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Most difficult alphabet | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5402 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes  Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 1 of 42 30 July 2009 at 11:31am | IP Logged |
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Which language has the most difficult alphabet?
Arabic (Persian)? Thai? Hindi? Russian (Cyrillic)? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LittleKey Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5746 days ago 146 posts - 153 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Japanese | Message 2 of 42 30 July 2009 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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I've heard Devanagari is really difficult. I don't really know though.
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| nissimb Tetraglot Groupie India tenjikuyamato.blogsp Joined 6208 days ago 79 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Marathi*, Hindi, English, Japanese Studies: Korean, Esperanto, Indonesian | Message 3 of 42 30 July 2009 at 12:14pm | IP Logged |
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For people outside East Asia, Chinese characters are the most difficult :) I think Arabic script is also difficult because of unmarked vowels. Devanagari script looks difficult, but it is very systematic. Once you know how to combine vowels and consonants together (or two consonants together), you can write it easily.
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5632 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 4 of 42 30 July 2009 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
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Anything that's an alphabet can be learnt by anyone.
The trouble is with languages that uses signs which you have to memorise one by one or in groups of similar ones. This is hard, particularly for adults. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5402 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 5 of 42 30 July 2009 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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I wonder how the omitted vowels are identified without marks in Arabic. thnk=thank? fr=for?
Edited by Z.J.J on 30 July 2009 at 1:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5605 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 6 of 42 30 July 2009 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
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The initial and long vowels are written out, and in many children's books and leaning materials, the short vowels are marked. Past a certain point, you learn to recognize words and know how they are pronounced without actually seeing the short vowels.
It's nt rlly as hrd as it snds. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 7 of 42 30 July 2009 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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Chinese is not an alphabet.
The Thai alphabet is probably the hardest one to learn, but the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets give the biggest continual trouble to those who already know it because of the unmarked vowels. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6066 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 8 of 42 30 July 2009 at 4:04pm | IP Logged |
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Of the alphabets or abyads of which I have direct experience, I would say Arabic is the most difficult. I have never tried to learn the others cited.
Because Semitic languages are built around consonantal roots, they can get away with not showing all the vowels. For example, the idea of book or reading being expressed by the root ktb. Only occasionally does ambiguity arise. It is more of a problem for non-Semitic languages like Persian which use Arabic script, but once you get past a certain level, you learn to recognise the patterns. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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