A Numerological Speculation

[ecosophia]

In the course of some recent reflections on numerology, I've come up with an interesting (at least to me) theory about why it works so well. Plenty of people have objected to the notion that the name your parents happened to give you, spelled in the English alphabet -- that clumsy confection of historical accidents -- should have anything to do with your personality and destiny. They've also pointed out that there's no consistency between sound values and numerology in different languages:  in English, for example, G is 7, while the same sound in Hebrew is assigned to the letter Gimel, which has the numerical value of 3.

Eppur si muove, as Galileo said: and yet it does move. In the same way, absurd as it is, numerology does seem to work.

My speculation is based on how children in the US -- me, for example -- learn the English alphabet. As far as I know, it's always taught by way of a little song, with a tune closely related to those other childhood favorites, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep." I'm pretty sure that if I started singing "A, B, C, D, E, F, G..." to the familiar tune, every one of my readers who grew up speaking English in the United States could match me note for note. (If you need a reminder, you can listen to the song here.)

So every person who learned the English alphabet that way has, hardwired into his or her brain, a sense of the alphabet as a sequence, in which each letter has a fixed place. If numbers have archetypal meanings at an even deeper level of the mind, as Carl Jung argued, then learning the letters in a fixed sequence like that would be more than enough to link the letters to the numbers and their meanings. What's more, that would explain why different alphabetical systems of numerology work equally well despite differences in sound values; if you grew up in Israel and absorbed Gimel as the third letter, that'll be the correlate of the number 3 for you, all through your life.

Now here's where I need some help. I have no idea how children learn alphabets outside the United States. What jingle, if any, children sing along with the alphabet in Britain and Australia is a mystery to me, to say nothing about places, alphabets, and non-alphabetic writing systems further afield. So what I'd like to ask is this:

1) If you grew up speaking and reading English outside the United States, was there a rhyme or a jingle your parents or teachers used to get you to learn the alphabet in sequence?

2) If you grew up speaking and reading a language other than English, how did you learn that language's writing system? Was there a song, a poem, or some other sequential method, or was it a completely different approach?

3) If you grew up speaking and reading a language other than English, is numerology practiced in that language, and if so, how does it work? (I'm especially interested here in non-alphabetic writing systems -- syllabaries like Korean hanggul, for example, or ideographs like Chinese.)

What say you, readers?  Inquiring Druids want to know!

Comments

Unnecessary Cruelty

[degringolade]

I raised my kids the nineties. I was unfortunate enough that they developed a deep and abiding love of Barney the Dinosaur. I gave in because Barney on the TV gave me enough time to make dinner while they were glued to his evil visage.

Anyway, the jingle to learn the Hebrew alphabet can be found here.

https://youtu.be/UmIImOa0hY8

Misery Loves Company.

You're Welcome

Re: Unnecessary Cruelty

[(Anonymous)]

This one's probably more palatable to those who don't like purple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0LSBeX5uYw

Follow the bouncing ball at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet#Alphabet

It appears some of the letters have two versions or incarnations, because the singers bounce on them twice but with slightly different pronunciations.

- Cicada Grove

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up speaking and reading English in, er, England. As far as I recall, and we're going back a bit here, no rhyme or jingle was involved. However I was taught to read by my mother before I went to school (which seemed to cause them a lot of trouble) so my experience may not be typical.

[(Anonymous)]

This is uncanny. I was just reflecting about how in New Zealand, the old way that people used to learn Maori, was to essentially, meditate upon the sounds of the vowels in order to ascertain the meaning. There was no middle layer of translation to a concept. This old way of learning the language has largely fallen into abeyance, apart from in a few staunch areas that still teach Te Reo by the old methods.

I suspect its the same force that powers numerology, in effect, you are drawing down, invoking powers from another level. What better way to embody those powers than through your name, a collection of sounds attached to concepts that is used over and over again.

[adara9]

I learned a different, Christianity-themed US jingle, in addition to the one you mentioned. And boy did I have a tricky time keeping track of which tune started which version. The words for the alternative one I learned were as follows:

A B C D E F G
Jesus died for you and me
H I J K L M N
Jesus died for sinful men, amen!
O P Q R S T U
I believe God's word is true
U V W
God has promised you
X Y Z
A home eternally

(If you want to hear the tune, here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMPLL0q9jc )

Not sure if that would have an effect on the numerology, but figured I'd add the data point.

Alphabet rhyme

[frittermywig]

Canadians use the same jingle, but with a dissonant ending: "w, x, y, and zed!" That final syllable must always be sung with patriotic fervo(u)r!

Re: Alphabet rhyme

[hearthspirit]

LOL.

Don't forget that you must also sing it in French immediately afterwards to the same tune (no switching between languages on alternate verse like the national anthem):

Ah, bay, say, day, euh, eff, zhe (so many people mispronounce that one), osh, ee, gee, kah, ell, em, en, oh, pay...

