How hard or easy was it to learn to write the English alphabet? Were there any words that were difficult to write correctly?
To those whose native language uses a cyrillic alphabet...
Everyone knows the Latin alphabet. Even 80 year old monolingual Russians from the depths of Siberia. They learn it as children, very early.
People act as if learning a non-Latin alphabet is an accomplishment. It always makes me chuckle. People using the most significant languages tend to be very monolingual, I bet this also goes for the most significant alphabet on terms of mono-literacy.
Kudos to the Romans nonetheless, and the the Mediaeval writers who have invented lowercase letters.
Kudos to the Romans nonetheless, and the the Mediaeval writers who have invented lowercase letters.
"Everyone knows the Latin alphabet. Even 80 year old monolingual Russians from the depths of Siberia. "
I doubt it.
I doubt it.
Baldewin: "Kudos to the Romans nonetheless, and the the Mediaeval writers who have invented lowercase letters."
There were a few break-throughs that we take for granted today.
(1) Usage of blank space to separate words.
(2) Lower-case letters.
(3) Capitalizing sentence initials.
(4) Punctuation marks.
And in the old days, serif-ing also helped to readability (paper quality back then was not as good as today: you used to have lots of dirty dots all over.)
The truth is, today we take for granted all these great inventions. But alphabetized writing actually evolved quite a bit, with people chipping in new ideas, now and then. Just because many languages are written phonemically, it doesn't mean that we human read phonemically. Always remember this example:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
wrod as a wlohe.
There were a few break-throughs that we take for granted today.
(1) Usage of blank space to separate words.
(2) Lower-case letters.
(3) Capitalizing sentence initials.
(4) Punctuation marks.
And in the old days, serif-ing also helped to readability (paper quality back then was not as good as today: you used to have lots of dirty dots all over.)
The truth is, today we take for granted all these great inventions. But alphabetized writing actually evolved quite a bit, with people chipping in new ideas, now and then. Just because many languages are written phonemically, it doesn't mean that we human read phonemically. Always remember this example:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
wrod as a wlohe.
Almost everyone in the former Soviet Union knows the Latin alphabet. Before the war German or French was taught at school, after the war - mostly English, but in some schools German or French. Secondary education was compulsory, and that's why whether you wanted it or not you had to learn the Latin alphabet and even monolingual people knew it.
The western culture itself has always been very popular. I was born in the early 1980s, and I remember that even then a lot of people liked American and French movies, everything made in the US or Western Europe with labels in the Latin alphabet was considered fashionable. Naturally, people knew the Latin alphabet even at that time let alone nowadays. At the same time the fact that pronunciation of English words is very different from its spelling was proverbial. Then there even existed a very hackneyed joke:the British spell "Liverpool", but pronounce it as:"Manchester".
Another thing is that there are a lot of people who don't know any foreign languages, but their number is rapidly decreasing.
The western culture itself has always been very popular. I was born in the early 1980s, and I remember that even then a lot of people liked American and French movies, everything made in the US or Western Europe with labels in the Latin alphabet was considered fashionable. Naturally, people knew the Latin alphabet even at that time let alone nowadays. At the same time the fact that pronunciation of English words is very different from its spelling was proverbial. Then there even existed a very hackneyed joke:the British spell "Liverpool", but pronounce it as:"Manchester".
Another thing is that there are a lot of people who don't know any foreign languages, but their number is rapidly decreasing.
That was easy to learn. As most people now begin learning foreign languages (not necessary English) at the age of 6-7, it all comes naturally including writing cursive Latin script or any other.
Older people do not have any problems too as Latin script exists in everyday life as Registered Trade Marks for example.
Older people do not have any problems too as Latin script exists in everyday life as Registered Trade Marks for example.
Everybody knows it, but not everyone has "mastered" it. Kind of like a mathematician who knows the Greek alphabet. Sure they know the symbols, but that doesn't mean they know how to pronounce them or even a single word of Greek.