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2023-02-13 21:31 dustin  
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^ is especially curious to find out about the history of the letter "n" because he had quite some educated guesses about it! it looks like it might be related to its neighbor "m", or it could have been developped from a lightning symbol! it turns out that both guesses aren't true, but from now on, ^ will be more carful for "n" not to bite him!   
  
history of the letter "n":  
  
| as already mentioned, "m" and "n" are not related with respect to their histories. instead, the root of "n" was one of the most common egyptian hieroglyphs: a snake (see the shape inside the ΔΔΔ cage where the ΗΗΗ move). the egyptian word for "snake" was "djet", so the letter was spoken like english [j] (as in "jewel" or "jail").  
  
| the semitic adopted the glyph for their proto-sinaitic alphabet. it was probably them who made the sound change from [j] to [n] (as in "no") because the semitic word for "snake" may have started with [n].  
  
| the phoenicians simplified and geometrized the snake, it now looked more like a lightning (see the ΖΖΖ shape). this letter became the 14th one in their alphabet (just as today!) and they called it "nun". it is not clear whether "nun" still meant "snake" in phoenician language because in some related languages, it meant and means "fish".   
  
| the ancient greeks symmetrized and mirrored the letter. the mirroring was made because the writing direction changed. the greek "ny" already looks like the later latin "n".  
  
| no significant changes by the etruscians and romans. (i say that very often in the last few caves. lazy guys!) :d  
  
to sum it up, "n" is a snake which is zigzagging on your piece of paper. so be careful! ;)  
  
cave difficulty: 4/10

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2023-02-13 21:35 dustin  
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for puzzle fans:  
of course, the next letter "o" could be any round thing in the world, but what if i told you that "o" started off as a part of the human body? which one could that be? ;)

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2023-02-13 21:55 Arno  
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if it is eye, that would be really cool... :-D

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2023-02-14 17:32 dustin  
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tomorrow we will s e e if "o" is cool enough! :d

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2023-02-15 00:35 helena  
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It might also come from mouth perhaps...looking forward to the Answer

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2023-02-15 17:59 dustin  
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 Arno , you're right, congrat again! i'm curious how you celebrate this time :d  
  
 Helena , also a good guess! actually, the mouth will also appear in this series! i think it's not so easy to guess which letter it is because the letter has changed remarkably, but maybe it's possible to make a guess by process of elimination ;)

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2023-02-15 18:33 nesdori  
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 dustin , q looks like a mouth and tongue but because you said that it has been changed drastically unfortunately i have to eliminate it :)

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2023-02-15 19:43 dustin  
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 nesdori , perhaps "drastically" is too strong. the "mouth" letter is actually closer to a mouth than "k" to a hand or "f" to a club imo. nevertheless, you're right to eliminate "q". in fact, "q" was another very funny one for me! although the stroke is not a tongue, it's actually another part of a body (although not a human one this time...) :d

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2023-02-15 19:44 Arno  
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Thanks  dustin ,  
  
This is quite cool because this implies that the word "eye" in dutch, which is "oog", actually starts with a pair of eyes. Quite funny, I never realized that. :-)  
  
How to celebrate this in style... well I can only think of just looking at something delicious... :-/  
  
Perhaps letter T comes from mouth? It looks like a small mouth with a very long tongue... ;-)

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2023-02-15 20:06 dustin  
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 Arno , ahhh that's why you said "o for eye" would be cool! yes, that's quite funny indeed! unfortunately, the german word "auge" does not have that property, but there seems to be a strong tendency to start the word with a double-vowel in different languages (also the "y" in "eye" sound like an "i" so it can be considered vowel-ish) :d  
  
good guess about the mouth! let's see... :d

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2023-02-15 20:10 nesdori  
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another fitting mouth+tongue letter would be P; maybe it was the egyptians who invented the :-P smiley :)

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2023-02-15 20:35 dustin  
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 nesdori , who knows? good guess anyway, we'll see :d

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2023-02-15 20:37 dustin  
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just checked some other languages about the "eye starts with a double vowel" stuff:  
  
positive examples:  
english "eye"  
dutch "oog"   
german "auge"   
french "oeil"  
danish "oje" (the "j" sounds like an "i")  
norwegian "oye" (y sounds like i)  
arabic "eayan" (same here)  
hebrew "ayin" (this time i'm not completely sure, the "y" sounds to me like a mixture between "i" and the "yes-y")  
hindi "aankh"  
  
counter-examples (one vowel only):  
spanish "ojo"  
italian "occhio"  
polish "oko"  
swedish "oga"  
romanian "ochi"  
bulgarian "oko"  
ukrainian "oko"  
  
counter-examples (no vowel):  
finnish "slima"  
irish "suil"  
hungarian "szem"  
  
conclusion: there's a strong tendency to start the "eye" word with two or at least one vowel :d

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2023-02-15 21:51 helena  
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I am guessing that mouth is going to be the R. I think that it would be a letter / sound that is used a lot.

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2023-02-16 18:33 dustin  
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good guess  Helena ! so we have the "mouth" candidates p ( nesdori ), r ( Helena ) or t ( Arno ) so far :d  
  
i'll wait with the "p" cave until tomorrow because it will of course reveal at least if  nesdori 's guess is right or not. also, let's see if anyone else wants to participate :d

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2023-02-16 22:25 krissz  
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My guess is: U

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2023-02-17 17:40 dustin  
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 krissz , very good guess too! i imagine a :-) smiley rotated by 90 degrees clockwise :d  
  
but actually,  nesdori  is correct! congrat :d  
new cave uploaded, and with a new puzzle too! :d