What writing systems do you know
What writing systems do you know
What writing systems do you feel comfortable transliterating with?
Also, I want to learn a Brahmic script, but one that is relatively simple, for my first abugida. Any suggestions?
I can uncomfortably use:
:إ كن ونكمفرتبلي يوز
:אי כן ונכומפרתבלי יוז
Ай ункомфэртабли юз:
Αι καν υνκωμφερταβλι ιυζ:
아이 캔 언컴펠텁리 윳.
Also, I want to learn a Brahmic script, but one that is relatively simple, for my first abugida. Any suggestions?
I can uncomfortably use:
:إ كن ونكمفرتبلي يوز
:אי כן ונכומפרתבלי יוז
Ай ункомфэртабли юз:
Αι καν υνκωμφερταβλι ιυζ:
아이 캔 언컴펠텁리 윳.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Roman (obv), hiragana, katakana, maybe about 30-40 kanji that I could put to active use, and the Greek alphabet.
I can also manage Russian fairly easily, and I know all the letters for Korean but can't remember which way round some of them are meant to be (u versus o, for example), and I would need some practice before I'd be comfortable reading it. I've been to neither of these places, though.
I also probably know about half of the Arabic alphabet and Devanagari, and about 4 letters of Hebrew, so I wouldn't quite count any of those towards my total.
At the moment that's it...
I find it interesting that you've transliterated the <o> in uncomfortably as /e/ in all your languages, though, and the <u> as /u/. Normally languages without a schwa read English letters as they are spelt, and /ʌ/ comes out as /a/, so uncomfortably would be pronounced /ankomfortabli/ in a language with 5 vowels. In Korean I would expect it to be transliterated with /ʌ/, which is normally pronounced as a schwa anyway. In Japanese, アンコンフォータブリー, /ankonfoːtaburiː/.
I can also manage Russian fairly easily, and I know all the letters for Korean but can't remember which way round some of them are meant to be (u versus o, for example), and I would need some practice before I'd be comfortable reading it. I've been to neither of these places, though.
I also probably know about half of the Arabic alphabet and Devanagari, and about 4 letters of Hebrew, so I wouldn't quite count any of those towards my total.
At the moment that's it...
I find it interesting that you've transliterated the <o> in uncomfortably as /e/ in all your languages, though, and the <u> as /u/. Normally languages without a schwa read English letters as they are spelt, and /ʌ/ comes out as /a/, so uncomfortably would be pronounced /ankomfortabli/ in a language with 5 vowels. In Korean I would expect it to be transliterated with /ʌ/, which is normally pronounced as a schwa anyway. In Japanese, アンコンフォータブリー, /ankonfoːtaburiː/.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Besides the Roman alphabet, I know the Greek alphabet, Georgian alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, some Thai and Khmer, a lot of Arabic, and a bit of Armenian.
I only speak languages that use the roman alphabet though.
I only speak languages that use the roman alphabet though.
Re: What writing systems do you know
You need an א for words beginning in vowels; you can't use a ו or a י for an initial vowel (except for ו before some consonants when used as a conjunction in formal or archaic Hebrew). Also, your kaphs and tavs should be qufs and ṭets.sucaeyl wrote:What writing systems do you feel comfortable transliterating with?
Also, I want to learn a Brahmic script, but one that is relatively simple, for my first abugida. Any suggestions?
I can uncomfortably use:
:إ كن ونكمفرتبلي يوز
:אי כן ונכומפרתבלי יוז
Ай ункомфэртабли юз:
Αι καν υνκωμφερταβλι ιυζ:
아이 캔 언컴펠텁리 윳.
I can use Hebrew (ktiv ‘ivri and ktiv ašuri), Arabic (kind of), Hiragana and Katakana, Greek and Cyrillic.
Re: What writing systems do you know
I obviously know the Latin one really well, but other than that:
-several hundred Chinese characters (simplified), and can recognize maybe one half to two thirds of the traditional ones that are different (from the simplified ones I know)
-Getting really good with Hangeul...I can read everything, even if it's a little choppy. Still working on getting all the allophony down, though
-Can read Cyrillic (as used in Russian)
-All the base values of the Greek alphabet, not good with the digraphs
At one point, I could read all the hiragana symbols, but not so much anymore. I can still recognize a couple of them, but not many.
