Focus on culture: Turkish coffee/Türk Kahvesi

Author: Silverije via Wikipedia Commons

Today’s blog post is taking us to Turkey (Türkiye) and to the tradition of Türk kahvesi or Turkish coffee, which is recognized as an Intangible Heritage of Turkey by UNESCO.

Türk kahvesi is a special method of coffee preparation (i.e. not a special kind of coffee bean) in which coffee is generally prepared unfiltered from roasted and finely ground coffee beans (kahve çekirdekleri; sing.kahve çekirdeği) which are simmered (but not boiled) in a cezve, a special Turkish coffee pot. The term cezve derives from the Arabic term جذوة‎‎ ’ember’. The coffee is served in a cup, fincan, where the coffee grounds (kahve telvesi) are allowed to settle. If prepared well, the coffee has a thick layer of foam at the top (köpük). The word for ‘coffee’ kahve comes from the Arabic word قهوة qahwah. The importance of coffee in Turkish culture is also reflected in the word kahvaltı, breakfast, which literally means ‘before coffee’ (kahve + altı ‘under/before’.

Cezve, a special Turkish coffee pot

To prepare Turkish coffee, finely ground coffee powder is immersed in hot, but not boiling, water. For each cup, 1 – 2 heaped teaspoons of coffee are used, which along with some sugar, are usually added to the water rather than first being placed into the coffeepot. The mixture is then heated until it starts to boil – at this point it is taken off the heat source. When prepared properly, a layer of foam called köpük forms on the surface of the coffee.

Author: Oliver Merkel, via Wikipedia Commons
Preparation of mocha coffee (Turkish Coffee). 1: Ground coffee, water, sugar, and heat source. 2, 3: heat the water till it starts bubbling. 4: add coffee. 5: continue heating and mixing. 6: heat until the mixture starts to rise, then take off the heat source to settle it down while mixing the upper part (repeated many times). This creates a foamy top. 7: pour and serve hot

Turkish culture distinguishes between four degrees of sweetness of the coffee, depending on the amount of sugar, şeker, that is added:

sade (plain; i.e. no sugar added)
az şekerli (little sugar; about half a level teaspoon of sugar)
orta şekerli (medium sugar; about one level teaspoon)
çok şekerli (a lot of sugar; 1.5 – 2 level teaspoons).

The coffee grounds left in the cup after finishing your fincan (cup) of Turkish coffee can be used for fortune-telling, called kahve falı or tasseomancy: the cup is turned over on the saucer to cool down and the patterns left by the coffee grounds, kahve telvesi, can then be interpreted to tell one’s fortune.

Author: Eaeeae via Wikipedia commons,
A Turkish cezve coffeepot

For more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coffee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cezve

Is there also a special beverage in your country or are there any special customs or superstitions associated with a beverage in your country? Tell us about it in the comments! 🙂

Vocabulary: ‘The weather’ in Celtic languages

Today’s blog post is continuing our series on the comparison of vocabulary of closely related languages and is taking us to the British Isles again, as well as to Brittany (Bretagne) in France, and to the various Celtic languages spoken there, namely Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, as well as Cornish and Breton. Our topic today is the weather and the most important words related to it. Both Welsh (Cymraeg) and Cornish (Kernewek) belong to the Brittonic group of the Celtic languages (to which also Breton Brezhoneg belongs), and Irish (Gaeilge) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) belong to the Goidelic group (to which also Manx Gaelg belongs).

The terms for these weather-related words in Cornish/Kernewek:

weather – kewer, sunshine – Howl, wind – gwyns, rainbow – kammneves, rain – glaw, clouds – kommol, thunder – taran, thunderstorm – hagarawel derednow, lightning – lughes, snow – ergh, hail – keser

and in Breton/Brezhoneg:

the weather – an amzer, sunshine – Heol, wind – avel, rainbow – kanevedenn, rain – glav, cloud – koumoul, thunder – taran, thunderstorm – arnev, lightning – luc’hed, snow – erc’h, hail – grizilh

Focus on culture: A calçada portuguesa (Portuguese pavement)

Author: Krzysztof Żwirski, via Wikipedia Commons, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, Lisboa (Belém).

