The Real Evolution of the English language

[msbrunnettemickey]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

Well Whorli, Arabic IS hard to learn. I had to memorize all of the different styles of writing. I had a whole marking period of it in 9th grade History. The teacher always asked me to come up to the board, write Shalom in Hebrew and then write it in Arabic. Then she would ask me what's so similar between the two?

Writing from left to right, and the accent marks. Mikud, מיקוד right?
Arabic has no capital letters which makes it easy to write. Hebrew has the script letters and the printed letters but you can use which ever you want (i prefer the script style). I wish i could show you the script Hebrew but the printed one only works here-- שלום
It's funny, the N in English looks like the M in script hebrew.

[Yanah_God]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

Haha, all I really speak is Spanish. Unfornately, I was born in the USA, so language teaching is not high on the priority list (actually, 4 years of phys ed are required, but only 1 of forain[don't mock my spelling, check the etymology] language). I know how to read and write the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Arabic alphabets. I would really love to pick up some more languages, but the internet isn't really as great a tool as one would think for doing that.

One really challenging aspect of learning a language like Arabic or Hebrew online is that the vowels are very rarely marked. I could learn to WRITE it, but I would be hard-pressed to find enough material to know how it's pronounced at all. As far as I know, actually, Maltese is the only Semitic language that uses an alphabet (not an abjad), so it's the only one that always writes the vowels. Although it's hard to find any material on THAT language online, plus it's not a very useful language to know (how many people do you know that speak that language?)

My mind has trailed. I'm done.

[GuidoHunter]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

http://www.mylanguageexchange.com

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[metsfan001]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

One really challenging aspect of learning a language like Arabic or Hebrew online is that the vowels are very rarely marked. I could learn to WRITE it, but I would be hard-pressed to find enough material to know how it's pronounced at all. As far as I know, actually, Maltese is the only Semitic language that uses an alphabet (not an abjad), so it's the only one that always writes the vowels. Although it's hard to find any material on THAT language online, plus it's not a very useful language to know (how many people do you know that speak that language?)

I don't know about Arabic, but Hebrew without vowels isn't actually quite as bad as it seems. Most Hebrew words are derived from 3-letter roots (occasionally 4), so nouns, verbs, and adjectives with similar meanings could all be spelled using the same 3 base letters, and then an attachment from there that generally indicates which part of speech the word is (occasionally a vowel is needed to differentiate). Along the same line, one could potentially invent a word from the basic form and inserted root and be understood (throughout my Hebrew studies I have done this several times, and my Israeli mother has always understood me).

Suppose I went a bit off-track there, but whatever. . . .

[Yanah_God]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

Actually, I was talking precisely about the triconsonantal root system. I am saying that it's hard to learn how to say the word when you only know the consonants. To read most things that don't have the vowels I usually just insert a where it would make it pronounceable and leave the rest.

For example, I would pronounce
מיקוד like mayakvad, whereas it's actually mikud, and
שלום like shalvam

Man, it's hard to mix left-to-right and right-to-left fonts.

[metsfan001]

Re: The Real Evolution of the English language

I guess in that case you just have to get used to the system. =/ I had some trouble at first, but after a while I was able to more or less guess which vowel goes where. You get the hang of it soon enough.