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How hard can it be to learn an alphabet? | ||
Tags: Alphabets | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 17 of 43 08 September 2013 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know people from Serbia who effortlessly switch between Latin and Cyrillic scripts, so it can obviously be done. I think people often have an emotional attachment in these situations and don't want to give up the way they have done something all their lives. Even a minor issue like curtailing the use of the ß letter in German provoked fierce debate and I believe certain publishing houses (and even state governments) have refused to adopt the new system.
English has a haphazard spelling system to say the least, but suggest a reform and people will be up in arms. I used to think that Russian must be a really difficult language because of the strange alphabet. But that's just a case of learning 33 characters and the sound they produce. A few of them are the same as in English. Not exactly rocket science. Edited by beano on 08 September 2013 at 12:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| anime Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6358 days ago 161 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Spanish, Swedish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese, French, Russian | Message 18 of 43 08 September 2013 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah Cyrilic is really easy compared to most alphabets, upper case and lower case letters even look the
same in most cases, so you could argue that it's even easier than the Latin alphabet. I don't understand why they have to remove the ß from German spelling. I think it's nice to write, it's easier than writing to s, and also looks better, so I don't see the point of removing it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 19 of 43 08 September 2013 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
The ß has never been "removed" from the German orthography, but its use has been redefined in the last spelling reform. Before the reform, you could only write ss between two short vowels and never at the end of a word. In all other cases, you had to write ß. Now, you write ss after a short and ß after a long vowel: Fluss (short u) vs. Fuß (long u). 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4857 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 20 of 43 08 September 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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To sum up: people are stupid, emotional slu*s.
P.S. Forgive me the language of this brutal statement. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 21 of 43 09 September 2013 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've wondered about this quite a bit as well. As one of those people who Solfrid "hates" (because I contend that I
learned to read Cyrillic in about 2 hours), I sometimes have a hard time understanding where this comes from, at least in a situation where the solution could lie in a simple tweak to public education, as I expect is technically the case in Solfrid's example. For example, there are quite a few people nowadays who can speak conversational Yiddish because they spoke it at home many decades ago--but who never managed to learn to recognize the Hebrew letters with which the written language is written. Usually, they aren't happy about this situation, but find the prospect of learning the alphabet too daunting to ever be accomplished in a lifetime. As an even stranger example, I have an (English-speaking, extremely well-educated) friend who claims that he can speak Polish (the home and community language of his youth), but that he cannot read it--despite the fact that it uses the same alphabet as English. While I know that the orthography is slightly different, it's hard to understand how he can mean this literally. I could imagine being unable to to read literature and the like due to a limited vocabulary, but it's not clear to me that's what he means. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 43 09 September 2013 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wow. How did I go from feeling irritation at a statement to hating someone? There are extremely few people in this world who I could say I hate (exactly one person who bullied me nearly to death when I was a child, to be precice)and I certainly do not hate anyone for having a different point of view in a linguistic issue. Life is too short, and I am too old for that. As for the rest of your statement, I tend to agree with that. I think that for the kids, once they have mastered the Latin alphabet, it could not be too difficult to teach them the Cyrillic alphabet as well, and at the same time introduce the country's rich literary tradition. The adults would need some kind of carrot, but I am sure they could come up with something which might work. @prz: Not quite sure I follow you here. In Norway, when someone comes with "out of the blue" statements like that, they are routinely asked whether they have smoked their own socks. I will not ask you that, but I am thinking a lot :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 09 September 2013 at 12:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 23 of 43 09 September 2013 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
No reason to get worked up; I didn't actually think that you hate me (or anyone else in particular). I'm used to the word "hate" being employed as a synonym for "mild to moderate irritation," as well as the more serious meaning. The scare quotes were supposed to emphasize that I meant the former, not the latter. Sorry if I upset you! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 43 09 September 2013 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not upset. Just veeery surprised :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 09 September 2013 at 1:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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