Today’s blog post is taking us to western Europe and to South America, namely to Portugal and to Brazil and to a characteristic feature of public spaces in Portuguese-speaking towns and cities, a calçada portuguesa or mosaico português , or Portuguese mosaic pavement. This type of mosaic pavement can also be found in other Portuguese-speaking countries (=former Portuguese colonies).

Author: Miguelgouveia71, via Wikipedia Commons

The most characteristic feature of this type of pavement is that the paving stones are arranged in geometric or figurative patterns. These patterns are often, though not always, in black and white, and are made up of small stones, the so-called tessera, which are often irregular, and usually consist of black and white limestone (calcário negro/preto and calcário branco) or basalt (basalto). The stones are arranged on the ground according to either a linear sequence (friso, or frieze) or two-dimensional patterns (padrões). They are then hammered into place and are finally finished by a cement mix that is poured on them.

The workers who lay the pavement mosaics are called calceteiros. Once a profession performed by thousands, the number of craftsmen is dwindling nowadays, since low wages and the hard work fail to attract new apprentices. Traditional Portuguese mosaic pavements are therefore increasingly becoming restricted to conservation areas and other high-profile architectural projects due to the high cost involved in laying the stones, and the reduced longevity of the paving in comparison with other materials such as concrete (o betão) or bitumen (o betume). Another disadvantage of traditional paving is that the stones are prone to become very slippery when wet and that they may become loose and so constitute a hazard to pedestrians. However, in Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro traditional paving remains popular and can be found in nearly all wealthier areas.

Author: Carlos Marques da Silva, via Wikipedia Commons

Author: Miguelgouveia71, via Wikipedia Commons

Rio de Janeiro

Author: rdrs, via Wikipedia Commons

Is there also a distinctive feature to be found in the public space of towns or cities in your country or place of residence? Tell us about it in the comments!

Focus on Architecture: Chinese dougong brackets

Author: 663 highland via wikipedia Dougong brackets of the Sagami Temple in Japan

Today’s blog post is taking us to East Asia again, namely to China 中国 and a typical feature of Chinese architecture 中国建筑 (Zhōngguó jiànzhú), the dougong brackets (斗拱 dǒugǒng lit.’block [and] cap’).

Dougong brackets 斗拱 are a characteristic feature of Chinese wooden architecture and are a component of the network of wooden supports of a traditional timber frame structure. These interlocking brackets are necessary because the walls of these buildings are usually curtain walls 幕墙 Mùqiáng, i.e. they are not load-bearing, and often consist of latticework 格子gézi, mud 泥 ní or other more fragile materials. The walls in these buildings, instead of supporting weight, have the function of delineating space.

The weight of the roof and structure is supported by wooden columns 柱 zhù onto which a massive wooden block, the 斗 dou, is placed to form a solid base for the curved brackets 拱 gong, which in turn support the roof beams. The use of dougong brackets made a reduction of the number of pillars possible since each bracket increases the area of support of each column and transfers the weight of the horizontal beams to the vertical pillars over a larger area. Adding multiple interlocking dougong further reduces the strain on the horizontal beams and also makes the wooden structures more flexible and therefore more earthquake resistant.

There are two types of bracket sets, the 偷心 Tōu xīn (lit.’stolen heart’) and the 计心 jìxīn (lit.’the added heart’). The presence or the absence of the ‘heart’ refers to whether a lateral bracket – 拱 gong – passes through arms that lie perpendicular to the building plane or not. The use of 计心 jìxīn, or the ‘added heart’ bracket, enables several tiers of bracket arms to be added to a building (these are always perpendicular to the building plane). Both the 计心 jìxīn (‘added heart’) and 偷心 Tōu xīn (‘stolen heart’) brackets can feature an 昂 ang (lit. ‘to hold high, to raise, to lift’), i.e. a cantilever or level arm.

For more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougong

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wood_structure.png

For those of you who can read Chinese: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%97%E6%A0%B1#.E6.98.82

Chinese article on Dougong brackets (with illustrations) http://web2.nmns.edu.tw/Web-Title/china/A-3-1-4_display.htm

How to avoid mixing up closely related languages

Today’s blog post continuous our series on efficient learning and revision strategies in language learning and will show you some simple methods with which you can avoid mixing up closely related languages.