[(Anonymous)]

same in australia...the jingle

[(Anonymous)]

Seconded - in Australia, at least 30 years ago, we did the song (except we sang 'Zed'!).

[thinking_turtle]

As far as I know, the human body produces the hormone that enables long term memories at your 6th or 7th year. Memories from before that time seem real, but are really stories that others told you. So I don't think anyone remembers how they learned their primary language's writing system.

You could visit a school and watch how it happens. My guess is that young children try to copy adults, try some more, and retain what carries the adults' approval.

I am not aware of any numerology in the Dutch language, but I read your numerology posts, and they worked for me. At first I was in complete disbelief, but eventually they really changed my self perception.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't believe that's wholly true, because both I and my partner formed a few much earlier memories. The few memories I have from the 3-5 age range are not things my parents would have told me about years later, being brief visual impressions of mostly minor personal experiences and places. I learned to read about the time I turned three and have no memory of learning or of being unable to read, but clearly remember singing the alphabet song as something that was already very familiar and deeply embedded in my mind when I was little.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[(Anonymous)]

I can't find the original song from my Russian classes so long ago, but this song is similar and the chars are in the right sequence as I recall them.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=GIKX9RYOX5w

[open_space]

The jingle is similar in mexico with the spanish sounds

[daveotn]

Thanks - I wondered since I learned the regular American jingle, with differently pronounced letters, in both Spanish and French classes in the US, and I wasn't sure if that was the US education system at work or something "authentic." Interestingly, Spanish throws the ñ in as a separate letter which may produce a simple, one-variable change to test JMG's hypothesis on.

[(Anonymous)]

Technically, hangul is alphabetic, not syllabic. The alphabetic factors get lumped into structures that mimic Chinese characters and represent syllables, but each factor in a given "character" is actually a phonemic symbol.

I don't know anything about Korean numerology, but when I lived in Japan and studied esoteric traditions there, I encountered a few numerological systems that employed numerical values for the kana, or else built values from stroke count and stroke order of the kanji. I would guess that the latter style of numerology has its roots in China, but I cannot say for certain.

[weilong]

You beat me to the punch regarding the Japanese way. My father in law knew all about that kind of thing, and helped us out with choosing the children's names. All based on the stroke count, even if purely phonetic characters are used (girls' names can be just hiragana).

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up in Ireland and I remember learning a very similar ditty to the one you linked to.

I used to watch Sesame Street a lot as a kid in the 70s and they featured a lot of alphabet songs too.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

A friend of mine from S. Africa was singing the alphabet song and something seemed off. She paused at N, whereas I being from the US keep going through P. singing L M N O P feels like running downhill, stopping at N just feels wrong

Re: SA

[(Anonymous)]

From England here, can confirm we do the fast L M N O P aswell.

[(Anonymous)]

This would suggest that when the order of letters change, the numerology change as a result; which implies then that in cases where character order changed (such as Japanese from the iroha order to the gojuon order) the effects on numerology will be after the change.

If, on the other hand, the numerology comes first, then the changes in the numerology ought to precede the changes in ordering. Hmm.

[ecosophia]

That would indeed be an implication -- except that, as some commenters noted above, the usual way of doing numerology in Japan works via number of brushstrokes, not via order of kana.

Germany

[emily07]

...I teach my little one the song. Ö,ä,ü,eu, au etc. gets added in later. I suppose it was the same when I was a kid, but I'm not sure anymore (like: where did I get the song?!), learning to write was learing first single letters, then combined, I think starting with e, a supposedly easy letter in the kind oft script I learned (vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift).

Form what I'm reading here I get reminded of the story of I think Toth (the egyptian God) who passed on writing, so it IS divine...

Three language context

[vitranc]

2) So, I grew up slowenian, and there was a song to learn the alphabet. Preaty simple and basically the same as english. Sample
But this was not really the way I learned the alphabet. I sort of blurted the letters out in a monoton row.

Now for my foregin languages, I learned the coresponding alphabets by simply appending and cutting letters.
So there was no musical connection on an individual level for me, in any of my languages.

3) I looked it up and numerology is practiced in the same way. I even did my calculations by hand. And I would point you to your previous posts on numerology for some interesting data points, that I pointed out at that time. Link

Also my final calculation and interpretation using the german language. Link

Best regards,
V

[(Anonymous)]

Does it mean numerology won't work for a deaf person?

[ecosophia]

An interesting question. Do you happen to know how deaf people learn the printed alphabet?

You'd be surprised

[(Anonymous)]

The ABC song you refer to is much more widespread than you might assume, since English is a lingua franca. Some years ago I was mildly surprised to hear Chinese-speaking kids in the rural highlands of northeastern Burma sing it passably well. Well, they needed help with "now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me", but the melody and alphabet was already familiar. They knew "Frère Jacques" too, but with Chinese words, and when I sang a few bars in French they said I was doing it wrong. :-)

I am a resident of Thailand, and the classic alphabet jingle is easy to find:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRqdAiPg618

As far as numerology here, hmmm, I'd have to look into that. Most fortune tellers here use either Tarot cards or simple clairvoyance.

