only verb in the question is to be, uréo, this verb is simply dropped (all nouns remain the same case).
Where is he? isn’t Acq’uto a? (acqo uto a), but Acqo a?
Questioning Reasons
You can actually imply the reason why you are asking the question by changing the wording. The different reasons you can imply are as follows:
Name Reason Example
Genuine [G] You’re asking because you don’t know. Why is he leaving?
Confirmative [C] You’re asking because you are confirming your knowledge, or are shocked. He’s leaving, right? He’s leaving?!
Examinative [E] You know the answer but you’re asking to see/test if they know. What’s the answer to Question 2?
Here is how you go about them: Name Method
Genuine [G] Leave the question as is.
Confirmative [C] You make the question into a statement but keep the question word at the start, the question mark and the voice tone.
Examinative [E] You replace the QTI with the EQTI (Examinative Question Type Indicator)
Why did he leave Italy? [G]: Ff’ecquraģu a Italiú lú? (lit. Why did he go away from Italy?) He left to Italy, didn’t he? [C]: A Italiú lú ecqurahu? Did he leave Italy? [E]: Le a Italiú lú ecqurahu?
run magarsa jelciun magar mahsee cqeroi lärun cqeroŋ cqersing idórsa jelciun idor idorstop toneo toneŋ ton-
Nouns
English Leuiráciu Decl. cheese cjeir 1, nonbinding door lonssą 1, nonbinding food raianet 3, binding god dios 2, nonbinding house aracqos 2, binding life (biological) esaor 1, nonbinding life (spiritual) zoios 2, binding light jęso 1, binding world ateret 3, nonbinding
Adjectives, Adverbs & Hyperjectives
english leuiráciu type delicious vaiduleu aj eternal ossoneu aj extremely krątou hj high uporeu aj only olo aj salty tsaleu aj so, much hjerou hj sour oureu aj
Prepositions & Conjunctions
english leuiráciu type and tam conj around, about tassa p.stat away from lú p.abd but de conj for lájon conj for par p.prod in i p.stat on one hand men conj that chron conj while se conj
Other
English Leuiráciu
Today aŋaģú
Goodbye Eletú!
Hello Leciú!
Thank you Taratú!
Example Sentences
The food is very delicious. Let raianet krątou vaidúleu’to.
Let raianet krątou vaidúleu’to.
Lit. the food very delicious is. /lɛt rai’a:nɛt ‘krɑ:tu ‘vaidu,leuto/
The light shone brightly in the darkness. To jęso i riä enssariä laraģu neso tuleu. to jeso I riä enssariä laraģu neso tuleu.
Lit. ‘The light in the darkness had beautiful shine’ /to ‘ʝɛzo i riæ en’sariæ la’ra:ɣu ‘nɛzo tu’leu/
I love that beautiful building. Ia cíl uchimon tulon jesu.
“ia cíl uchimon tulon jesu.”
Lit. ‘I that beautiful building love’ /ja ʃil ‘ukximon tu’lon ‘jɛzu/
What are you doing today?
Ake ua zoelec aŋaģú?
“Ake ua zęlec aŋaģú?”
Lit. ‘What you are doing today?’ /’akɛ wa ‘zɞ:leç aŋ’gaɣu/
If it were not a good idea for me to be eating, I would be running around my house instead!
Cqeo ia búlanjesse óro cheŋu, ucho tassa li aracqiä jelcetija magar!
“xeo ia búlanjesse óro cheŋu, ucho tassa li araxiä jelcetija magar!”
Lit. ‘If I running not advised, instead around my house would-I create run! /xɛu ja bulan’jes:e ‘oro ‘kxɛŋu ‘ukxo ‘tas:a li a’raxjæ ʝɛlʃɛ’tija ma’gɣ˕ar/
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
“Dios lájon lad Aterad jeselahu hjerou chron a gerahu ąr olo meston, ar’oģivu i leo dela óro lärao peke de lära zoion ossoneu.”
Lit. “God for the World loved so much that he gave his only son, in order to whoever in him believes will not have death but have life eternal.”
“dios lájon lad aterad jeselahu hjerou chron a gerahu ąr olo meston, ar’oģive I leo dela óro lärao peke de lära zoion ossoneu.”
/’di:os ’laʝon lad a’tɛ:rad jezelahu ‘hjɛ:ru kxron a gɛ’ra:hu ɑr ‘olo mɛs’ton ar’oɣiʋu i leo dɛla ‘oro læ’rao ‘pɛkɛ dɛ ‘læ:ra ‘zoion ,os:o’neu/
Realism Summary
Phonetics and Phonotactics
Geographically, Corsica is quite mountainous and has plenty of vegetation. As a result, plosives and less sonorous sounds do not travel very well due to low air pressure and more wind, as shown by the map above. This makes hard plosives develop much less in the language, and has also led to many other features in Leuiráciu:
- Sound lenition is common. Lenition is where hard sounds are made softer and more sonorous. Hence in Leuiráciu, sounds become voiced around vowels, and plosives are made into fricatives, which are made closer to approximants. Here’s an example of that process: by lifting the tounge up less and opening the mouth more while making a ‘t’ sound, an ‘s’ sound is produced, which is more sonorous than a ‘t’. Another example is how /b/ can become /v/ by placing the lips further
apart and using teeth on the lips instead. The /v/ can then become /ʋ /, an approximant, by removing teeth from touching the lips, making it more sonorous.
- As a result of lenition (among other things), there are many allophones, which are where speakers have subconsciously made a different sound that is more sonorous and easier to pronounce in that location while speaking.
- Plosives are usually aspirated. In English, plosives are aspirated only in syllable onsets, but in Leuiráciu they are always aspirated, because aspirated sounds do not just stop airflow but also release it.
- Syllable nuclei must be vowels. There are no syllabic consonants or glides as increasing sonority is key. Also, sonority is increased by the fact that syllable onsets must increase in sonority, and consonant clusters a very small.
- Dialects easily spring up. Because a greater distance must be travelled in mountainous terrain to achieve the same displacement on flat terrain, groups become more separated. This means they can develop more separately, but they do still communicate.
- Tone is not present. Though intonation is present – for example, question intonation – tone is not. Tone systems tend to develop in humid regions. Humidity in the air softens the mucus of the vocal chords, allowing for more precise pitch control. Therefore, it is harder for tonogenesis (creation of tone) to occur in places of lower humidity, up in mountains. This is a factor to why China has developed tone. However, dialects spoken in much more humid places of Corsica have a simple two-tone system as a type of tense marker, but is intelligible without the tones present. Below is a map of tonal languages. Their positions correlate strongly with high humidity.
- Types of preposition. Prepositions have evolved into distinctive classes for multiple reasons. One is to allow for more educated guesses to take place when all of a word is not properly heard, which is common at higher altitudes, because word order plays a role. The other is because complex terrain made it necessary to understand exactly where things were.
Corsica is also quite warm, and this has also influenced the language. Because Corsica is quite warm, people are often outside in the mountains, which means sounds must travel greater distances more often. Hence, when people try to understand what someone is telling them from afar, they may have to ‘fill in’, or assume, sounds that they have not heard. If there is a vowel harmony system present, assuming sounds that have not been heard becomes much easier.
To prove this, we can have a look at Russian. In Russian mountains, it is much colder, so people are usually inside – therefore sounds do not need to travel far. They also need to preserve heat and water to stay warm and prevent altitude sickness, so their mouths stay more closed. This results in the palatalization of many sounds, introduction of syllabic consonants, and large consonant clusters. This has not happened in Leuiráciu.
Syntax
The Leuiráciu verb system is complex, but there is a reason for it. Languages with many speakers develop new words much faster than languages with smaller numbers of speakers. This means that instead of introducing new verbs, it simply puts it with a noun, modifies it, and places it with an existing verb. This is like a ‘light verb’ construction.
The Demireceptive and Directional cases have similar meanings – “I gave it to him [dr]” and “I went to him [di]”. This is why pronouns and case endings are very similar for these two cases, as they once derived from one another.
In Leuirácioto culture, formalities are incredibly important, like in Italian cultlure. This has worked its way into the language, and so verbs have three different ways of formal conjugation.
NEURAL NETWORKS
BY SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV
(Third Year – HELP Level 2 – Supervisor: Mr V Ting)
NEURAL NETWORKS
BY SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV
CONTENTS
WHY NEURAL NETWORKS?
• Artificial Intelligence is an increasingly relevant aspect of the development of technology as companies such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI develop systems and programs such as ChatGPT which after some time will eventually become the norm.
• In a few years, Artificial Intelligence and more specifically Machine Learning will be the most developed section of the industry.
• Neural Networks are a field of supervisedlearning that attempts to replicate the brain to be able to do tasks.
• Supervised Learning means that we assign a label, i.e. the thing which the model must predict, whereas in Unsupervised Learning we don’t give the model a label, rather let it group the data based on similar properties.
• Neural Networks utilize weights and biases to direct the input data to the nodes required to provide a useful output.