A simple but very efficient method of learning or revising closely related languages is to use textbooks and learning materials written in one of the languages to learn or revise the other one. To give an example, if you tend to mix up, let’s say, Spanish and Portuguese, or Spanish and Italian, then use some materials that are written in your ‘stronger’ language of the two to revise or learn the other. The great advantage of this method is that you see the two languages directly side by side in comparison. If you compare the vocabulary when revising, you will see exactly where the two languages converge and use a very similar or even identical word or expression, and where they depart and use a quite different word or phrase. A nice side effect of this technique is also that you can practice and revise two languages at the same time. And in the case that you really do not understand a word or phrase in either of the languages, you can always look up that word or phrase in a dictionary in your native tongue. A further advantage of using materials written for speakers of one of the two languages for learning the other is that these books and resources will usually point out the pitfalls precisely for speakers of one of the languages in learning the other and often contain tips on which aspects in particular to pay attention to avoid any such mistakes and ‘false friends’.

If you prefer online-resources to books, then you can use the same technique on duolingo, both for revision and to learn a new language. One of the nice things about this platform is that many languages are available in a wide range of language combinations, especially the more popular languages, so that you can choose one that suits you best, e.g. learning Italian via Spanish, or a Spanish-Portuguese combination, etc. The system will then show you exactly where the sentences in both languages converge and depart in their vocabulary and grammatical structures. Those readers who know the platform will know how strict the system is about a very precise translation of the words and sentences. If you practice regularly in this way, you will be far less likely to mix up the similar languages over time.

Colour perception in various languages

nepal-1321663_960_720

Today’s blog post will be about colour perception in different cultures and languages around the world.

The terms for colours cannot always be translated in a straightforward manner since some colours, esp. green and blue (“grue”) in some Asian languages, are often perceived differently from those in the West, and are considered separate colours in those countries whereas in English there is just one term for both shades or vice versa.

Russian

In Russian, there are two different terms for blue which are considered as separate colours and not just as shades of the same colour as in English: голубой (‘goluboy’) light blue and синий (‘siniy’) dark blue.

Hungarian

In Hungarian, there are two separate terms for red: piros is a bright red and vörös is a dark red.

German

In German, there are two different terms for pink: Pink is the same bright saturated shade as in English, but when the colour is pale pink it is called rosa.

‘Grue’ or green and blue in various Asian languages

The origin of the perception of a green-blue (‘grue’) colour, which in English is called ‘teal’ or is seen as two separate colours (blue and green), comes from the Chinese character 青 (qīng).

The colour qīng 青 can mean either of the colours that in English are referred to as ‘green’, ‘blue’, or ‘black’, depending on the context and the nouns or fixed phrases it is used with. To give an example, qing means ‘blue’ when used with ‘sky’ 青天 (qīngtiān) or ‘eyes’青眼 (qīngyǎn) , but ‘black’ when used with ‘hair’ 青丝(qīngsī) and ‘green’ when used with the character for ‘mountain’ 青山 (qīngshān), ‘grass’青草 (qīngcǎo) or ‘vegetables’ 青菜 (qīngcài).

Qing 青 , according to tradition, is the colour of things that are born and the term 青春 (qīngchūn ‘green spring’) means youth. This is connected to its meaning ‘black’ since young people in China have dark hair, or 青鬓 (qīng bìn) ‘black temple hair’, an idiom referring to young people. Qing can also refer to black clothes or fabrics and one of the main female roles in Chinese opera, 青衣 (qīngyī), refers to the fact that most actors wear black clothing.

Qing can also refer to the colour ‘blue’, which originates from the dye bluegrass which in ancient times was used to dye things in the colour of qing. The idiom 青出於藍，而勝於藍／青出于蓝，而胜于蓝 (qīngchūyúlán ér shèng yú lán, ‘blue comes from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant itself’) describes how a student could come to excel their teacher.

The character 青qing originally derives from the components for 生 ‎’growth of plants‘ and 丹 ‎’cinnabar‘, which was also used for dyeing and by extension came to refer to ‘colour’ in general, so 青qing came to be known as the ‘colour of growing plants’ and green-blue, and came to describe a range of colours from light green through blue to deep black 玄青 (xuánqīng). Over time, the character for cinnabar was exchanged with the similar character for ‘moon’月.