-several hundred Chinese characters (simplified), and can recognize maybe one half to two thirds of the traditional ones that are different (from the simplified ones I know)
-Getting really good with Hangeul...I can read everything, even if it's a little choppy. Still working on getting all the allophony down, though
-Can read Cyrillic (as used in Russian)
-All the base values of the Greek alphabet, not good with the digraphs
At one point, I could read all the hiragana symbols, but not so much anymore. I can still recognize a couple of them, but not many.
펠 would be better without the ㄹ I think (as in non-"rhotic") and "use" would be better as 유스 because ㅅ is pronounced [t] syllable finallysucaeyl wrote: 아이 캔 언컴펠텁리 윳.
Re: What writing systems do you know
I think I transliterated the second <o> as /e/ because, to my non-native ear, the /ɜ/ and /ɝ/ of English sound most like /er/.finlay wrote:I find it interesting that you've transliterated the <o> in uncomfortably as /e/ in all your languages, though, and the <u> as /u/. Normally languages without a schwa read English letters as they are spelt, and /ʌ/ comes out as /a/, so uncomfortably would be pronounced /ankomfortabli/ in a language with 5 vowels. In Korean I would expect it to be transliterated with /ʌ/, which is normally pronounced as a schwa anyway. In Japanese, アンコンフォータブリー, /ankonfoːtaburiː/.
I agree about the schwa transcription, expect that Hangeul has a letter better suited to schwa than <어> /ʌ/. It is <으> /ɯ/.
So should a hypothetical word /im/ be <אים> rather than <ים>? Also, I was hesitating to use quf ant ṭet because of their historical emphatic values. Should I disregard that?Ančiri wrote:You need an א for words beginning in vowels; you can't use a ו or a י for an initial vowel (except for ו before some consonants when used as a conjunction in formal or archaic Hebrew). Also, your kaphs and tavs should be qufs and ṭets.
I like not using ㄹ, but I would then I would change 페 to 프, seeing as // sounds a little closer, at least to me, to //. I have to disagree on the last point though: Doesn't one often have to disregard the allophony of the language from which a script comes when doing transliterations? I think it's safer to use unambiguous or historic values in this case, even if it may cause some confusion to native speakers. I could be wrong, though.Chibi wrote:펠 would be better without the ㄹ I think (as in non-"rhotic") and "use" would be better as 유스 because ㅅ is pronounced [t] syllable finally
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Re: What writing systems do you know
I know the Cyrillic script fairly well and can read katakana and hiragana for the most part. I probably couldn't write in either script from memory and need to look up characters from time to time, though.
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Re: What writing systems do you know
I can (very badly) read Cyrillic. And by "read", I mean, "can understand half the letters sort of".
Nūdhrēmnāva naraśva, dṛk śraṣrāsit nūdhrēmanīṣṣ iźdatīyyīm woḥīm madhēyyaṣṣi.
satisfaction-DEF.SG-LOC live.PERFECTIVE-1P.INCL but work-DEF.SG-PRIV satisfaction-DEF.PL.NOM weakeness-DEF.PL-DAT only lead-FUT-3P
satisfaction-DEF.SG-LOC live.PERFECTIVE-1P.INCL but work-DEF.SG-PRIV satisfaction-DEF.PL.NOM weakeness-DEF.PL-DAT only lead-FUT-3P
Re: What writing systems do you know
I dunno, I'm getting my info from "Korean: An Essential Grammar":sucaeyl wrote: I have to disagree on the last point though: Doesn't one often have to disregard the allophony of the language from which a script comes when doing transliterations? I think it's safer to use unambiguous or historic values in this case, even if it may cause some confusion to native speakers. I could be wrong, though.