NEURONS, NODES AND THE BRAIN
In the human brain, the nerve cells take an input which then in processed and passed on to the next nerve cell to carry on the message.
A neural network works in a similar way using inputs and outputs and will be seen later.
People still don’t fully understand how the brain works so replicating it would be limited to that knowledge however as medical advancements are made; we are able to replicate the brain more accurately to produce better results.
3 LAYERS OF NEURAL NETS
Input Layer
Hidden/Dense Layers
Output layers
BASIC MODEL OF A NEURAL NETWORK
• A neural network consists of three layers: input layers, dense or hidden layers, and output layers.
• The circles in this diagram represent the nodes in the neural net while the lines connecting them represent the connections of the layers. This is what the neurons represented on the last slide.
• Each node has a bias, and each connection has a specific weight. These are both parameters which the model alters during training to optimise performance.
• Out of these, the input and output layers are controlled however the dense layers are used by the neural network to compute what it wants instead of being assigned to hold a value designed by us.
• The number of hidden layers and number of neurons in each layer is a hyper-parameter meaning that we can experiment with how many hidden layers in the network give us the best outcome.
• The number of input layers and output layers is predetermined and is dependent on how many fields on input data and how many choices are there for output. i.e. 4 output nodes for up, down, left and right
HYPER-PARAMETERS AND PARAMETERS
Hyper-parameters
Hyper-parameters are things which we can change based on model performance such as number of hidden layers and number of nodes in those layers.
In addition to these, hyper-parameters also include things like:
Batch-size: What percentage of the data is used for training the model?
Epochs: How many times we want to repeat the training process to get the best performance without overfitting or in other words, fitting too well to the training dataset meaning it cannot generalise for other data?
Number of hidden layers and nodes in each layer.
Parameters
Parameters are the things which the model itself changes; we will see how in later slides:
These include:
Weights and biases as the model itself changes these to optimise the model’s performance and we don’t change these like our hyper-parameters.
In simple English, parameters are variables which values are learnt from the data and the model updated during training however, hyper-parameters are tuned by us to give the best outcome.
EXAMPLE OF A NEURAL NETWORK –LINEAR REGRESSION
Proximity to Schools
Crime Rate Number of Rooms
Carpet Area
• This is a simplistic example of a neural network trying to predict a house price based on many features such as proximity to school, number of rooms, cost, area etc.
• The nodes in the middle are blank as we don’t control what the neural net does there.
• Now the form of the output of this model will be a predicted price.
• You may see that however; you don’t find many neural networks for numeric predictions.
• This is because usually, you can find a single function to get you from the input to the output which needs only one node to implement.
• Therefore, neural networks aren’t commonly used for this purpose but instead for classification.
EXAMPLE OF A NEURAL NETWORK -CLASSIFICATION
• Another, more common use of neural nets is classification scenarios such as recognising whether a person is diabetic based on age, BMI, etc.
• In this case, a raw number like the price will not be helpful. A confidence score, a number showing how confident your model is on its prediction, between 0 and 1 will be more helpful.
• How do you do this? You use something called an activation function to make the output in a useful form to you. This can vary dependent on the situation.
• For probabilities (confidence score) which would have to be in between 0 and 1, we would use the sigmoid activation function.
SIGMOID ACTIVATION FUNCTION
The Sigmoid Activation Function makes the output of a neural network between 0 and 1 for a probability/confidence score
For future reference, when we write ŷ, we are referencing the algorithms prediction.
What is y then? y shows the actual label (actual value we want predicted).
As shown on the right, the sigmoid function is a graph with f(z) or ŷ ranging from 0 to 1.
In the function, e refers to Euler’s number or the natural number.
To understand what z represents, we will need to go through a few slides explaining vector algebra
VECTOR ALGEBRA AND MATRIX OPERATIONS
BY SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV
NOTE ABOUT NOTATION
To define a specific matrix called A, we will use the notation:
A = [aij]m*n where a is the element in the ith row and jth column within the matrix a which has order m * n.
This just means that there are m * n elements with i being a row number less than or equals to m and j being a column number less than or equal to n
MATRIX TRANSPOSITION
• Transposition is where the individual positions (row by column) of the elements of the matrix is reversed.
• e.g. At the bottom, 5 is at position 3, 1 so in the transposed matrix, it would be in position 1, 3
• Try transposing this matrix, the positions are there for you
• Try this one now, do you notice anything else that happens with the overall shape of the matrix?
• The 3 x 2 matrix now becomes a 2 x 3 as the number of rows and columns swap
MATRIX ADDITION
To add matrices, you look at the one matrix’s element and find the corresponding one in the other matrix and add them meaning that the resulting matrix will have the same order
If you don’t have the exact same shape of matrices (I.e. same number of rows and columns), you can’t add them.
We will look at an example
MATRIX SUBTRACTION
Matrix subtraction is very similar to matrix addition: you just have to find the corresponding elements of both the matrices and subtract one from the other.
Again, the shape of the matrices must be the same otherwise you won’t be able to subtract them.
MATRIX MULTIPLICATION WITH SCALAR
Similarly, for scalar multiplication, we just multiply each element in the matrix by the scalar.
This results in the exact same shape of matrix.
MATRIX MULTIPLICATION WITH ANOTHER MATRIX
Now, say we wanted to compute Matrix A times Matrix B
Before we start, we need to check whether the columns in Matrix A (2) are the same as the rows in Matrix B (2) as otherwise we won’t be able to multiply them together as we will see.
First we will multiply A11 by B11.
Next, we will multiply A12 by B21 and add it to form resulting matrix C’s element [1,1].
MATRIX MULTIPLICATION WITH ANOTHER MATRIX
Now, let us compute C21, we will apply the same strategy, try to work it out.
You will need to first multiply A21 and B11
Then add it to A22 times B22
We will do this one more time.
MATRIX MULTIPLICATION WITH ANOTHER MATRIX
Now, let us compute C22, we will apply the same strategy, try to work it out.
You will need to first multiply A21 and B21.
Then add it to A22 times B22.
MATRIX MULTIPLICATION WITH ANOTHER MATRIX
What do you notice about the resulting shape of the matrix?
We put together the number rows of matrix A (4) and number of columns in matrix B (4) and got matrix C’s shape, I.e. 4 x 4.
We can now resolve and simplify this matrix to get our final answer.
WTX + B, WEIGHTS, INPUTS AND BIASES
z = wTx + b is used in logistic regression where z is the input to our sigmoid function.We will understand why this works soon.
w represents the weights,T means it is transposed, x is the input or what was fed into the neural net and b is the bias.
We will also see how this looks in many dimensions and how it fits in with the forward and backward propagation of a neural network through the many different layers but first we must understand what are weights, biases and input data are.
If we refer back to our neural network representation, we will now see what w[1], w[2], b[1] and b[2] are when the inputs x1, x2 and x3 change.
WEIGHTS MATRIX EXPLAINED
To explain how the shape of the weight matrix will look for each layer we will first look at w[2]
w[2] is a matrix consisting of four weights, one from each of the dense layer’s neurons as each connection has a weight.
This means w[2] is a 4 x 1 matrix of weights.
Now applying this to w[1], we can see the matrix will have 4 x 3 = 12 elements of weights.
So how will it look?
It would be a matrix of shape 3 x 4 as each column would represent each of the 3 connections one node has to the inputs and the rows would represent the number of nodes.
BIASES MATRIX EXPLAINED
This is relatively simple as each node has a specific bias so b[1] is of shape 4 x 1 as there are four nodes,
b[2] has shape 1 x 1 as there is one output node.
Now we will use these to understand how does the formula: wTx + b work by using our knowledge of vector algebra, weights matrices and bias matrices.
WTX + B WITH TWO DIMENSION, ONE OBSERVATIONS
Let us take this simplified neural network for an example, we will first see the shape of the input data.
We will first look at the shape of the input data, we will take is as an 2 x 1 matrix as there are two output nodes or observations within one dimension.
Everything in green is weights, everything in blue is biases. We have used letters for the weights for easier reference.
Try to form the matrices for the weights and biases in the first layer.
WTX + B WITH TWO DIMENSION, ONE OBSERVATIONS
1) Ok so first we are going to substitute these values into the formula.
2) Now, we are going to transpose the matrix by swapping the row and column position round.
w[1] = a b c
3) We can see once we have done this we have a 3 x 2 matrix multiplied with a 2 x 1 matrix. As the column in the first and rows in the second match, we can multiply it.
4) Now we are left with two 3 x 1 matrices Since they are both the same shape, we can add them together.
b[1] =
5) Finally, the resulting 3 x 1 matrix is our value of z passed into the sigmoid function
REFERENCE TO THE NEURAL NETWORK REPRESENTATION
Now, that we understand what the sigmoid activation function does and what z = wTx + b means, we can return to our first model and make a few changes but first let us zoom in onto one node (red node).
When the inputs are affected by the weights and arrive at the node, first we compute z = wTx + b.
