Deciphering etymologically unknown names of musical instruments of Siberia and Russian Far East

This study presents etymological deciphering using ancient Japanese ways of reading ancient Chinese scripts of the names for the five types of stringed instruments, known as komuz, tatonpa, sugut, tambur, and tonkori. Based on the phonetic variants of the term komuz written in Roman and Russian alphabets and Chinese scripts, two hypothetical forms *qonbulrsukie and *qonbulrsir were reconstructed: qon ‘sheep’, bulr ‘tendon’, sukie ‘string’, sir ‘string’. As to the form tatonpa, the ancient form *siudonbule {siu ‘boar’ + don ‘gut’ + bule ‘tendon-fiber’} was revealed. The hypothetical form *siugudi {siu ‘boar’ + gudi ‘gut’} was reconstructed from the phonetic variants of the name sugut, written in Chinese scripts. The hypothetical form *donbule {don ‘gut’ + bule ‘tendon-fiber’} was reconstructed from the phonetic variants of the name tambur written in Chinese scripts. An Ainu word tonkori consists of Altaic root-forms don ‘gut’ and kur ‘string-instrument’, followed by an Ainu suffix {i} ‘that’. We have proved that, except for the Ainu suffix {i}, all the root forms linguistically belong to Altaic lan- guages. Not a few ethnographers dealt with the etymological analysis of instrument names encountered in Siberia and the Russian Far East, mainly taking into account the context of shamanism. It is known that shamans used the instruments as tools in healing rituals. However, contrary to our expectations, the reconstructed root forms of the names revealed practical aspects of daily life.

Tendon Elasticity and Relative Length: Effects on the Hill Two-Component Muscle Model

The effects of relative tendon/fiber proportion and tendon elasticity on the force output of the Hill muscle model (a contractile component [CC] in series with an elastic element [SEC]) were examined through computer simulation. Three versions of the Hill model were constructed. Model 1 examined the effect of relative tendon/fiber proportion on CC kinematics and kinetics during an isometric twitch, while Model 2 compared the effect of changes in tendon compliance. These models revealed force profile differences related to alterations in CC velocity, although the reasons underlying the variation in CC kinematics were different. The relative tendon/fiber proportion and tendon compliance differences were examined in combination in Model 3. Test simulations revealed response differences among the three model versions, and therefore verified Alexander and Ker's (1990) contention that the morphology of muscle is related to design criteria. It is suggested that the implementation of generalized muscle models to represent specific units of the musculoskeletal system should be done carefully and that the implementation process itself warrants further study.