John N.

Re: You'd be surprised

[deborah_bender]

I learned the end of that song as "Now I know my ABCs; tell me what you think of me." Otherwise the same American version.

Alphabet songs

[(Anonymous)]

We were living in Greece when my kids began schooling in the Greek public school. Although they weren’t taught a song in school (though their dad made up a song for them), the Greek alphabet in modern pronunciation is very chant-worthy! The kids recited / chanted it together out loud in class, and we practiced it at home, too. I’ll spell out the modern ‘chant’ here:

Alpha, Veeta, Gamma, Dhelta, Epsilon,
Zeeta, Eeta, Theeta, Yota, Kappa, Lamdha,
Mee, Nee, Xee, Omicron, Pee,
Rho, Sigma, Taph,
Eepsilon, Phee, Khee, Psee, Omega.

I would think that chanting or rhythmical recitation out loud would have a similar neural impact as singing, especially when done in a group.

Fun question, JMG!
Winifred Hodge Rose

Alphabet Jingle

[(Anonymous)]

I'm from England and can very much confirm we use the same 'twinkle, twinkle' jingle you described from the US. I still use it today.

[(Anonymous)]

Here in Brazil, there was no song when I learned the alphabet. I can't remember ever having encountered any reference to such a song.

Letters with cedille or accents are not considered different letters here, so our numerological attributions are exactly the same as the English ones. A quick internet search indicates that French, Italian and Spanish also use the same attributions, though the "ñ" is officially a distinct letter in Spanish (I thought the "ll" was also distinct, but apparently it was suppressed by a reform in 2010).

[scotlyn]

As a child I learned the Spanish alphabet as a chant*, not a song, which included the sequence "ele, eye, eme, ene, enye, oh, pe" (l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p)... there were deffo two extra letters there, then. :)

* I also learned the English alphabet as the song mentioned in OP

[(Anonymous)]

Here in Brazil technically our alphabet lacked K, W, and Y (although they were used, for example, in km) until the 1990 spelling agreement. So there is a solid base of these letters "not being" in the alphabet. How would this impact numerology?

[ecosophia]

That's a good question which I can't answer yet. Is numerology popular in Brazil, and if so, do they use the same number-to-letter correspondences as English?

[(Anonymous)]

There's an equivalent to this jingle in German which most of the children I know including my could sing in kindergarten. In school, however, you learn the letters in a different order, usually starting with the vowels u,o and a and a few consonants to form simple syllables. Once they have learnt all the vowels, they start learning diphtongs and continue with the consonants though it may take some time until they have learnt them all. From what I can see from my children and what I can remember from my own time at primary school, the order of the letters in the alphabet never plays a significant role. Interestingly, they can all recite the alphabet anyway.

Cheers,
Nachtgurke

[scottyc]

Asked the wife about memorizing hiragana as a child in Japan.

She does not remember any song such as the A,B,C tune or any "games", just drill memorizing the hiragana chart by going along one axis of the chart (a, i, u, e, o then ka, ki, ku, ke, ko and so on) then the other axis (a, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma and the rest then next column to i, ki, shi, chi and so on). Things may be different today but no catchy tunes she remembers for the kids in early 70's Japan.

Memorizing kanji in a catchy tune: fuggedaboutit.

[sinners4diseasecontrol]

There's still no song for it here in Japan. They seem to go about education rather bureaucratically. But they do teach the ABC song, and did you know that it has three Gs in it?
Yes! Ei Bii Shii Jii Ii Effu Jii! Echi Ai Jei Kei Eru Emu Enu O Pii! (Just joking. Actually, they try to distinguish the D by calling it "day" and the Z is "zeddo")

[(Anonymous)]

Spanish speaker here. So, for what is worth:
2. I don’t remember any poem, rhyme or something like a sequential method to learn the alphabet in a fixed order. As a fact, the first consonant I learned at school was “L”. I can remember a highly visual focus aimed to associate the sound with the form of the letter and *avoid* naming the letter at all cost. As a result, people here relate every letter with a picture, vgr. “o-ojo” and a picture of an eye, not a song.
3. Numerology is practiced, but it is limited, such as for birthdays or dates, like “the numbers of your birthday sums X, so you are this and that”. I’ve never seen clear assignments of numbers to certain letters.
For the records, 2010 orthography reform suppressed 2 letters.
-Edu

[(Anonymous)]

You're wright, as native spanish speaker too, I remember that learning system in my far childhood. I have no more to say...
Saludos.

-A Spaniard.

[(Anonymous)]

Fwiw,

The Dutch alphabet is identical to the English, and it also teaches the ABCs using the same tune. Numerology works seemingly the same.

- Brigyn