Then, we apply the sigmoid function on that z.
Google ColabWorkbook -https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1RBEZPA-g8vBb9zZOdMKTjXmu8Ub643VZ?authuser=0#scrollTo=rtM8x6-qi9_N
VECTORISATION
Vectorisation_Final.mp4
The neural network would have to run this many times, in Python this is called a for loop. However, this would take a longer time, so we use something called vectorization to save time.
Vectorisation utilizesthe fact that all of these can be run all at the same time rather than requiring an explicit for loop.
Vectorisation works better on a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) rather than a Central Processing Unit (CPU) as it can perform many different tasks simultaneously rather than one by one. Have a look at the video above for clarity.
However, when running programs like I have done in the video on the right, you can use the CPU as it is still going to run quickly with smaller datasets.
LOSS FUNCTION
Loss is a measure of the error of a neural network using the difference between y and ŷ or how off the model’s prediction was from the expected output.
For example, in we measured MSE (Mean Squared Error) by using the loss function defined as:
L(ŷ, y) = � � (ŷ−y)� where m refers to the number of rows in the training dataset
However, the issue with this is when we come to find the global minimum, we find that the optimization problem becomes non-convex and so will have multiple local minimums while struggling to find the global optimum. We will discuss this when we talk about Gradient descent.
So what is the loss function for classification?
We usually use the function:
L(ŷ,y) = -(y log ŷ + (1-y) log (1-ŷ))
It is good to get a basic intuition for why this works.
INTUITION ABOUT LOSS FUNCTION
We will take two scenarios, one where y = 1 and one where y = 0.
When y =1
When y = 0
L(ŷ,y) = -(y log ŷ + (1-y)log(1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(1 log ŷ + (1-1)log(1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(log ŷ + 0 log (1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(log ŷ + 0)
L(ŷ, y) = -log ŷ
L(ŷ,y) = -(y log ŷ + (1-y)log(1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(0 log ŷ + (1-0)log(1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(0 + 1 log (1-ŷ))
L(ŷ,y) = -(0 + log (1-ŷ))
L(ŷ, y) = -log (1-ŷ)
Here, we want log ŷ to be as large as possible so ŷ should be as large as possible.
As ŷ is in the sigmoid function, its value can only range between 0 and 1.
We want ŷ to be tending towards 1 the value of y.
Here, we want log (1-ŷ) to be as large as possible so ŷ should be as small as possible
As ŷ is in the sigmoid function, its value can only range between 0 and 1.
We want ŷ to be tending towards 0, the value of y.
If I graph f(a) = -log(a) essentially what is left when y = 0 or 1 as shown on the last slide.
We can see that for the loss or f(a) to be 0, we want a to be 1.
In the case of y = 0 (on the last slide) we want a or ŷ to be 1 as: –log (1) = 0
However, in the case of y = 1 (on the last slide), we want a or 1ŷ to be equal to 1 so ŷ should equal 0.
This is because if y and ŷ are both 0 or both 1, there is no loss.
LOGISTIC REGRESSION COST FUNCTION
The loss function measures loss for every single prediction whereas the cost function measures the overall loss over all the predictions. It is defined as:
Now m is the number of rows in your training dataset and i is what row number the model is on which is also called your iterable.
In simple English what this is doing it is taking the sum of all the losses from the 1st row to the mth row using the variable i to denote what row number it is currently on and averaging it.
DERIVATIVES AND GRADIENT DESCENT
BY SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV
GRADIENT DESCENT
Now, we have calculated our loss throughout the entire dataset (cost), we can plot this on a graph. We always want to minimise loss, so where on the graph will that be?
It would be the lowest point on the graph, or in the case on the right, more specifically the lowest value on the y axis or the cost function -J(w,b). This is the point where the gradient is 0.
This is called the global minimum, the value of our hyper parameters in this case w and b is what we should implement to have the most efficient model.
We will use a more simplified example with just one weight and cost.
GRADIENT DESCENT: SIMPLIFIED EXAMPLE
For simplicity we have taken the cost of the model respective to one weight in the neural network.
Now we want the least cost possible, where is this represented in the graph? It is the point where the gradient is 0, called the global minimum.
So how do we find this global minimum? On a high level we first randomly initialise a weight value and calculate the loss.
Then, we use something called the learning rate to find how much do we alter weight and again check the cost. If we have a higher learning rate, there is a high chance that we will miss the exact weight value where the cost is the least, but with a lower learning rate it will take much longer for the model to find the global minimum.
Thus, we reduce the learning rate the closer we get to the global minimum as shown in the diagram by the arrows.
We will now look at the mathematical explanation for this.
J(w,b)
DERIVATIVES
We will not delve deep into differential calculus, this is relatively simple to understand as the derivative of a graph utilises the concept of a gradient of a graph.
We will first start off with a straight line.
In the function f(x) = 3x, the gradient of the line is 3.
If we take x as 1, we will see that f(x) = 3. If we then nudge 1 by 0.00001 we see that we get 3.00003, 0.00003 higher than before.
Now, we all know how to find the gradient change in f(x) or u divided by change in x so in this 0.00003/0.00001 which is 3.
Since the graph is a straight line and the gradient is constant everywhere, we say that:
dy/dx(f(x))= 3
MORE DERIVATIVE EXAMPLES
Now, what is the difference between a derivative and a gradient? The difference is that a derivative can help you find out the gradient of the graph at any point no matter the type of graph I.e. even curves with varied gradients, at a point, that gradient can be worked out. Here is another example:
Now, applying the same logic to f(x) = x2
We find that the gradient between 2 and 2.001 is 0.004/0.001 which is 4.
We also find that the gradient between 5 and 5.001 is 0.010/0.001 which is 10
Thus, the derivative of f(x) = x2 is:
dx/dy(f(x)) = 2x
MORE DERIVATIVE EXAMPLES
Now, try doing this one where f(x) = x3 y (approx.) x 8 2 8.012
2.001
We find that the gradient between 2 and 2.001 is 0.0012/0.001 which is 12.
We would usually require to do this analysis one more time, but the derivative of y = x3 is
dy/dx(f(x)) = 3x2
COMPUTATIONAL GRAPH –FORWARD PROPAGATION
Forward propagation is used to get the output of a neural network and we represent this using a computational graph
We will have a, b and c as inputs and compute v as the product of b and c (I.e. u = bc)
Then, we will compute v = u + a
Finally we will output J as being 3v.
During training of the neural net, J is the loss.
We will have a look at how this works with values attached to the variables.
COMPUTATIONAL GRAPH –FORWARD PROPAGATION
This computation graph now shows us how the function J(a,b,c) looks when we use 5, 3 and 2 as their values respectively to give an output.
u = bc, u = 3 * 2 = 6
v = u + a = 6 + 5 = 11
J = 3v = 3 * 11 = 33
We will next have a look at how does backward propagation work to provide us the gradients or derivatives for us to work out the global minimum using gradient descent to minimise loss.
COMPUTATIONAL GRAPH –BACKWARD PROPAGATION
Let’s say we wanted to find the derivative of dJ/dv, we would nudge v from 11 to 11.001 to get J or 33 to 33.003 and the gradient would be 0.003/0.001 or 3 so dJ/dv = 3.
Next, we could find the derivative of dJ/da. Since a is nudged from 5 to 5.001, v becomes from 11 to 11.001 and thus J becomes 33.003 meaning that the derivative is 0.003/0.001 = 3
Finally let’s find the derivative of dv/da. When a is nudged from 5 to 5.001, v goes from 11 to 11.001 meaning that the derivative is 0.001/0.001 or 1.
CHAIN RULE -DERIVATIVES
We can realise that since dJ/da = 3, dJ/dv = 3 and dv/da = 1, that dJ/da = dJ/dv * dv/da
This is called the chain rule.
This makes sense as if you change a, v will change at a rate of dv/da.
And when v changes, it will increase J at the rate of dJ/dv meaning the overall net change or dJ/da = dJ/dv * dv/da
This is called the chain rule.
This makes sense as if you change a, v will change at a rate of dv/da.
And when v changes, it will increase J at the rate of dJ/dv meaning the overall net change or dJ/da = dJ/dv * dv/da
CHAIN RULE –BACKWARD PROPAGATION CONTINUED
If we continue working out derivatives, we can apply the chain rule, let’s first derive dJ/du.
Using the chain rule, we can see that it is equal to dJ/dv * dv/du which is 3 * dv/du.
dv/du = 1 as when u changes by 0.001, so does v.
This would mean that dJ/du = 3*1 = 3
When we nudge u changes by 0.001, J v changes by 0.001 which causes J to change by 0.003 meaning that dJ/du = 0.003/0.001 = 3
This means that we calculated the correct value using the chain rule.
We can further use the chain rule to calculate derivatives for b and c as we already know the derivative for dJ/du.
FORWARD AND BACKWARD PROPAGATION IN A NEURAL NETWORK
We have already seen how wTx + b works and already understood the sigmoid function and cost function so can we understand how does forward and backward propagation work?
