Is there an alphabet? If yes, how many letters? What do they represent? Are there significant differences between manuscript and print? If there is no alphabet, how does the language convey information in written form? Are there related writing systems?
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Turkish language belongs to Ural-Altaic family of languages. The Ural-Altaic languages are distinguished from the Indo-European by: the absence of gender, adjectives precede nouns and verbs come at the end of a sentence. Until 1928, Turkish was written in the Perso-Arabic script also known as the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.
Text in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was written right to left. The appearance of the letter actually changed with the position of the letter. For example, the position could be:
- isolated (one letter word)
- medial (letter joined on both sides)
- final (the letter is joined on the right to the preceeding letter)
- initial (the letter is joined on the left to the following letter)
In the early years of the establishment of Republic Turkey and under the role of Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, numbers and letters that were written in Arabic were replaced with Latin alphabet. Transition from one alphabet to another one lasted only a few months. On January 1, 1929, it actually became unlawful to use the Arabic alphabet to write Turkish.
Today, Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters and the letters that English alphabet does not have are: Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş, Ü
Ç as in CHAT
Ğ is silent- lengthens preceding vowel
I - e sound in label
İ - ee sound in bee
Ö- e sound in her
Ş- sh sound in ship
Ü- ew sound in few
There is an alphabet in the Urdu language. There are 37 letters, compared to the 26 letters in English. To the right you can see what the letters look like as well as the sound they make. What I find the most interesting about this alphabet is that these letters represent sounds. Why is that cool? Well, if you hear a word in Urdu, and you know the alphabet, you actually have a pretty good shot of sounding it out and spelling the word. The one thing that will trip you up is the other interesting part about these letters. When you actually use them together in words, they no longer look the same. Bummer for me, but I'll look at it as an added and compelling challenge.
Urdu_alphabets.png
Does Urdu use the same script as Arabic? It certainly looks very similar to me--and the alterations of the letters within words seems the same. If it's not the same as Arabic, how is it different?
Sindhi is mainly spoken and written in Pakistan.
The Sindhi-Arabic script used in Pakistan is adapted from the Persian system of writing, which itself is an adaptation of the Arabic system. Arabic characters are written from right to left. The script comprises of fifty-two characters and seven diacritic signs.
The Sindhi-Devanagari script used in India is adapted from the Sanskrit system of writing. Each character in the Devanagari system represents a syllable. It consists of either a vowel or a consonant followed by the vowel. Devanagari characters are written from left to right.
The phonological system of Sindhi in most respects resembles that of other Indo-Aryan languages. Sindhi has 53 distinct sound-units: 39 consonants, 3 semivowels, 10 vowels, and a unit of nasalization.
I can read and write the Devanagari script because I know Hindi which uses the same script. I am using the Devanagari script to learn Sindhi this semester. I so not plan to learn the Sindhi-Arabic script.
Sindhi-Arabic script: سنڌي ٻولي انڊو يورپي خاندان سان تعلق رکندڙ آريائي ٻولي آھي، جنھن تي ڪجھه دراوڙي اھڃاڻ پڻ موجود آهن. هن وقت سنڌي ٻولي سنڌ جي مک ٻولي ۽ دفتري زبان آھي.
Devanagari script: सिन्धी ॿोली इण्डो यूरपी ख़ान्दान सां ताल्लुक़ु रखन्दड़ आर्याई ॿोली आहे, जिंहन ते कुझ द्राविड़ी उहुञाण पण मौजूद आहिनि. हिन वक़्तु सिन्धी ॿोली सिन्ध जी मुख बोली ऐं दफ़्तरी ज़बान आहे.
Sindhi has adapted many Urdu words when spoken in Pakistan while at the same time it has adapted many Hindi words while spoken in India. My family can speak a version of Sindhi using more Hindi words than Urdu words since I am from India.
sindhi_dev (1).gif
sindhi_alph.gif
1 yes there is an alphabet
2. 32 letters; 33 characters
3 what do they represent?
10. ت Tay
11. ن Noon
12. م Meem
13. و ve
14. د dal
15. خ khe
16. ح Hay
17. ض Duaat
18. ق qaf
19. س sin
20. ف fay
21. ع ain
22. ر ray
23. ص suaat
24. ط toy
25. غ ghain
26. ظ zoy
27. ج jeem
28. پ pay
29. گ ghaf
30. ک kaf
31. ژ jhe
32. چ chay
33. hamze/ glottal stop
4 differences between manuscript and print: yes because there are different ways to write the alphabet in manuscript form but only one way in print.