The modern Mandarin Chinese language, however, also has the blue–green distinction with 蓝/ 藍 lán for blue and 绿 / 綠 lǜ for green. Another peculiarity of Chinese colour perception is the case of ‘red’ 红 / 紅, hóng and ‘pink’ 粉红, fěn hóng (lit.’powder red’), which are considered varieties of a single colour.

青 qing (Cantonese 廣東話 )

In Cantonese, qing 青 can describe the same range of colours as in Mandarin Chinese. It means ‘green’ when referring to grass, plants or the mountains, ‘blue’ when referring to the sky or stones, and ‘black’ or ‘young’ when referring to hair or fabrics. However, in Cantonese (廣東話), 青 qing meaning ‘black’ is still used in contexts where the use of 黑 would be inauspicious since it is a homophone of ‘乞’ (beggar), for example 黑衣, ‘black clothes’, would also mean ‘beggar’s clothes’.

Vietnamese

Vietnamese has taken over the green-blue colour perception from the ancient Chinese character 青 and is read as xanh, which can mean both ‘green’ or ‘blue’ depending on the context. To specify which shade exactly you mean, you have to add some descriptive terms, so xanh da trời means ‘blue as the sky’, xanh dương or xanh nước biển means ‘blue as the ocean’ and xanh lá cây means ‘green like the leaves’. Vietnamese sometimes uses the terms xanh lam for blue and xanh lục for green, which derive from the Chinese characters 藍and 綠 respectively.

Japanese

Also Japanese has the colour green-blue, or ao 青 ‎(hiragana あお, romaji ao, historical hiragana あを), which also derives from the ancient Chinese character and its connotations. So ao 青 can mean ‘blue’, ‘green’ or ‘black’ depending on the context. In the case of Japanese, the colour connotation ‘black’ comes from the bluish-black colour of a horse’s hair. Ao is also used in particular to refer to the green of traffic lights and to the colour of plant leaves, vegetables and apples. By contrast, other ‘green’ objects will generally be referred to as being 緑 midori, e.g. clothes, cars, etc.

Lakota

Also in the native American language Lakota (‘Sioux’), one word is used for both blue and green, namely the term tȟó. However, a term for ‘green’ – tȟózi- has come into use, which is made up of the terms tȟó meaning ‘blue-green’ and zí meaning ‘yellow’. In the same way, zíša/šázi refers to the colour orange, šá on its own meaning ‘red’. The colour purple or violet is thus šátȟo/tȟóša.

Some interesting links for further reading on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/06/what-color-is-qing/

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92

Does your language also have a different colour perception from the English one? Let us know in the comments!! 🙂

Vocabulary: ‘traveling’ in Bulgarian and Romanian

Today’s blog post is going to take us to South Eastern Europe again, namely to Bulgaria and Romania. Since the traveling and holiday season is about to start for many people, we will look at some travel-related vocabulary in Romanian and Bulgarian. Romanian is a Romance language, of course, while Bulgarian is a Slavonic language, so the two are not related.

roman travel

bulg travel

How to create a language immersion environment (or a day in the life of a polyglot)

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

Today’s blog post is about how to create a language immersion environment at the place where you live, which will permit you to learn your target language(s) naturally by ‘absorbing’ them in your daily life. Learning a language to fluency is perfectly possible even if you cannot travel to the country where it is spoken and spend some longer periods of time there. I personally learned all of my languages from abroad and never in the countries where they are spoken (with exception of my two second languages), and I have done so via an immersive environment which I created for myself. This is not difficult and to illustrate how it can be done, I will describe a ‘typical’ week in my life in the following paragraphs. 🙂

To start with, I have to say that I am a freelancer with several, very different, jobs, so each day I have to perform quite different tasks which permit me to integrate my language practice to a greater or lesser extent into my daily routine, depending on which task is due on a particular day. One thing I virtually never ever (!!) do is sitting at a desk studying a language from a textbook! My daily language learning routine is completely integrated into my daily life and cannot be separated from it – I virtually live my life in the different languages I speak 🙂 . In this way, I also manage to practice (and learn) my languages for about more than 20 or 30 hours each week.