The weights and bias are randomly generated, and we inputted x as the input parameters which are passed to compute z which then is applied to the sigmoid function to make it between 1 and 0 and finally inputted into the cost function to give the overall loss over the entire training dataset.
Then we use backward propagation to find the gradient by computing the derivatives and applying the chain rule to make it way easier to calculate.
After, the weights and bias are adjusted and goes again through the entire training dataset.
GRADIENT DESCENT: MATHEMATICAL EXPLANATION
The way we implement Gradient descent is as follows:
REPEAT: {
w := w
(dJ(w)/dw) }
b:= b – α(dJ(b)/db)}
Where α is your learning rate which is given by you.
Now why does this work, say if the randomly initialised weight falls in the section marked by the rectangle, there is a negative gradient thus in the formula, dJ(w)/dwwould evaluate to be a negative number which would be multiplied by another negative number, the learning rate, to produce a positive product which would be added to the weight to make it increase and repeat until we hit the global minimum or where there is no change to the weight as dJ(w)/dwwould be 0.
NB: I have used := to represent the variable w being updated with a new value
Bias Matrix
Input Matrix
GRADIENT DESCENT: MATHEMATICAL EXPLANATION
Remember way we implement Gradient descent is as follows:
REPEAT: {
w := w – α(dJ(w)/dw) }
b:= b – α(dJ(b)/db) }
Where α is your learning rate which is given by you.
If the initial weight is initialised in this area marked by the rectangle, as there is a positive gradient dJ(w)/dw would be positive causing in the resulting number after being multiplied by the negative learning rate, to be negative causing the weight to decrease towards the global minimum until there is no change in the weights as the gradient is 0.
Now this same thing is done for the biases with the same formula same changes just with a groan for each bias and the cost individually until you find the global minimum for that also.
NB: I have used := to represent the variable w being updated with a new value
NOTE ABOUT SLIDE 15: LOSS FUNCTIONS
If you remember on the slide, I first defined linear regression’s loss function measuring MSE (Mean Squared Error) as being:
L(ŷ, y) = � � (ŷ−y) � where m refers to the number of rows in the training dataset.
I said that this is not implemented into Neural Networks and more specifically logistic regression as it caused the optimisation problem to be non-convex
Now that we understand Gradient descent better, we can use this to understand what this means.
Using the MSE Loss function we get a graph like the one on the left, the problem is that we can get misled by something called the local minimum
This is where a point looks like the lowest and the global minimum but the graph goes back up and then even lower.
This can really throw us off as it will make us think we have reached the local minimum but really we may be able to get way less loss.
This is why we prefer convex graphs where there is only one minimum to reach rather than going through many and struggling to find the global minimum.
SUMMARY–NEURAL NETWORK OVERVIEW
Alright, I am going to sum up everything we have got so far.
1) We are going to start with defining the neural network with the number of hidden layers and nodes in each layer. These are hyper parameters so we will have to change these unlike the weights and biases which the model changes. The weights matrix would be number of nodes by number of connections for each node and the bias a column vector with the number of nodes. We also choose the activation function, say for example, the sigmoid function.
2) The next step is to randomly initialise the weights and biases in the neural network.
3) After, we are going to do the forward propagation with each layer computing z = wTx + b, the ‘x’ or input matrix’s shape is the number of inputs or dimensions by the number of observations, we took one as a simplified example. Now, the ‘z’ which is computed is given into the sigmoid function to give ‘a’ which is passed to the next node.
4) Once a goes through to the final output layer, it’s prediction is ŷ which is compared to y or the expected output using the cost function which averages the loss from each row of the dataset.
5) Using the cost function, the model is able to use backward propagation to get the derivatives respective to all the weights and biases.
6) We now input the slope into the function using the learning rate and weights matrix to change the weights, i.e. w := w –α(dJ/dw) and the learning rate and biases to change the biases, i.e. b := b – α(dJ/db).
7) This process (Step 3 -7) then repeats till we hit the global minimum and the cost is minimised.
LINEAR REGRESSIONAND CLASSIFICATIONEXAMPLE USING TENSORFLOW
We will now look at 3 examples of visual demonstrations using TensorFlow and Keras.
One is a multiclass classification for digit recognition from 0 to 9, one is a binary classification of wine, and the last isa linear regression example.
Remember, we don’t usually use neural networks for linear regression as we look for a function to get our desired output label (y) from our input features (x).
We will now delve into detail on the next 3 slides before we go into convolutional neural networks (CNN).
Digit Classification using MNIST Dataset
Multiclass Classification
Keras Introduction -Binary Classification of Wine
Linear Regression using TensorFlow
Digit Classification using MNIST DatasetMulticlass Classification –Demonstration Notes
Regularisation
Remember for classification, along with the predicted class i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc … We also have our confidence scores, or probability provided by the model on how sure the image falls into each class.
Regularisation prevents the model from overfitting or becoming too tailored to the training data so that when given new data it has never seen before, it doesn’t perform as well as shown by training data loss. One way this is done is by using dropout layers wherenot all nodes are connected to the next layer, preventing the model from thinking that some unusual features it may see in an image will always be in all pictures shown.
Keras Introduction -Binary Classification of Wine –Demonstration Notes
Often, we must make our data suited for the training of our model; we use many techniques to do this such as feature engineering, feature selection, and normalisation.
Feature Engineering – A technique where we add extra features to our dataset, e.g. we added a type feature in our training dataset so we could tell what wine it was 1 for red and 0 for white.
Feature Selection –A technique where we remove features that may cause bias or are unnecessary such as perhaps gender or ethnicity as that should not influence a model’s decision
Normalisation –A technique where we bring all the features to the same scale, making the data easier to train the model on.
Another thing we do with data is to visualize it using graphs such as boxplots, histograms, and pie charts to fully understand our data and its distribution
Binary Classification of Wine.mp4
Confusion Matrix
Linear Regression using TensorFlow –Demonstration Notes
Loss Function1
In Linear Regression, we measured MSE (Mean Squared Error) by using the loss function defined as:
L(ŷ, y) = � � (ŷ−y)� where m refers to the number of rows in the training dataset.
Linear Regression using TensorFlow.mp4
CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORKS (CNN)
BY SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV
COMPUTER VISION
There are two common types ofComputer Vision Applications: Image Classification and Object Detection.
Image Classification
Image classification is a form of computer vision where a model will look at an image and detect if something is in it?
For example, I could ask a model to determine whether there is a dog in this image and class it into there being a dog and there not being a dog.
1 –There is a dog in the picture
0 –There is not a dog in the picture
Object Detection
Object detection is an extension of Image Classification because not only does the model have to identify if an object is in the picture but also where is it, usually it does this by putting a box round it with coordinates.
A common instance of this would be in a self driving car, where just knowing another car is present but not the location would not be helpful.
USING IMAGES AS INPUTS IN NEURAL NETWORKS
64 x 64 x 3
Now that we have determined what format the images are in we can translate that to the input layer of the network. In the diagram below, in the first layer there are n nodes. If we multiply the numbers together in say the left image, we get 64x64x3 = 12288 pixels. The number of pixels represent n in the neural networks I.e. how many input nodes are present. Similarly, if we do this with the image on the right we get 1000x1000x3 =3 million pixels.
In this image above, we can tell there is a low resolution and we know it is 64x64, but why is there also a 3. This is due to the three colour channels RGB or red, green, blue which are used to put this image together in colour.
1000 x 1000 x 3
Similarly, in this image, there is a 1000x1000 image with the 3 denoting the three colour channels red, green and blue. This image is higher resolution than the other one and it looks more clearer too.
USING IMAGES AS INPUTS IN NEURAL NETWORKS
With these 3 million input nodes in the first layer and say we have 1000 nodes in the hidden layer, we would have 3 million times 1000 weights or 3 billion nodes in the hidden layer. These are too many parameters for the neural network to handle and will most likely cause overfitting, or the model to become to accustomed to the input data and not able to handle other data to predict on accurately. This means we can only use smaller images like the 64x64x3 lower resolution image, a constraint we don’t want to have. To bypass this, we apply something called a convolution.
EDGE DETECTION
Edge Detection
As we can see, horizontal edge detection identifies all of the horizontal lines in the image.
Vertical Edge Detection
As we can see, vertical edge detection identifies all of the vertical lines in the image.
Now, on the next slide we will see how the model can do this but with first, simplified images to understand.
Horizontal
EDGE DETECTION
6 x 6 image
3 x 3 filter (kernel)
Now, we can see that there is only one channel, I have simplified it to a greyscale image so that we can easily understand what is happening.
EDGE DETECTION
6 x 6 image
3 x 3 filter (kernel)
This 3x3 filter or kernel is what helps the model be able to identify the edges of the image, we will see this. The way this is set will determine if it is horizontal or vertical image detection. E.g. this is vertical image detection. The one below would be used for horizontal edge detection.
Note, here the * is being used to represent the convolution operation not standard multiplication.