"When Koreans hear an [s] sound in a syllable-final position, they assume an underlying vowel following it to make that sound pronounced as an [s] and not as a [t]. For example, the following foreign words will have a vowel following them:
키스 /k'issu/ [k'issu] 'kiss'
한스 /hansu/ [hansu] 'Hans'" (pg. 34)
Meanwhile, loanwords that DO end in [t] are often Hangulified with a syllable final ㅅ. The examples the book uses are 컷 (haircut) and 힛 (hit)*. So I think in this particular case, 유스 is better than 윳
*Note that these DO turn to [s] when followed by a syllable that begins with a vowel.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Yes, it can only be אים, as ים can only be a word starting with a consonantal y (in fact, it spells the word yam, meaning "sea"). And yes, ק and ט are used to transliterate plain /k/ and /t/ from other languages, not despite their emphatic-ness, but rather because of it. That's pretty much been the tradition since forever. In Greek in particular, κ and τ are transliterated ק and ט, whereas χ and θ are mostly כ and ת. Examples: Talmudic אפיקורוס (’eppîqôrôs, meaning "heretic," from Greek Ἐπίκουρος "Epicurus"), אוכלוסייה (’ukhlûsiyyâ, "population" from Greek ὀχλοσ- "mob"), תרמומטר (termômeṭer, "thermometer").sucaeyl wrote:So should a hypothetical word /im/ be <אים> rather than <ים>? Also, I was hesitating to use quf ant ṭet because of their historical emphatic values. Should I disregard that?Ančiri wrote:You need an א for words beginning in vowels; you can't use a ו or a י for an initial vowel (except for ו before some consonants when used as a conjunction in formal or archaic Hebrew). Also, your kaphs and tavs should be qufs and ṭets.
Re: What writing systems do you know
I can read/write comfortably in Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, a few hundred Hanzi, Hiragana and Hangeul. I can read most of Armenian, Syriac and Tibetan, about half of Georgian, and only a few letters of Devanagari, Katakana, Burmese and Thai.
Same things for this as what Ančiri said about the Hebrew. And it should be اي, because إ is /ʔi/. And the Greek should be more like Αϊ κεν ανκάμφταμπλι ιούζ; what you wrote says /e kan inkomfertavli iiz/.sucaeyl wrote::إ كن ونكمفرتبلي يوز
Re: What writing systems do you know
Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, and a slowly-withering knowledge of Hebrew. I used to know Arabic and Devanagari but've forgotten all but a few letters.
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Re: What writing systems do you know
Latin is fine completely of course and Greek and Hangeul I know all of. I think I did know Devanagari off by heart at one point as well. Similar story with the Japanese kana. I never started any kanji though. And Cyrillic I know most of as well. I've not paid too much attention to any other than the Latin lately though. I should probably refresh my memory.
Re: What writing systems do you know
I can read and write the Latin alphabet, Greek (ancient/modern), Cyrillic, Arabic, Hiragana, some Katakana, ~100 Kanji, a bit of Hangul (pretty much the same as finlay here) and Hebrew. That's it, I think.
Languages I speak fluentlyPřemysl wrote:Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
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Re: What writing systems do you know
The only kana symbols i haven't recognized are the ones for nu, ぬ and ヌ, because they seem to be the least common by far - n can end a word on its own without an epenthetic consonant. But i'm getting better with kana just by being here - at first i wasn't 100% on which was which of クケタ, for example. Now i do actually actively recognize them.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Yeah, same with me. I know Hiragana pretty well by now, and the biggest issue is that it can take me a few seconds with the hiragana for nu, ne and me, but I never really practiced katakana, I just figured it out by reading, so I still have lots of trouble with some letters.finlay wrote:The only kana symbols i haven't recognized are the ones for nu, ぬ and ヌ, because they seem to be the least common by far - n can end a word on its own without an epenthetic consonant. But i'm getting better with kana just by being here - at first i wasn't 100% on which was which of クケタ, for example. Now i do actually actively recognize them.
Languages I speak fluentlyPřemysl wrote:Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
English, עברית
Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語
Conlangs
Athonian
Re: What writing systems do you know
I feel comfortable with Japanese, although I have a hard time remembering kanji when writing by hand nowadays. Some years ago I had around 1200 in my active memory, but that number has been reduced to maybe a couple of hundreds since I left Japan. I can read Greek and Cyrillic but not write fluently, or at all with the latter. I've mostly learnt Greek through studying maths, and learnt Cyrillic during a trip to St. Petersburg.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Roman alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, Greek alphabet, and a bunch of Devanagari (though I always forget the aspirated and retroflex series). I was fluent in Tengwar at one point early in my conlanging career as well :P
Re: What writing systems do you know
Didn't see this before:finlay wrote:and I know all the letters for Korean but can't remember which way round some of them are meant to be (u versus o, for example)
o faces up because it comes first in the Latin alphabet...that's what I used to remember it, maybe that might help?
