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Forgive me if this is not the sort of question you like. I'm new here.

Several years ago I came across the work of Stan Tenen, available at meru.org, who appears to have made some impressive discoveries. For instance, that all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are projections of (i.e. shadows cast by) a single geometric figure, derived from a torus. Also, that if Hebrew scripture is read as a string of letters rather than a word- or idea-level narrative, it exhibits distinctive symmetries. Tenen writes,

these patterns are so strong that if any letter had been miscopied, added, or omitted, it could be uniquely replaced by reference to the pattern of the other letters alone.

My question is just to ask what you guys think of this stuff. It strikes me as fascinating.

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  • I find the mem = womb association interesting. Rav Hutner points out that every word (in any language) for "mother" includes the vowel "m".
    – pcoz
    Commented Nov 17, 2021 at 0:49
  • @rosends The Asian languages don't follow Rav Hutner's rule.
    – pcoz
    Commented Nov 17, 2021 at 3:27
  • @pcoz, I think his rule is about equivalents to "mom" or "mommy" than to the word for "mother". Linguists notice this and the usually given theory is that babies make the sounds articulated with the lips first -- ב, מ, פ. Not ו, the /w/ sound, that's hard to learn. Usually מ comes first. So, the sound first used to get mommy to come running ends up being the standard endearing term for mothers. Fathers -- the second sound, which is ב (with a voice from the vocal chords) or פ (same mouth motions, no voice). Commented Nov 17, 2021 at 14:07
  • @pcoz in Mandarin, "mommy" is "māmā", both "a"s in first tone (flat, neither ascending or descending). In Japanese it's "mama". So, I stand by my understanding of the rule attributed to R Hutner. Aside from linguists generally agreeing. Commented Nov 17, 2021 at 14:09

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