To calculate the result, we have to overlay the filter onto the image and sum up the results of multiplying each number on the image by its corresponding filter multiplier to give one cell on the resulting grid. Let us take an example.
EDGE DETECTION
6
To calculate the result, we have to overlay the filter onto the image and sum up the results of multiplying each number on the image by its corresponding filter multiplier to give one cell on the resulting grid. Let us take an example. Note here the number on top is the multiplier, we are not using exponents. We have put the grid on the top, furthest left of the image so this corresponds to the top left of the resulting grid which will contain the sum of
EDGE DETECTION
6 x 6 image
To calculate the result, we have to overlay the filter onto the image and sum up the results of multiplying each number on the image by its corresponding filter multiplier to give one cell on the resulting grid. Let us take an example. Note here the number on top is the multiplier, we are not using exponents. We have put the grid on the first row, second position so we know the corresponding place on the resultant grid whose value will be the sum of: 0 x
EDGE DETECTION
Now, we will see how we can apply this on an image to determine the edges present.
EDGE DETECTION
We can see that we have identified the image’s edge. The reason why it is so wide in comparison is due to the image size, if we used a larger image it would be more accurate.
Now, given the knowledge that the higher the number, the lighter it is. Try to imagine how the image will look in both images. This is still greyscale so the colours available will be shades of black, grey and white.
Now, try and work out the resulting matrix and work out how that would
FILTERS
We have seen two types of filters, one for horizontal and one for vertical edge detection but these are not the only ones, there are others such as the Sobel and Scharrfilters.
However, more often then not we don’t actually assign the values for the filters, we let the model tune it as a parameterthe to get the best accuracy. This lets the computer go outside the constraint we provide while also helping to find edges not only horizontally and vertically but also at angles such as 45°.
We do this during the backward propagation to be able to get the best filter numbers to provide the best output. We can consider each of the nine numbers on the filter as a weight
PROBLEMS WITH THIS METHOD OF CONVOLUTION
In this method, we say that we use a 6 x 6 matrix and convolve it with a 3 x 3 filter to give a 4 x 4 matrix output.This is because on one row, there are 4 possible positions of the filter so for 4 rows, there are 16 possible positions represented by 16 pixels on the resulting matrix.
The mathematics behind this is that if I have an original image n x n and a filter f x f, the resulting size will be n-f+1 x n-f+1
A problem with this is that the image size shrinks each time so we can’t convolve it many times a otherwise the image will become too small.
Secondly, if we take this 6 x 6 matrix on the right. Notice how the corners are only in one possible position of the 3 x 3 filter (red) whereas the ones in the center are in many (not all shown –in green). This means that the corners of the image are used less for convolution than the middle which may hinder the output.
PADDING
To overcome these issues, we add padding to the outside of the image. This is how our 6x6 image would look with padding (in red).
This now means that the edges of our original image are fairly represented in the convolution and the resulting matrix is larger due to the image being larger.
For example our 6x6 image has now turned to 8x8 resulting in a 6x6 matrix, we can apply more padding making larger images.
The mathematics now is where p is the number of padding layers, you end up with a resulting matrix of
Valid convolution is where you apply no padding meaning that when applying an f x f filter to a n x n image results in a n -f + 1 x n –f +1 matrix
Same convolution is where you try and make the output size the same as the original input size with no padding so n + 2p –f + 1 = n.
Solving for p gives (f-1)/2. This makes sense as f is almost always odd to ensure that we have a symmetrical padding and a central pixel position.
STRIDED CONVOLUTION
STRIDED CONVOLUTION
CONVOLUTIONS OVER VOLUME
Till now, we have used greyscale images, so we only have one channel to deal with. We will apply what we have learnt to an RGB image with three channels.
As shown in the image below, we now need three different filters to match up with each of the channels in our RGB image or three separate filters we can apply on the original image. We will use a yellow cube to represent this filter.
CONVOLUTIONS OVER VOLUME
We still apply the same method as we did before but instead of adding the nine multiplications together to get one result, we add 27 multiplications from all 3 filters together to make one cell of the resulting matrix.
CONVOLUTIONS OVER VOLUME
CONVOLUTIONS OVER VOLUME
CONVOLUTIONS OVER VOLUME
As you can probably see, we don’t need each of the filters to be the same, we can change it to for example only detect red or any combination of colours along with all the colours by altering the values.
CONVOLUTION OVER VOLUMES WITH MULTIPLE FILTERS
An extension to this is if we use multiple types of filters, for example, we can use both horizontal and vertical edge detector filters and then combine the results to give a 4x4x2 matrix. This means that both the vertical and horizontal edges will have been detected.
CONVOLUTION SUMMARY
In conclusion, if we have an n x n x nC original image and a f x f x nC filter with p denoting the number of padding layers, s showing the stride and ����� expressing the number of channels, and ����� representing the number of filters used: the formula for the size of the resulting image is:
1) x (��� ��
+1) x �����
CONVOLUTIONAL LAYER OF A CNN
Now that we understand how we convolve an image, we will start understanding how this fits with a neural network.
Before this, we will make clear use of some notation. The input to the convolution operation was our n x n x nC original image, which was convoluted with each ����� filter size f x f x nC
In the context of our convolutional neural network, we should elaborate on this by saying that the input for a convolution layer L is the:
�����[���] x �����[���] x �����[���] where H and W represent the height and width of the image and ����� is the number of filters and [L-1] denotes that it was the output from the last layer.
The output from layer L would be: �����[�] x ����� [�] x �����
We also know that the output would be in the form of (���� �� � + 1) x (���� �� � +1) x �����
This means that �����[�] = (��[���] ���[�] ��� �� + 1) and �����[�] = (��[���] ���[�] ��� �� + 1) each rounded down (floor operation).
ONE LAYER OF A CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK
We have already discussed about z = wTx + b and how it is used in standard neural networks. We will see how to apply this, and a new activation function called ReLU or Rectified Linear Unitfor a convolutional neural network.
Now, our weights are our filter as we have already explained, which is a hyperparameter tuned by the model. x is our original image with size �����[���] x �����[���] x ����� and b is a matrix of biases which is applied to the resulting matrix to give z, the output from the convolution and input to our activation function which then would be passed on to the next layer.
ReLU or the rectified linear unitis an activation function that makes any negative value set to default and then if it is 0 or higher, has the equation y = x. A graph of the ReLU function of y = max(0,x) is shown to the right.
ONE LAYER OF A CONVOLUTIONAL NETWORK
In the diagram to the right, we see how everything is working, it is very similar to a standard neural network but this time the inputs are the results of the convolution operation.
We can see the ReLU activation function being applied to produce the final output which is going to the next layer (a).
The biases and weights remain the same where both b1 and b2 are matrices of biases with the weights being each pixel of the filter.
This enables our understanding of z = wTx + b from the previous section to help us understand what is transferred to the next layer.
Q: If you have 10 filters that are 3 x 3 x 3 in one layer of a convolution neural network, how many parameters does that layer have.
A: (3 x 3 x 3) x 10 = 270 weight parameters + 10 bias parameters = 280 parameters
SIMPLE CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK EXAMPLE
SIMPLE CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK EXAMPLE
and
p will remain 0, we can see that the size of the resulting image reduced a lot quicker when we increased the stride, remember we are keeping stride at 2.
We will set our
We will apply this one more time, try and work out what the size of the output from the next convolution operation will be.
We get:
So now,
and
have selected
most useful information and condensed into a more concise format, we can flatten it (i.e. have 40 x 7 x 7 or 1960 nodes representing each pixel) and run it through a SoftMax activation function for classification.
POOLING LAYERS
We have gone through a very simplistic example which we will build on later to be able to understand where pooling and fully connected layers come into picture.
There are many types of pooling but the one we are going to look at is called Max Pooling, take this image.
We will take a stride of 2 and filter size of 2 x 2 with one channel for now.
Let us first divide the grid up into the four positions the filter will take.
Max pooling is simply just the maximum number from each of these divisions, for example for red, the maximum value is 9.
This is used as in an image, the numbers represent identification of a specific feature, like in a dog, the tail; this means that when implemented max pooling finds the most important feature of an image to determine what the object is out of a specific section of an image.
POOLING LAYERS
Now, we also have hyperparameters to set for pooling, i.e. filter size and stride but these remain constant and don’t change by gradient descent or in fact by the model at all.
Let’s look at another example, try to work out the resulting matrix:
Imagine we have another channel, so the 5 x 5 image becomes 5 x 5 x 2. What do you think will happen to the resulting matrix?
It will also have two channels as max pooling is performed on each channel independently.
CNNEXAMPLE –PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (LAYER 1)
CNNEXAMPLE –PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (LAYER 2)
CNNEXAMPLE –PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (LAYER 3 + 4)
CNNEXAMPLE –PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (LAYER 5 + OUTPUT)
CONNECTED Layer 3
Google ColabWorkbook -https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1V1ywsWDOJuHLb1bw2PeuAzA2AgnNbrwo#scrollTo=xO78qBKuZVmt
CNN EXAMPLE –IMPLEMENTATION IN TENSORFLOW VIDEO FOR IMAGE CLASSIFICATION
In this PowerPoint, we have been using the words image and matrix very loosely in the context of CNN as a matrix can only have two dimensions so it can’t be used for image inputs required for CNN.