So how do I integrate my language learning into my daily life? On a typical day, one of the first things I do each morning is to study my current main target languages from a textbook for about 15-30 minutes, sometimes longer, even before getting up properly. While getting ready for the day, I usually learn some new vocabulary in the otherwise ‘lost’ time (= while making breakfast, getting dressed, etc.) – in my opinion it is the most time-efficient way of learning vocabulary . 🙂

Often, when my work for that day permits it, I also hone my language skills while working: Especially good for language practice are days on which I have to perform ‘manual’ tasks which leave my mind free to wander, like illustrating, or designing or making/assembling new products. This often gives me the opportunity to listen to language tapes in various languages for several hours at a time while working. Sometimes, my work also involves customer service for a small business I work for, and this correspondence will then be in any language the customer has chosen to write in – another opportunity to practice my skills. So if your work permits it and you want to integrate more language practice into your daily life, try listening to language tapes while you work instead of to the radio or to music (unless they are in one of your target languages of course 🙂 ). On other days, for example when I have to work on machines which are too loud to permit the use of audiotapes, I usually learn vocabulary while working. So during an average workday, I can often integrate quite a substantial amount of extra learning practice, though not always.

In my free time, I continue learning and using my languages, both directly and indirectly. A language learning practice I really do every single day (!!) is listening to the Word of the Day online, in about 40 languages (in every language for which I have found a daily post!) . This takes me about an hour, on the average 1-2 minutes for each language. This might not seem like much, but this adds up quite substantially over the course of a month and a year: 1-2 minutes per day per language means at least (!!) 7-15 minutes of language practice per week in each of these c.40 languages, and again at least 30-60 minutes of practice per month for each language, etc.! Then, I have recently joined duolingo, which is quite fun, and where I have signed up for the intensive streak of 5 exercices per day, but I usually do more than that since it is quite addictive 🙂 . So there I spend another hour or so practising languages, learning new ones as well as using it to brush up old ones.

Internet: This is another great opportunity if you want to immerse yourself in your target languages. Whenever I use twitter, I log in using a different language each time. 🙂 Both my twitter and facebook feeds are multilingual themselves (!!) – I pursue my hobbies in my various languages! So I do not only follow and read posts about learning languages, but I subscribe to pages about my various interests in a variety of languages, so that my newsfeed is totally multilingual. To illustrate this, if your interest is kittens for example 😉 , search for facebook pages about kittens in the languages you are learning .and subscribe to them, if your interest is politics, subscribe to political pages from various countries, etc. So in this way you can both pursue an interest that personally captivates you while practising your target languages at the same time. This is what immersion is all about, namely that language learning cannot be distinguished from ordinary life any more and that you start to live your life in the languages. 🙂

My final language practice of an average day takes place at night. I don’t have a TV, so I never watch movies every night like most people do. Instead, I enjoy reading. Often, I spend another 30 minutes or an hour working through a textbook (on nights with plenty of time) or just reading (in any language). But each night before going to bed, I read the Harry Potter books for at least an hour, usually in one of my intermediate-level languages to take them to a higher level eventually. (See a previous blog post of mine on how you can use the Harry Potter books or any other novels to boost your intermediate language skills). So on an average day, I manage to immerse myself in my languages at the very least for 3 or 4 hours, if not more. 🙂 And this time is NOT spent studying at a desk 🙂 .

I rarely watch movies, but if I do, I get myself a DVD and watch it in my target language. If I am proficient in the language, I use no subtitles, but if it is in one of my intermediate languages, I usually turn on the subtitles in the target language (NOT in English!!) so I can read along if I don’t understand something. I find this really helps to improve my skills. Another thing I do very frequently is just listening to films (usually documentaries, which I prefer) while working on the computer. Mostly I don’t need to see the pictures or the footage, and this is a great way of honing my listening comprehension. 🙂

As you can see, language immersion does not require you to actually live in the countries to be immersed in the language, you just have to create an environment in your daily life in which you live your life in the language.

How to improve your intermediate reading comprehension through parallel reading of literature

DSCN2439

Today’s blog post is about how you can magically improve and boost your intermediate reading comprehension through parallel reading of literature, e.g. the ‘Harry Potter’ books 🙂 .

All you need is a book in your target language and the same book in your native language (or in another language you are very proficient and advanced in) as well as two bookmarks, so you can read them in parallel. This will make a dictionary redundant.

