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Hebrew Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6925 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 37 21 March 2006 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hebrew and Arabic both use alphabets that work as sort of a short hand, in that they rely heavily on the readers knowldege or fluency in the spoken language.
example, any English speaker will have no difficulty reading this: ."W th ppl n rdr to frm a mr prfct unn..." Got it? how did you know how to pronouce each word and what vowels go where? It's elementary 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6889 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 18 of 37 21 March 2006 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to admit I didn't get the whole meaning of that sentence and I'm an English speaker!
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 37 21 March 2006 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
"Woe thee people, no ruder to form a more perfect union" ? ;o) * BTW the text given as input was not completely vowel-free either. Must say I couldn't get the "rdr" bit (had to google it up), but that could be normal this late in the day. (*) or "... in order to farm a more perfect onion" - ah no, not possible, since the first u in union was given. Edited by Hencke on 21 March 2006 at 2:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| awb Groupie United States Joined 6873 days ago 46 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 20 of 37 21 March 2006 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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The way I read it was: With people and reader to form a more perfect unnecessary...
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| sumabeast Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6925 days ago 212 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 21 of 37 21 March 2006 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK folks I thought this was simple enough, and most people who visit this site have more than a passing knowledge of language learning and such issues.
Nevertheless, here we go: Yes, the text as written above is not completely vowel free, as is the case in both Arabic and Hebrew. You do get the occasional long vowel or vowel marker that helps with pronounciation and deciphering. But largely as in the case of my shorthand text it's a matter of deciphering the vowelless text relying heavily on the reader's familiarty in the spoken language, and then some logical conclusions. As for logical conclusions that would rule out some of the readings other posters have made, simply because to vowel the text that way leads to a nonsensical sentence. "W th ppl n rdr to frm a mr prfct unn..." what we have here is: "We the people in order to form a more perfect union..." sound familiar? duuuh We can be excused perhaps because English is not normally written this way, so at first sight we might have some difficulty. But readers of languages that do this have no problem, no more than us let's say when we run across a hard word, or multisyllabic tongue twister. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Enzo Tetraglot Newbie Argentina Joined 6831 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC1, GermanB2, Esperanto Studies: Modern Hebrew, French | Message 22 of 37 21 March 2006 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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In fact the hebrew 'abjad' (that is, an alphabet without vowels) has three semi vowels (ha, vav and yod) which usually mean the presence of a certain vowel in the text (a, o/u and i). Thus, it is not that hard to pronounce some words... but, yes, all other vowels are missing. Anyway, the alphabet seems to suit perfectly the language...
I mean, it is quite weird, because for example, sometimes one has to struggle to find the plural form of a word in, say, German, but in hebrew is very simple to write it down (just add two letters at the end of it). The trick is that doing it could have changed lots of vowels in between the other letters, unwritten letters. So, it's like grammar is easy but not to speak, only to write or read the language! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 37 21 March 2006 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think there has to be a little more to it than the first-sight factor. The example you used was a somewhat well-known phrase as well, which should have helped.
Just being able to rule out nonsensical alternatives is not quite enough to guarantee you can actually narrow things down to the exact intended meaning. I'd expect there to be some characteristics in those languages that mean vowels are less important and make the language better suited for that particular type of shorthand scheme than English can ever be (or any Germanic or romance language for that matter). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 24 of 37 21 March 2006 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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A good reader doesn't sound out every word, only the words he or she doesn't know. The rest are simply recognized.
That is how it works with Hebrew. Beginners' texts have the vowel pointings anyway. You will find them in most prayer books. As for normal texts without vowels, you find you begin to recognize words at a glance as they pass into your sight vocabulary, the same as with any other language. So, it's not really such a big deal. You learn to sight read the words and it doesn't matter if the vowels are there or not. Where the meaning could be ambiguous, people put the vowels in anyway. I was quite pleased with myself when I found I could read signs and posters written in Hebrew without the vowels. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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