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Similarity in Arabic letters and deserts | ||
Tags: Writing System | Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| deniz2 Groupie TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5152 days ago 53 posts - 62 votes  | Message 1 of 4 24 August 2011 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The aboriginals have high visual memory because of evolving in the deserts. Could it be the same for the Arabs? The lines and dots do not look like letters in Arabic. They are so similar that it is really very disturbing. I really wonder whether the visual complexity (visual similarity) of these letters is the result of the evolution of the visual similarity in the deserts. In the deserts to survive you must see the small differences to understand where you are especially when the sand storms move the sand hills. If what I am thinking is true the Arabs should learn their alphabet faster.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261675/pdf/jana t00182-0192.pdf Taylor (1981) noted that Aboriginals had a higher visual acuity compared to whiteAustralians. Kearins (1976, 1981), studying the visual memory of Aboriginal and white Australian children of different age groups, found that Aboriginal children had a better visual memory and concluded that they rely to a greater extent on visual strategies to solve problems compared to white Australians who rely more on verbal strategies. These differences in visual acuity and visual memory could be interpreted as an adaptation to living conditions in the bush and desert regions of Australia. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100831102621.ht m The researchers explain that Arabic has a number of very similar graphic symbols representing different letters and sounds, distinguished only by very slight differences such as lines or dots, as well as sounds that are represented by a variety of different symbols. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| WH2010 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5172 days ago 13 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 4 04 September 2011 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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These "lines and dots" are called diacritics. They are used when an alphabet does not
contain enough symbols to represent all of the sounds of a given language. So, some symbols are used for more than one sound and a dot or line is then used to tell you what sound is being represented. Many languages use these. In Turkish, for example, you have a "c" with a squiggly line underneath and a "c" without, a "u" with two dots above it and one without, an "i" with a dot and an "i" without, and so on. The current Arabic alphabet evolved from the Syriac (Aramaic) alphabet. It contained only 22 symbols whereas Arabic had at least 29 sounds. In the beginning, people simply used the same letter for two or three different sounds, but as writing became more important and widespread after the appearance of Islam and the Quran, the Arabs felt they needed to make sure documents were read correctly so they introduced these "lines and dots." Same thing happened in Turkish: the Roman alphabet did not contain enough symbols to represent all of the sounds of the Turkish language, so diacritics were introduced. So, as you can see from the above, it has nothing to do with living in the desert (though, of course, it does not necessarily negate the theory that desert-dwelling people relied more than others on visual memory). Edited by WH2010 on 04 September 2011 at 1:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6659 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 3 of 4 04 September 2011 at 11:48am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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And the reason for Arabic script, or rather the current version of it, is these dwelling lines is due to the medium it
was written: pencil ink and paper. Our alphabet was written using goose-pen ink and parchment. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 4 04 September 2011 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
There seems to be some evidence suggesting that some indigenous people have developed certain perceptual skills that westerners often lack, however, the idea that living in the desert is any way connected to the development of the Arabic alphabet is rather ridiculous.
Actually, they do. BTW, there are many other cursive alphabets with similar looking letters that are much more complicated.
It's true that beginners trying to decipher Arabic words occasionally mix up similar letters (e.g. ب vs ت), but once they recognize words instead of letters this is no longer an issue.
Not really, Arabs traditionally used reed pens and paper. 
(AFAIK, the pencil was invented sometime in the 16 century.) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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