Instead, we use a Tensor in multiple dimensions, e.g. 3 for CNN to store images such as RGB with 3 channels and even 4 for videos as it is a moving picture, so it also has a time dimension.
We will see how to implement this with TensorFlow in Python in these 2visual demonstrations below.
Binary Classifier: Image Classification Using Convolutional Neural Networks
Binary Classifier: Image Classification Using Convolutional Neural Networks –Demonstration Notes
Binary Classifier -Image Classification using CNN.mp4 THANK YOU
SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAV 3B
THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: FROM THE GREEKS TO THE MIDDLE AGES
BY ESA SAIFEE
(Second Year – HELP Level 1 – Supervisor: Mr R Davieson)
The History of Medicine: From the Greeks to the Middle Ages
By Esa Saifee
Contents: Page
Romans 180-183
Introduction
Sources
Religion in practices
Practices based on superstition
Treatments on the battlefields
Common remedies
Conclusion
Greeks 184-186
Introduction
How they approached medicine
Inspiration brought to the Romans from the Greeks
Greek medicine used in the modern world
Lifestyle
Conclusion
Arabic 187-190
Introduction
Why were they so successful
Surgery
Arabic physicians
Public health
Arabic medicine in modern times
Conclusion
Dark and Middle Ages 191-195
Introduction
Sources
Religion
Hygiene
Black death
Conclusion
Introduction
The history of medicine Is a very vast topic, so I have only examined some of the topics that I found most interesting. Those are the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs and the dark ages in Europe. All of these civilisations rose and fell in each other’s wake (some much more successful than others). I chose the Roman and Greek empire, because of how close they were in proximity, yet flourished in many different ways. The Arabic empire was built on the discovery of the Greeks and Romans and in the Dark Ages I explored why people were not flourishing and how we went backwards in our medical knowledge at least in Western European terms. I researched through all of the topics respectively and gathered much information on these areas. It was interesting to see the things that they did that were considered appropriate and even more interesting to see the remedies or treatments, that have stood the test of time.
Romans
Since the Romans ruled the lands, almost two thousand years ago, historians have had some trouble getting an idea of how their doctors would treat patients. Other questions have also come up such as how effective their treatments were, how they would have trained and how accessible doctors or healers were in the ancient world.
Sources
It is important to cover how or where the information, may have been collected. For example, the main way historians were able to gather information on the Romans is through texts. Many historians from the time would write about what happened and many important events would be recorded and kept safe. Occasionally, archaeology would play a part in this. However, items like food, weapons and armour are unlikely to stand the test of time and bodies would be buried deeper due to shifting of sediment. However, with specialist tools and equipment, this is the main way historians were able to piece the puzzle of Roman medicine together. Ways they have done this are: digging at locations which used to be hospitals, uncovering tools such as the scalpel made of materials indigenous to the area suggesting that this is a tool designed by the Roman empire. By studying the tools and how they may have been used, we can see how a Roman hospital would have functioned. The tools ranged from needles and collecting cups to retractors, tweezers and many different sizes of scalpels. There are also many records from military hospitals. Due to the fact that they were set up in battle, the doctors would document everything, in case a soldier died. The commanders were then able to make a more accurate estimate on how many men they had left. There were then tomb stones. The graves of deceased doctors would often depict scenes from their medical practice. For example, the tomb stone of a midwife depicted a chair, with a place the baby would drop and was slanted and had hand rests for comfort. From the second century AD there were beautiful, illustrated records of exactly what herbs to give to patients or what procedures to perform on them.
The first God to be associated with medicine was originally the Greek God, Apollo. He was the first God/ Goddess, that was considered to have the power to heal others. Subsequently, the Greeks and the Romans would give offerings or prey to him if they had something that needed treating. They decided that he would be the one with the healing properties as at that time people were desperate and needed an important figure to help them due to the big plagues that were sweeping Italy. They used Apollo as a desperate way in which to seek help, coincidentally due to outside factors the plague began to come to an end, giving people true belief in the healing powers of the Gods. Later was the introduction of a God that was purely devoted to healing, Asclepius (fig 2). People across the whole empire gave sacrifices to him, which was belived to be the best way to get help from him. There was a snake wrapped around his staff and this is belived to be the inspiration for the currently used symbol for medicine in the modern era.
Practices based on superstition
Many of the Roman practices were based on superstitions, for example, a treatment for epilepsy was the liver of a deceased gladiator or, alternately his blood. Many of thease treatments came to be because they were based on simple logic, things the Romans almost want to do or things that religious people belived the gods thought were a good thing. Many gemstones and amulets were used to relieve certain pains or troubles. They could be used for something like a stomach-ache, or more typically for childbirth, as at this point in time there was very little doctors could do for mothers giving birth. This resembles a pattern in which we can see areas with no clear treatment, even sophisticated doctors would turn to the religious approach in search of more luck. We can see some correlation to this in modern life. This may have been the doctor’s way of finding a cure and ensuring that they do not look bad in the public eye.
Treatments on the battlefield
Many Roman soldiers would have been injured during battle and unable to be treated. If the soldiers had an illness not caused by a wound, the doctors would most likely send the patient to a more specialist doctor. However, if they had a cut or wound there were a number of ways they would treat the patient. They would start by cleaning the tools. A popular choice was vinegar as it was easy to get at the time and people found it to be effective. The Romans were able to deduce that if they did not clean the tools before performing a procedure the patient was very likely to get an illness after this. The cleaning of tools was most likely inspired by the Greeks who brought in many of their existing knowledge at the time to the Romans so that they could make money themselves, by helping sick Romans that were otherwise unable to be treated. Doctors on the battlefield would have used primitive forms of anaesthetics such as Opium to relieve pain, for the small procedures like closing wounds and taking out an arrowhead. It is unlikely that they would have performed more complex surgery than that as the tools were not sophisticated enough and they could not find a more effective method of pain relief.
Fig. 2 The Roman God Asclepius
Common Remedies
Although we have covered the medical practices that were not professional and heavily reliant on superstition, there were plenty of ideas that were indeed correct and useful considering what they had access to at the time. For example, fennel was used to treat problems with the nerves i.e. tremors. It was believed to calm down the nerves and make them more relaxed preventing them from firing off too uncontrollably. Then there was barley which was used as an anti-inflammatory (a preventor of inflammation). In places around the world today that do not have access to sophisticated medical treatment, people will use barley or beer (as it contains barley), to reduce their swelling. In this we can start to see a pattern, many of the Roman remedies consisted of things you could find all around you in the right environment. The Roman empire also stretched over many different climate zones. This shows that the Romans would have used almost anything edible and after being introduced to the population, people would start to see a pattern in who this may be able to help. This is where people like Galen would have come in. They were some of the smartest of their time and they must have used some form of testing to verify this. This unfortunately was most likely to be performed on slaves, who were mostly people from other civilisations, that the Romans had conquered. Overall, we can see that the Romans had some very advanced methods of discovering new treatments, they were mostly natural and consisted of things they could easily find in the environment around them and for their time were surprisingly effective.
Conclusion
Overall, we can see that there is lots of inspiration taken from the Greeks (to be referenced in the next chapter), they had excellent tool use which was highlighted in the treatments on the battlefield section and the resourcefulness to come up with excellent herbal remedies which were the main type of medicine at the time.
Greeks
The Greeks have been an inspiration to medicine. They are considered to be the founders of medical ethics and also greatly inspired the generations to come, in the same field. It leaves us to wonder how they may have functioned? What exactly did they inspire? What do we see from the Greeks in our medical system today?
How they approached medicine
The Greeks and Romans existed at similar times which means that the way we gather data on both civilisations is roughly the same. So instead of looking at the sources, we are going to focus on how the Greeks approached medicine. The Greeks approached medicine in a way that surprisingly differs from the Romans. The Greek treatments were based more on where you were and who you were. The Greek civilisation was almost less connected than the Roman Empire, which means that there were different specialist treatments for different regions. But for more common or frequent illnesses, you were generally able to get a cure for that anywhere. In the Roman chapter we explored how the Romans may have used religion as a scapegoat, using it to find an answer to things that they did not know. However, the Greeks seem to have a more blurred boundary between religious and scientific practices. Many things that doctors recommended at the time, are still recommended by doctors today, like eating a more ‘positive’ than ‘negative’ diet. Things in the positive section were cabbages (the earliest food considered to be a super-food) and others such as vegetables, meats, fish and most other foods they were able to find naturally. On the negative side is people eating too much of thease items. Later into the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates who was born on the Greek island of Cos, wrote a total of 60 books about how to practice medicine. He also wrote the Hippocratic oath which doctors still swear by a modern version of today. It tells people how to practice medicine ethically. In today’s medical system there are four main points based on the Hippocratic oath that guide doctors today. The four pillars are beneficence, which is about doing good for the patient, non-maleficence which is about doing no harm to the patient, justice which is about treating all patients equally and autonomy which is letting the patient decide in which way they want to be treated.
