Alphabet for Tonal Languages (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Alphabet for Tonal Languages
Tags: Transliteration \| Tonal languages \| Writing System
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

gambi
Newbie
New Zealand
Joined 5109 days ago
37 posts - 52 votes

Speaks: English
Studies: Indonesian, Burmese

Message 9 of 11

20 May 2011 at 4:35am | IP Logged

Arekkusu wrote:

First of all, we don't read letters or words in isolation, we read them as groups. In other words, you could remove the tones from the Vietnamese example you gave and native speakers would still know right away how to say it.

It's interesting that you said that, and it's very true. I've seen my Vietnamese friends post status updates and comments on Facebook, and most of the time they don't even bother using the diacritics. And they all understand each other perfectly well.

1 person has voted this message useful

Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6582 days ago
2314 posts - 5695 votes

Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

Message 10 of 11

20 May 2011 at 7:13am | IP Logged

kyssäkaali wrote:

I know Chinese "alphabetizes" based on the radicals used to draw the character. Then again that isn't really alphabetization as it's the symbols that are getting organized, not really the words. I wonder if Chinese even has alphabetization?

Well, you either go by characters, in which case you use radicals and number of strokes, or you go by sound, in which case you use Pinyin and the Latin alphabetic order.
1 person has voted this message useful

Player01
Newbie
Canada
Joined 5040 days ago
5 posts - 6 votes

Message 11 of 11

20 May 2011 at 7:45am | IP Logged

Thanks guys, now I understand that even though they have diacritics in Vietnamese they can read just as fast as in English. But I still have one more question concerning readability. When diacritic marks are displayed on computer screens, it's like they are so small and it's hard to read. For example go to - http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiếng_Việt -. Is it just me not used to reading or is it the design of the fonts?

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