5 related writing systems: pashto, dari, farsi, urdu, arabic
Thus far I have learned that the Farsi/Dari alphabet is comprised of 32 letters and is shared with slight variation with other languages such as Urdu, Pashto, and Arabic. There is debate as to who used Dari/Farsi first between the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan as both countries now occupy the territory that was once the Persian Empire. Dari is said to be derived from "darbar", which translates into the court of a king. Apparently poets were employed to write poems praising the ability and majesty of the ruling king. This makes me wonder if the language is centered around the male, but I can investigate that later. Another possible origin of the term Dari comes from the word "dara"which is canyon.
Significant differences from english include being written from right to left and having 32 letters. Each letter produces one sound unlike in english where letters are linked together to produce phonetic sounds. Also, letters are only written out separately when writing the alphabet. In all other cases the written text is found linked together in cursive. Cannot wait to learn more!!
There are 51 letters in Bengali;11 vowels and 40 consonants. It derives from Brahmi text and is closely related to another script (Devanagri). The Bengali script is also used for the following languages: Assamese, Daphla, Garo, Hallam, Khasi, Manipuri, Mizo, Munda, Naga, Rian and Santali. Like all Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali is written from left to right. The letters connect to each other through what is called "head strokes" (lines that connect the letters together from the top) and spaces are used to separate words.
Essentially in Korean there are about 40 letters. These are made up of vowels, compound vowels, consonants and compound constants. The Korean alphabet, Hangul, was first created during what is known as the Joseon Dynasty. Not only has it become the official writing system for South Korea, but it is also used in North Korea. These block-like letters represent a syllable. For instance, I have recently accomplished to write my name in Korean! Yes this goal is completed without me looking up the letters constantly. But in Hangul it is written as 칸 라비바, which is read with the syllable as Ka/n Ra/bi/ba. But what I have seen so far, there are not big difference between the manuscript and print. All of the letters are generally written in the same fashion. The picture below shows some of the letters, alongside some pronunciation help:
Hangul Chart from minjixmuu-chan on deviantart.
Hebrew has a distinct alphabet with 22 letters. Hebrew is written from right to left and the letters are based on the square Assyrian characters. You can change the pronunciation of a letter by adding a dot or two to change the vowels. Some letters, such as alef (the first letter) are silent. However and for the most part, the letters sound as they are written.
There is no large difference between handwritten and typed Hebrew. The cursive in Hebrew means writing the letters in a more circular fasion instead of squares. It is possible that Hebrew does not have cursive because of the spiritual importance of each letter. The link below talks about the spiritual importance of the Hebrew alphabet:
http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/treeoflifeletters.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRoxwvuXU-8
Korean is classified as a “language isolate,” meaning that it’s a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages and continues to be unclassified despite efforts to link it with other languages in the region. (It has more speakers than all other language isolates combined, which are mostly extinct, moribund, or endangered.)
My mother used to explain to me just how amazing the Korean alphabet system, or Hangul, is, but her explanations were usually lacking for me to answer her beyond an obligatory, “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” After reading about Hangul, though, I can say with no small amount of pride that, yes, it is pretty amazing.
Hangul is a “true alphabet,” meaning that it has letters for the vowels of a language as well as the consonants. It consists of 40 letters including compounds: 10 pure vowels, 11 compound vowels, 14 basic consonants and 5 double consonants. Unlike English, which is written in sequential format (left to right), Hangul is written compositely, meaning that one space is composed of several stacked letters to create one syllable. So although a syllabic block may look like a single character, it’s actually composed of around 2-5 letters, including at least one consonant and one vowel. These compact character blocks are formed with strokes from top to bottom and from left to right.
But before I get to what makes Hangul unique, a brief, brief history: Chinese characters (hanja) were used to convey the written Korean language and since this was unwieldy and contributed to rampant illiteracy to all but the aristocracy (particularly males), in 1446, King Sejong the Great initiated the creation of a Korean alphabet. The letters of ‘Hangul,’ as it is now known, were designed in such a way that each represents something. Consonants symbolized the different position of the mouth and tongue when pronounced. For example, the symbol ‘ㄴ’ [n] depicts the shape of the tongue touching the upper palate. The different strokes of the vowels represented the three elements of nature: vertical strokes for humans, horizontal strokes for the earth, and the dots for heaven.
To reiterate, many of the letters are designed from a sound’s place of articulation (P to look like a widened mouth, ‘L’-sound to look like the tongue pulled in, etc), making it a ‘featural alphabet’. A video demonstration would best illustrate all of this information so here’s an awesome kinetic Hangul Typography video by Korean designer Song Ki-Chul:
Hanguel (korean alphabet) from KI CHUL, SONG on Vimeo.