Fig 3. A section of the original Hippocratic oath written on papyrus.
From the website ‘How Stuff Works’
Inspiration brought to the Romans from the Greeks
The Greek practitioners eventually turned an eye to the Roman empire. It was a place where they could practice medicine and make discoveries for better pay than they were getting in Ancient Greece. The first recorded Greek doctor to go to the Romans was, Archagathus of Sparta. He arrived in about 219 BC and was followed by many other doctors and scientists in the medical field. Most of them started as prisoners of war, working in rich households to help their masters but many of them were quickly freed and allowed to conduct their research. The Romans were quick to adopt these ideas and the Roman doctors were able to analyse the discoveries and drastically build on them. Unfortunately, there was next to no discovery on human anatomy due to the fact that the Romans were against the dissection of the human body. Religious ideas were also quickly adopted by the Romans which is probably because both Romans and Greeks belived in the Olympian god. This means many of the amulets and gemstones used to help people with different illnesses do not seem to differ at all from the Romans and Greeks.
Greek medicine used in the modern world
Now the Olympian gods are only worshiped by a tiny fraction of people in Greece, so the religious side of things are not represented. The main types of things that we see today are food/ herbal remedies, writings about ethics and operative tools. Firstly, we will discuss the food and herbal remedies. From these times a common food we see is cabbage, which is considered to be the world’s first super food. Doctors at the time saw that it helped malnutrition, which the poor suffered from relentlessly because there was not enough food for them. Another example of a herbal remedy is willow bark. This is where you get aspirin which can help with pain and headaches. It is written in many scrips and texts to give two pieces of willow bark to the patient and tell them to come back the next morning to check up on them. Next is the writings and ethics. The main point on this is Hippocrates. He played a major role as described before in medical ethics. He is considered the father of medicine although this may be untrue. At the time the west were very focused on the Greeks and did not pay much attention to the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians. Although there were many important pioneers that could have been considered ‘fathers of medicine’ Hippocrates was boasted by the west and put in the limelight. Lastly, is the operative tools and skills. An important skill that was harnessed by the Greeks is cleaning the wound with cloth and warm water. This stopped lots of infection, proving very successful for millennia to come. They also developed more basic tools that the Romans took inspiration from. However, it does not stop there; the Arabs the Chinese, Japanese, much of East and west Africa and lots of the modern world also took inspiration from the Greeks. This really goes to show why people refer to the Greeks, as the pioneers of modern medicine.
Lifestyle
An important factor to observe when considering why the Greeks were successful for their time is lifestyle. Amazingly, people were recognising what activities or food items would have positive effects on them and which would have negative effects. Unlike other big armies at the time the Greeks would not force their soldiers to overwork. This ensured that they had enough time to rest and in general they would suffer from less injuries. This was later picked up by the Romans, who used this to their advantage and is probably one of the main reasons that they were so successful and became one of the biggest empires at the time. Turning back to the Greeks, perhaps one of the most amazing things is what happened in schools. Their children were obliged to exercise and not just for strength reasons but also because they believed it improved mental health which recently
has been proven (see link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902068/). It seems almost unimaginable that over two millennia ago, they already practised this, yet we only pay attention to it now. Then there was food promotion. At the Olympic games, doctors that had recently discovered that a certain food has health benefits or physical benefits in some way, would advertise their discovery for thousands of people to see. This would help the doctor rise in the ranks and make more money. The items were normally things that the winning athletes used to prove to people that they worked. In fig 4 we can see some of the foods the Greek would have eaten from the 3rd Century BCE. The image shows lots of olive oil, some wine, bread and other vegetables. These are all things that would typically come up in the average Greek person’s diet. There are some items that were regularly consumed that have missed out here, such as honey, fish and meats. The main meats were probably lamb and pork with the other meats such as beef and chicken being delicacies, as they were much harder to get in that part of the world at that time.
From: What did the people of Athens eat around the third century BC?
Conclusion
The Greeks may not have been as advanced as the Romans in surgery or with their main remedies, however they pioneered ethics and were some of the most successful at keeping people healthy, by improving many aspects of their lifestyle. Their diet was very varied and not just concentrated on one food group. They really were a big part of the foundation for medicine and thrived because of it.
Fig 4 common food that the Greeks ate.
Arabic
Arabic medicine is one of the most successful of its time. They were able to effectively use the power that they had and make many discoveries in the field of science but we will be focusing on medicine. We will look into what factors caused them to be so successful and why the things they discovered are so significant today. To clear up any confusion, the Arab empire references a few different caliphates that had the same policies all based on Islam. The different Caliphates were Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517).
There are a range of different factors that may have contributed to this. Firstly, there is money. Although we don’t like to admit it, in the scientific world if you want to make a big and important discovery, then you need lots of money. In the empire there were about 475 million people and from around 300 to 400 million of them would have had to pay Zakat tax. Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam for those who can afford it and because the vast majority of people who lived in the Arab empire were Muslim, it meant from this tax alone, the empire collected countless amounts of money. They then used this money to invest in many different things like education and housing but also medicine. The second key contributing factor is religion. As we have explored in the Roman and Greek section, from religion can arise superstition and misleading treatment that in fact do nothing but give the patient a placebo effect. However, in their case, the prophet Mohammed said, ‘For every disease Allah has given a cure’. This means that if the doctors could not find a cure, they would actively be trying to find one not just passing it off as something that the gods can fix. This really helped the empire in terms of disease treating. There were also prayers that were conducted for the sick but this in turn with a proper remedy gave the patients much better chances than in the Roman and Greek empire which shows that this was also a big contributing factor. Lastly, is how they used the knowledge of their predecessors. All through history people have been standing on the shoulders of giants, and the medics of the Arab empire were no different. They were able to translate the Greek texts from early on in their history. They were first translated in the Abbasid empire in Baghdad, but they were later spread through the whole empire. This ment that the Arab empire was able to get a big boost in knowledge and they were able to build on what has already
been discovered and they did not have to discover it themselves. This means that they were able to advance their tools and equipment much faster and make many more complex discoveries.
Surgery
Surgery is a very important part of medicine. For tens of thousands of years people have been operating in very different ways. We have evolved from drilling into the skull to relieve a headache, to performing heart transplants. In the Arabic empire there were many advancements in surgery that has helped form a foundation for what surgery was built on today. The first big surgery we are going to cover is the cataract surgery. The surgery was developed in ancient Greece, but a more effective method was used in the Arab empire. Couching is where you insert a needle into the cornea and push the clouded lens out of the way. This only had a four in ten success rate, but for its time this was very impressive and was used though the whole empire. The main causes of failure were glaucoma, where the pressure in your eye is too high. When they moved the lens, there was nothing stopping the eye and because of the high pressure from the glaucoma, it would crush your optic nerve and cause blindness that could not be treated. There was also a chance that your eye could become infected after the needle went in. The second common surgery is cauterisation, when a wound become badly infected, beyond thhe treatment they had then, or somone had been badly wounded, they would amputate. If somone had an amputation or a cut that was openly bleeding and could not be sealed, the doctors would burn the wound stopping the blood flow. This would close of that part and turn it into a stump. This prevented big blood loss after an amputation and heavily reduced the risk of infection. But it had to be done with caution as it can burn you, cause severe pain and can kill healthy living parts of your body. Lastly, is bloodletting, this is a very controversial operation as it relies on things that have been disproven. For example, Hippocrates theory of the four humours. This says that our body has four fluids all in different organs, they are blood (the most important), phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Bloodletting was used to ensure all the four humours were at balance again, which is said to stop sickness. Although this was disproven, the Arabs were able to take the initiative to find a way to treat this and do what they thought was greatly helping people.
In the Arab empire, there were big faces and figures that we don’t look at as much as the Greek ones like Galen or Hippocrates. There are many people that made big discoveries in the Arab empire and in this section, we are going to take a look at a few of them and what they are famous for. Ibn al Sina was considered to be the father of Arab medicine. He was most famous for writing the cannon of medicine. The cannon, published in 1045, was a long list of all the medicine and what they were used for, and all the medical discoveries made up until that time. It was published 36 times between the 15th and 16th century and is considered to be the most influential book of the Middle Ages. AlRazi was the first person to identify smallpox and differentiate it from measles. This was a big thing because smallpox is a disease that was around for a long time, and they were able to treat patients differently from the ones that had measles. Thirdly we have Ibn Nafis. He was able to discover pulmonary circulation. This is where de oxygenated blood leaves your heart, goes to your lungs, is oxygenated and comes back to your heart to be pumped around the body. He was able to make this discovery by dissecting animals, as at this time it was still considered very rude and disrespectful to dissect a real person after they had died. This was a big step to understanding the blood circulation system in your body and it gave people an insight into why you needed to breath to live. The last physician we are going to look at is Al Zahrawi he is considered the father of surgery and is most famous for introducing a staggering 200 new operative tools. He pioneered many new surgeries which did and still do change peoples’ lives. His book titled ‘On surgery’, talks about most of the surgery that had been discovered up until that point. He also dedicated a few chapters to his newly discovered surgery. It also lists every 200 operating tool he invented and what and when they should be used. In fig 7 you can see some of the tools and how they were listed in his book. Now this is only the tip of the iceberg, to what was discovered by Arabic physicians and there are many more that should be revered for their work, but we do not have time to look at them all so we will move onto the next section.
