|
 |
Where do the alphabets come from? | ||
Tags: Alphabets | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 1 of 14 12 February 2009 at 7:11am | IP Logged |
|
I am quite attached to learning languages because of the different alphabets or characters used by different languages all over the world.
I know that the Chinese characters are evolved from pictographs that existed 5000 years ago and that the roman alphabets came from the Greek alphabet. I would like to know more about them. For example, Hindi uses a different script even though it is an Indo-European language like the romance languages. I want to find out how these scripts come about and why there is such a splilt. Feel free to discuss this topic here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 2 of 14 12 February 2009 at 2:13pm | IP Logged |
|
The first proper alphabet seems to have been Phoenician. Prior to that, there were syllabaries like Linear B, cuneiform in Mesopotamia and pictograms in Egypt and China.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 3 of 14 12 February 2009 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
|
The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician:
Phoenician -> Greek -> Latin and Cyrillic I've always wondered why the Germanic languages abandoned their runic alphabets in favor of the Latin script. Perhaps the runes were regarded as a sign of paganism. Edited by Sennin on 12 February 2009 at 5:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6030 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 4 of 14 15 February 2009 at 3:29am | IP Logged |
|
Hieroglyphs are not pure ideograms but a mix of multiple systems. But it can't be said that it was the first "alphabet" due to that mix.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 5 of 14 15 February 2009 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
|
Possibly the runes were associated with paganism, as for a long time literacy was only in Latin.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| SII Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5792 days ago 184 posts - 194 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: English | Message 6 of 14 15 February 2009 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
Old Slavonic alphabets: Glagolitic (глаголица) and Cyrillic (кириллица). Modern Cyrillic uses less letters, but include some new letters (in Russian, for example, 'Ё' and 'Й').
 Edited by SII on 15 February 2009 at 9:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 7 of 14 19 February 2009 at 2:30pm | IP Logged |
|
Before proper alphabets there were syllabaries, like Linear B on the island of Crete, as well as pictographs like early Chinese. Phoenician is probably the first proper alphabet, which strongly influenced the Greek alphabet when it was developed.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 8 of 14 19 February 2009 at 3:38pm | IP Logged |
|
The Glagolic alphabet is cool, I studied it in high school (in my history classes). Kind of round and neat; But you have to draw tiny circles all the time ;Pp.
Edited by Sennin on 19 February 2009 at 3:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
