Languages

[Romero]

I'm a bit impressed that those signs above can be displayed on my screen!
国 This is a beautiful looking sign.


I have a question to anyone who knows. How common is it that alphabets have upper and lower case characters/signs? Are the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets unique in this way?

And do sign languages like Japanese have alphabets, or what else do they call their systems?

 

[Maestro]

I'll answer to your second question Basically, Japanese language using 4 systems. First, and most expanded, as I wrote before, is Kanji. This is system "borrowed" from Chinese language, and even sometimes those signs meaning the same thing like in Chine, however you need to read it in different way (as an example above, with "Kuni" and "Koku").

Second one, as KennedyKiller wrote, is Hiragana. This is system with 48 syllables, and usually is using to write different grammar endings of the word, particles, prefixes, suffixes, and other words which one don't have sign in Kanji. Simply to learn, with this alphabet you can write every Japanese word.

Third one is Katakana. Very similar to Hiragana, 48 syllabes, using to write names, words borrowed from other languages (which ones don't have Kanji sign, for example "Biru" ビール, means in English "Beer" ), zoological and botanical names and onomatopeias.

Fourth one, it's just Roman alphabet, familiar for us "ABC", using for transcription all three alphabets to our languages, in books etc.

So, why this is so complicated? Why they use Kanji, if they can write everything in Katakana and Hiragana? Answer is simple. Many words in Japanese are pronounced in the same way, but have different meanings (sometimes even up to 10), and that's why every meaning have different sign.

Uff, I hope it wasn't too boring

 

[Romero]

I think I'll have to ask again, because I don't think I made it clear that my question was more about the English word "alphabet". I'm not sure if it is only used about a limited number of character sets.

Can I call Kanji and the rest alphabets? Do all written languages have alphabets? Or is there a better English word that can be used about all systems?

 

[Maestro]

Hmm, I think that Kanji should not be called alphabet, it's something like logograph system. Katakana and Hiragana also aren't alphabets in our meaning of this word, 'cause they represents syllables (but, similar like alphabet, it's closed system, with limited number of signs).

And, I guess, every language have alphabet, usually based on Latina (except Hebrew, Greek etc.), but with own diacritic marks, for example:

English - 26 signs
Polish- 32 signs
Hungarian- 44 signs etc.

 

[Romero]

The word alphabet must origin from (ancient) Greek, after the first two letters alpha and beta. It's like us saying "ABC", and sometimes we do in my language informally refer to our alphabet as "the ABC".

So Hungarian got 44 characters? That's surprisingly many. Hungarian and Finnish are related, but I don't think Finnish got that many characters. By the way both Finnish and Hungarian are very special, not related to any other languages. All three Scandinavian languages each got 29 characters, it's the same as English + the three special vowels Æ, Ø and Å.

I guess all forms of written languages in the entire universe, both ancient and modern, can quite correctly be called "script systems" then?

 

[Maestro]

Yup, Hungarian language have 44 characters, I'm working with few Hungarians, and I must say that language is really interesting . I know that this language, and Finnish are from the same family of languages, however they sounds really different for me (maybe it's just grammar rules are similar, I guess).

 

[L]

I used to be learning Latin, and I still have the basics down, but I'm a little rusty. I gave it up in exchange for going to a vo tech school to learn medical skills. Not sure on my decision still, considering I was one of the best in my class, but it'll be infinitely more useful to me to learn a skill rather than a dead language. Not to say I don't enjoy it, just that it's mostly useless in today's society.

 

[ArabPikachu]

I don't have children of my seed yet but when I do, it's my plan to have them learn more than one language in a homeschooling environment.

 

[e_etu]

I can speak only Finnish and English also i understand Estonian language but i cant speak it xD
Aaand i am planning to start this year to study Japanese.

 

[Venomous Oddball]

I can speak English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian (My family comes from everywhere xD), Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. Languages are really easy for me to learn.

 

[e_etu]

I can speak English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian (My family comes from everywhere xD), Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. Languages are really easy for me to learn.

:O Clever girl. xD Swedish is like hardest language to learn so that´s why i did not learn anything in school.
I can only say Jag inte gillar svenska.

 

[Venomous Oddball]

:O Clever girl. xD Swedish is like hardest language to learn so that´s why i did not learn anything in school.
I can only say Jag inte gillar svenska.

My grandpa was from there, so it was pretty easy because whenever we would talk I'd ask what certain sentences were or whatever and write it down. xD

 

[e_etu]

My grandpa was from there, so it was pretty easy because whenever we would talk I'd ask what certain sentences were or whatever and write it down. xD

Oh cool ! My Aunt lives in Sweden and i have half Swedish cousin so i should have learned something in school but that language is too confusing.

 

[Romero]

I can speak English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian (My family comes from everywhere xD), Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. Languages are really easy for me to learn.

Really? :O If you can actually speak all those languages (and not just a few phrases), I'm so impressed I'm speechless. 10 languages!?

Fun to meet someone from Canada that understands my language!

:O Clever girl. xD Swedish is like hardest language to learn so that´s why i did not learn anything in school.
I can only say Jag inte gillar svenska.

Pish posh, Swedish is easy. Finnish on the other hand.... I don't understand a word.

 

[KevinStriker]

Honestly, the only languages I'm comfortable saying I know are English and French.

Je ne ai jamais demandé à apprendre le français, il faisait partie du programme de mon école.

such a canadian gaiz

 

[Venomous Oddball]

Really? :O If you can actually speak all those languages (and not just a few phrases), I'm so impressed I'm speechless. 10 languages!?

Fun to meet someone from Canada that understands my language!



Pish posh, Swedish is easy. Finnish on the other hand.... I don't understand a word.

Yeah, I get bored sometimes so I decide to memorize a bunch of words and phrases in different languages. Apparently I get bored a lot. xD

 

[e_etu]

Pish posh, Swedish is easy. Finnish on the other hand.... I don't understand a word.

Where are you from ? And no , Swedish is super hard to learn, trust me xD
Yeah Finnish is also pretty hard language , even i keep forgetting words and things. D:

 

[Romero]

Yeah, I get bored sometimes so I decide to memorize a bunch of words and phrases in different languages. Apparently I get bored a lot. xD

Now you sound more like a human from this world. But learning just a number of phrases in that many languages is still impressive.

Where are you from ? And no , Swedish is super hard to learn, trust me xD
Yeah Finnish is also pretty hard language , even i keep forgetting words and things. D:

From that rocky (and sometimes backward) country at the other side of Sweden. Norwegian and Swedish are closely related so I might have an advantage on you.

 

[LEON.S.KENNEDY]

my language is arabic libyan! like any other language like american english uk and so on.even we speak libyan it has its own slang and word useing grammer too and libyan language has italians words too for examples all car parts in italian lol and many woeds too and has 3 slangs and how to spell the words,,,also american english is my secend language. im bad in english grammer but when i talk to others they have no problem understanding me! i spell right talk.my teacher was always say to me spell like british not american lol i got F just becuse i spell it in a right way !and i know littile french and italian and turkeish just a littile lol

 

[tremor]

My native language is English but I am getting a lot better at speaking Danish. I can speak a little bit of Swedish and German. I want to learn Japanese, badly lol. To be honest, I would like to speak every language possible I LOVE languages.