I personally collect the ‘Harry Potter’- books in all languages, but not as a “collector’s item” but actually to read them in these languages. The ‘Harry Potter’-books are great to improve your reading comprehension especially in ‘minor’ languages, since they are often available even in smaller languages where it is otherwise virtually impossible to get hold of literature in the language unless you travel to the country and bring them home with you. But you can use virtually any book in your target language for which you can get a copy also in your native language. However, popular books like bestsellers, the ‘Harry Potter’-series or ‘Le Petit Prince‘ (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, that are collected even by people who cannot speak the languages, are best since they are widely available in many languages (even though they may often be quite expensive!).

So how does this method, parallel reading, work? Basically, you have both books open at the same page and read them alongside each other. However, in order to be efficient to improve your existing intermediate reading skills, you ought to read the text in your target language first, and only check the book in your native language when you really don’t understand something. Done persistently and regularly, this will soon boost your reading skills and you don’t need a dictionary for it.

Another way in which parallel reading can be highly instructive is in comparative reading of both texts. For this, you read each sentence in sequence, first in your target language, then in your native language, all the while comparing how each expression is translated and rendered in your target language. This will not only teach you useful expressions, but it will also teach you something about the translating process. It will also make you familiar with the way sentences are structured in your target language, which can be highly valuable.

Where can you find popular books like the Harry Potter-series or Le Petit Prince in many languages? If you have any second-hand or antiquarian bookstores near where you live, it is always worth a visit going there first to see if they might not have the title you are looking for, as they might be considerably cheaper if bought used, apart from being better for the environment, especially since you need the book also in your native language. If you don’t have any such bookstore near where you live or they do not have your title, try to search on Amazon: type in the title plus ‘in [insert target language of your choice]’, e.g. ‘Harry Potter in Spanish’ or ‘Harry Potter Spanish version/edition’. This ought to bring up some results for many, though unfortunately not for all, languages. 🙂

Do you also collect a certain series of books or a book from a certain author which you like to read in a foreign language? Tell us about it in the comments! 🙂

Focus on architecture: Badgir or Malqaf (windcatchers)

Borujerdiha

Today’s blog post is taking us to the Middle East again, to Persia, India and the Arab world, and to a special architectural feature of these hot regions of Asia, namely the so-called badgir or windcatcher (wind tower) (Persian: بادگیر bâdgir, from bâd ‘wind’ + gir ‘catcher’, Arabic malqaf الملاقف )(Arabic: also known as barjeel بارجيل )

800px-بادگیر

The Badgir can be found in all regions of Asia which were historically influenced by the Persian Empire. It is a windcatcher or windscoop that usually takes the form of a tower or turret and which is installed on roofs, often one for each room. It is usually built in a fixed position on the roof with one downward opening since the locally prevailing winds always blow from the same direction. The badgir tower has small slots or vents which admit the wind and deflect it down a shaft, which often reaches to the ground floor, and at the bottom of which is an opening. Air circulation is guaranteed by the difference in air pressure on the wind side and leeward side of the house. The air flowing into the interior of the building can still be warmer than the air already inside, but a cooling effect is achieved by the enhanced evaporation caused by the constant airflow, which moves humid and stale air. To increase the cooling effect, water vessels are often placed inside the shaft or damp straw mats are hung across the vent.

The badgir‘s effectiveness in cooling has led to its being used as a refrigerating device, e.g. for water reservoirs (Ab anbar) (Farsi: ab anbar آب انبار‎‎ ab = ‘water’, anbar ‘storage facility’).

: Author: Fabienkhan, via Wikipedia Commons Badgir in Dolatabad Gardens, Yazd, Iran

: Author: Denise Chan, via Wikipedia Commons Windcatcher in Dubai

: Author: Zereshk, via Wikipedia Commons Ab Anbar cistern with a badgir-windcatcher tower

Badgirs have been in use for at least 500 years, their exact origin being uncertain, but they have already been known in Ancient Egypt.

Ancient_Egyptian_House_miniature_showing_windcatchers

Author: Guillaume Blanchard, via Wikipedia Commons Maison miniature : Pièce de jeu (?) en ivoire provenant d’une tombe d’Abou Roach (près du Caire) contemporaine du roi Den (Période thinite)

An interesting article on ab anbars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab_anbar

Is there also a similar architectural device in your culture?? Tell us about it in the comments! 🙂

Polyglottando

A blog about languages, multilingual living and cultural diversity