Fig 7. Some of the operative tools listed in al Zahrawi’s book ‘On Surgery’
Public health
Centred around Baghdad, the Arab empire really developed their public health system, especially after 900 AD. It all seemed to start when Arabic doctors or healers at the time started collecting Greek notes and writings and turning those into encyclopaedias and journals. Then many doctors started learning from them, refining their skill and providing more information for the Arabic empire doctors. Slowly, more and more people started to become interested in medicine and the amount of interest was rising exponentially. By 900 AD Medicine had become so popular it was regarded as a science. The different Sultans were starting to take interest and were building many hospitals. Anyone was allowed to use the hospitals, as long as they were civilians. Rich, poor, Muslim, nonMuslim: this was now one of the best places in the world to be treated. Even women were now allowed to become doctors, meaning that they were one of the first empires to allow women into medicine. Another reason they were so successful is because of hygiene. They had cleaner water than any other places at that time, reducing the risk of infection. Hospitals would also be regularly cleaned, this avoided infection, so the hospitals were not rammed to the brim, so doctors had more time with each patient. This means that there was a higher survival rate of each patient. The situation there was even better than Europe hundreds of years later.
Arabic medicine in modern times
Just like with the Greeks and Romans, we can see evidence of what they discovered in modern medicine and this, of course is no different with Arabic medicine. One example of this is control groups. Not all discoveries were tools of medicines. There were also methods of how to do things properly in medicine. When having a study to test a new medicine, there will be a trial. One group will receive the real drug and the other will receive a placebo. Both groups will not know what they are receiving. This shows if the drug is more effective than the placebo effect (your body feeling better as it has had something that it thinks is medicine). This has been influential up until modern times in helping scientists test drugs and see if something truly works or it is just your mind making you feel much better.
Conclusion
The Arabic empire was an extremally successful empire they built on the ideas of Romans and their ideas have been used for many centuries. It is clear that they were a key factor in solidifying the foundation that modern medicine has been built on. And many to come after them have looked up to the Arabs and aspired to be as successful as them.
Dark ages and early Middle Ages
After the fall of the Roman empire, the territories that are now considered England were cut off and refused help by the Roman lords. With the constant threat of Gallic tribes and the introduction of Christianity, people turned to religion and started rejecting previous ideas based on fact. We will be looking at why there was such a decline in medical knowledge and why the population was left almost where they started, with public health.
Sources
The dark ages and early Middle Ages are foggy and forgotten. There are certainly no more family tales from those ages and archaeological finds are few and far between. The churches had strict grasp on daily life, very few people recorded what life and the medical situation was like. A few monks have been known to record down some records of doing things, but they mostly refer to older more feral practices. And all of them have a bias to the church so when reading them we have to be quite careful about trusting everything that they write down, unless it has been backed by hard evidence which again is very hard to find. There were not really any official hospitals, so there was no patient records.
Religion
At the time the Roman empire had fallen, and people were in a panic. Europe was constantly at war, as the lands where the Romans were settled were up for grabs to anyone. This led to people looking to religion. Islam and Judaism were constantly growing, but people favoured Christianity as it was one of the biggest religions at the time. There were now churches in every town and therefore people also turned to them for medical help. The church really focused on the teaching the views of people like Galen because their theories matched up with what the church wanted. This prevented anyone from making further discoveries and progressing in medicine. The church actually allowed dissections, but you were only allowed to release your results if it matched up with pre discovered theories. There were things like bloodletting which have been proved to only have negative effects but were still used. However, if you were an average person in the medieval period then, you were more likely to seek spiritual help for free or seek help from somone who really had no idea what they are doing. The ideas of heaven and hell also played a role in this. To your average serf or peasant, you would work tirelessly in horrible conditions to ‘re pay your debts to society’ just to be allowed into heaven. The conditions would have played a role in you becoming more susceptible to illness. Lastly is prayer. People in the medieval times would rely so heavily on prayer that no one focused on other treatments. They did not develop anything and even went back to more rudimentary treatments. So as we can see here that they relied heavily on ancient discoveries, but also seemed to go backwards, not actively discovering anything new.
Fig 8. A man with sweating sickness being prayed to.
Hygiene
One of the biggest issues in the middle and dark ages that caused disease was hygiene. People were not aware that germs existed, and this caused them massive problems with the spreading of disease. Firstly, is the water. At this time the majority of the population lived in small villages that were owned by a lord. If they wanted to get water, they would have to draw water from a well. The water had gone through no treatment and killed many that drank it. Instead, people drank very light ale, which contained sugar which in turn affected lots of people diet wise. There was also washing with water. Running water was an extremely rare commodity and was very expensive to heat up. If people could access any, they would use a little and pour cold water over themselves with a jug. Considering that 80% of the population did manual labour, people would get very dirty, so with having limited access to water that they can clean with, disease would spread fast in villages. In the city things were no better. Diseases would spread easily with the people tightly packed together and unlike the town they had no streams that everyone could access. In the villages they could dispose of sewage down the streams, but in the city, this could not be done and much off the sewage ended up on the street. This intern with all the animal droppings, spread many pathogens around the city making more people unwell. Another place that they failed in hygiene is keeping their things clean. Since most cloths were made by the mother and most people did not have that many, cloths were not washed often and this led to pathogens building up and again spreading. For bedding most people used straw, but kept the same straw for ages this again leads to pathogens forming. One of the only things that the people of the Middle Ages excelled in is teeth hygiene. Before people have belived that they had bad teeth health, but this is inaccurate. They would grind cloves with salt and use this with a hazel twig that they have chewed in order to clean their teeth. They also used ash (which is an alkaline) to wash away any grease on their hands before a meal. Toilets were (sometimes) emptied into a cesspit which people would have to clean. This obviously would harbour all kinds of harmful microorganisms.
Fig 9. A hazel twig that people may have cleaned their teeth with.
Black Death
The black death killed around 30 to 45 percent of Europe and at its height had around a 75% fatality rate. It is thought to have arrived on trading ships from east China, then through rats and flees, quickly infected many people across Europe. This will have caused boils with blood fever nausea and eventually in most cases death within 2 to 7 days. In the most extreme cases you could wake up contract the disease and be dead the next morning. So many people were dying at this time, that they had to dig mass graves to bury people in. Hundreds of people could be buried in one pit called a plague pit. At this time if you were thought to have the plague. Your family would most likely abandon you to save themselves. Doctors would refuse to see you and after you die, they would burn your house to make sure there is no remanence of you left. There were many more returns of the disease, but it soon stopped coming back on a large scale. Now we have vaccines and medicine to treat against it so it hardly ever makes an appearance with about 7 cases a year. After this deadly pandemic, there were much less peasants to farm the land. This eventually led to the peasants being paid and the quality of living going up for everyone.
Conclusion
Overall, we can see that through the Middle Ages, due to warfare and extreme religious beliefs, people struggled to make any progress in medicine. The black death contributed to the ensuring that almost half the population died, sending millions into a state of panic. This era was widely uncontrolled and unorganised with the majority of the population in extreme poverty. Thease facts combined stopped any progress in medicine and set the population of Europe back to where they started in terms of medicine.
Overall conclusion
We can see how all of the different people in different ages, did different things and treated diseases in different ways. They all have different perspectives of how to treat things due to what was available in their surroundings, the conditions they were under and even the different religions. With the Romans and Greeks, we saw their different approaches to medicine considering that they were some of the first of their time and were not building on much prior knowledge. We saw how in the Arabic empire, they had advanced systems of public health and training doctors and how they were some of the first to believe that every illness has a treatment, that is not necessarily a religious approach. Lastly, with the Middle Ages and dark ages we saw how, with bad hygiene, religion and the black death, their medical experiences and knowledge they had collected almost went into reverse. Some of the similarities between all these eras is that they have encompassed religion into their practices, whether to a small or large extent. Yet they all seem to differ with some of the remedies as they are in different places at different times battling different diseases. We still take knowledge from each of them for example: using barley as an anti-inflammatory from the Romans, the Hippocratic oath from the Greeks, the use of a placebo pill in a clinical trial and some of the earliest forms of toothbrush and toothpaste. In the future we will take many of these ideas on with us, refine some and perhaps even prove some wrong. Yet we will not forget how thease civilisations helped build the foundation of modern medicine and what is yet to come.