(er- not as if its direction depends on the Latin alphabet, just a mnemonic to remember it by)
Edit: just thought of another that could've been useful: o for over, u for under, in reference to the direction the stroke faces.
Last edited by Rui on Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: What writing systems do you know
Latin script is a given. Years ago I'd have been comfortable with hiragana but as I haven't used it since high school I'm more than a bit rusty. At the time I recognized maybe seventy kanji but that's like saying at the time I recognized uppercase A.
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Re: What writing systems do you know
I can write in Devanagari, Cyrillic, Latin and I recognise a smattering of Hanzi and I've taught myself how to read Hangul on two seperate occasions because it's so easy but I forget through neglecting to use it (because I don't know Korean. Not a word of it)
Because I can write Devanagari I can also, given a few minutes to familiarise myself with the minor differences, write in Gujurati Lipi, Gurmukhi and maybe Bangla Lipi
Because I can write Devanagari I can also, given a few minutes to familiarise myself with the minor differences, write in Gujurati Lipi, Gurmukhi and maybe Bangla Lipi
Re: What writing systems do you know
Would you say that Devanagari is the simplest, or at least the most useful, of the Brahmic scripts?GrinningManiac wrote:Because I can write Devanagari I can also, given a few minutes to familiarise myself with the minor differences, write in Gujurati Lipi, Gurmukhi and maybe Bangla Lipi
Re: What writing systems do you know
That second one is probably more useful. I've been remembering it by thinking through from the fact that I know a/o/ɛ make a triplet and e/ʌ/u make a triplet, although then I forget whether a's right-facing stalk (which I only know because ɛ looks like H) corresponds to an up or a down, so it's actually not that useful!Chibi wrote:Didn't see this before:finlay wrote:and I know all the letters for Korean but can't remember which way round some of them are meant to be (u versus o, for example)
o faces up because it comes first in the Latin alphabet...that's what I used to remember it, maybe that might help?
(er- not as if its direction depends on the Latin alphabet, just a mnemonic to remember it by)
Edit: just thought of another that could've been useful: o for over, u for under, in reference to the direction the stroke faces.
Obviously, I'm not in Korea, so I don't have to know it by any means, but I've seen a few transl(iter)ations on the train and stuff, so it can be fun to try and decipher them. It does throw up some weird results sometimes, though: my local station Kami-Shakujii is transliterated on some of the signs as 가미샤쿠지이 – with different transliterations of the two /k/s in the Japanese. Presumably this is because Korean romanization is a bit of a mess. (I would argue that 카미샤크지이 is a better transliteration...)
I also don't know word one of Korean, either, so knowing the script isn't especially useful for me... (I think "thank you" might be kamsahamnida, and gwaenchanha is "I'm OK", I think – I know that one from a film title... but those aren't word one, strictly speaking...)
Re: What writing systems do you know
Probably because ㄱ becomes voiced intervocalically, so if they had used 구 rather than 쿠 it would be more similar to "Shagujii" than "Shakujii"...I guess it doesn't make a huge difference, but they wanted to be consistent or something. If I was doing the transliterating, I probably would have done what you did (카 at the beginning...but then again, I'm just a beginner, so...)finlay wrote:Obviously, I'm not in Korea, so I don't have to know it by any means, but I've seen a few transl(iter)ations on the train and stuff, so it can be fun to try and decipher them. It does throw up some weird results sometimes, though: my local station Kami-Shakujii is transliterated on some of the signs as 가미샤쿠지이 – with different transliterations of the two /k/s in the Japanese. Presumably this is because Korean romanization is a bit of a mess. (I would argue that 카미샤크지이 is a better transliteration...)
(going back to the representing allophones thing...)
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Re: What writing systems do you know
I'm familiar with Latin script in several varieties, Cyrillic (Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian), and Modern Greek. I've actively needed to use Latin script and Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic in my travels.
With some work, I can also reason through some of the kanji, katakana, and hiragana.
With some work, I can also reason through some of the kanji, katakana, and hiragana.
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