Symmetry in words and phrases is a curious phenomenon, although it can not always be noticed. For centuries and millennia, more and more interesting categories have appeared: anagrams, ambigrams, pantograms, etc. But in this case we will talk about such a thing as palindrome words, examples of which are very interesting. What is it?
Essence
Palindromes are words and phrases that have symmetry. They can be read in the usual way - from left to right, and vice versa, and the meaning does not change at all. This explains the name itself: in Greek, it means "running backwards." In Russian, the palindrome is also often called the "word-shifter." Usually, this concept refers to linguistic constructions. But sometimes we can also talk about shifters-numbers, drawings and even notes! In general, these are words or phrases. For example, "stamping", "Anna" and the longest palindrome in the Russian language - "rotator". But in reality, everything is not so simple, because people like to play with words, which allows them to come up with new ways to see the unexpected in everyday life.
Varieties
In addition to the main meaning and appearance, the word-shifter can also be something else. When people were already tired of writing such words, but they had not yet taken up the phrases, geometric figures came into play . So-called “whirlpools” appeared - phrases recorded, for example, on a cylinder, which could be read the same way when rotating both clockwise and counterclockwise. There is a famous example related to a similar type of palindrome. The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky once gave his lover Lilya Brik a ring. On the inside of the decoration was engraving. Only three letters - L, Yu, B, which were also her initials. But during rotation, they evolved into an infinite "love."
Another variety, which is also referred to as palindromes, is the words that, when repeated, form one more. It is easier to consider this with examples: since the basement is tso, as is a can of ban, etc.
Another borderline form of a palindrome is a word or combination that, when reading from left to right, has one meaning and the other way around: “the world is comfortable”, “nose”, “city”, etc.
There are even more complex examples: bilingual, with a vertical spread and other transformations, because people like to come up with new uses for the language.
In linguistics
First of all, it will, of course, be about how a word-shifter or the same phrase is used in a particular language. In general, the history of palindromes goes back to ancient times. The first such phrase is considered the Latin Sator Arepo tenet opera rotos, which translates as "Sower Arepo hardly holds wheels." Usually this palindrome is written in the form of a square, and you can read it not only from left to right and vice versa, but also vertically. It is believed that this phrase is about 2500 years old. However, much has changed since then. A lot of new examples have appeared, and this applies not only to the Russian language, but also to other European and also Oriental ones.
Not only linguists, but also mathematicians are interested in palindromes. According to their calculations, even if the dictionary is limited, theoretically the number of words and phrase-shifters can be infinite. So, what kind of flipping words are there?
Examples
There are people who are fond of composing palindromes. The rules of word formation, the structure of sentences, and the semantic load do not always remain unchanged. This is forgivable, because with increasing length it is becoming more and more difficult to compose a flip word or phrase. Fortunately, there are also extremely witty examples, often even whole poems.
In russian language:
- Argentina attracts a black man.
- Whale on the sea romantic.
- Anna lay welcome.
- He pressed the boar on the eggplant.
- Are cabbage soup food?
- Debry is a world of misfortune.
- I am a burdock by the field.
- We crave honey.
- Spring is Ev's chance.
- And the moon was sinking.
In English:
- Racecar.
- Tacocat.
- Madam, I'm Adam.
- Live not on evil.
Poetic forms can be very successful:
Me and you are the god, the ego of being.
Me and you - Bach echo of being.
Me and you are the bud of notes in being.
Me and you are the ballet of the body of being .
This is part of a work by Elena Katsyub, which created a whole dictionary of palindromes. In general, among the lovers of puzzle over letter combinations there were also very famous writers, scientists, mathematicians , etc.: M. Bulgakov, A. Fet, A. Voznesensky, N. Ladygin, G. Derzhavin, V. Khlebnikov and many others .
By the way, the longest word in the world is the word-shifter saippuakivikauppias in Finnish. This concept designates the seller of soap, and the most interesting thing is that this is a completely ordinary common language unit!
Palindromes in other areas
Do not think that this concept applies only to words and phrases. Any other recording methods can also lead to palindromes. Programming languages, mathematics, notes, even, to some extent, fine art - in all these areas you can find "shifters." Similar examples can be found in the works of Mozart or Mosheles.
Separately, it should be said about biology. In DNA, there are areas that are also called palindromes. Here they have a functional load - they allow you to increase the amount of encrypted information without increasing the number of nucleotides.