Latin alphabet uniting nations !

Agnes   Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:47 am GMT
Did Germanics use to have an alphabet before adopting the Latin one, or they were illiterates?
Guest   Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:47 am GMT
Guest   Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:20 am GMT
then why the latin script dominated the germanics ?
Guest   Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:56 am GMT
<<then why the latin script dominated the germanics ?>>

The gradual displacement of the runes coincided with the increasing influence of the Roman Catholic Church.
Tom K.   Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:35 am GMT
One thing I have noticed is that traditionally, religion determines writing systems:
Countries that are traditionally Catholic (and later, Protestant) use the Latin alphabet.
Countries that are traditionally Orthodox use the Cyrillic alphabet.
Countries that are traditionally Muslim use the Arabic alphabet.
This is why Urdu is written with the Arabic alphabet even though it is essentially the same language as Hindi. Of course there are exceptions: Greek (Orthodox) uses the Greek alphabet while Turkey (Muslim) uses the Latin, although it used to use the Arabic alphabet before Ataturk.
JJM   Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:38 pm GMT
"Turkey (Muslim) uses the Latin, although it used to use the Arabic alphabet before Ataturk."

But of course, the use of the Latin alphabet today in Turkish actually supports your point.

Ataturk quite deliberately imposed the Latin alphabet as one of his many measures to modernize Turkey and move it away from being an Islamic state to a secular republic.
JJM   Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:44 pm GMT
And of course, Greek is not an exception either.

You've got it back to front: Cyrillic was developed from the Greek alphabet by St. Cyril and St. Methodias (two Greeks) to accommodate the different phonetics of the Slav languages.

All the Orthodox churches originated from the Byzantine (Greek Orthodox) Church in Constantinople.
Piotr   Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:26 pm GMT
Romania (country) is the only Latin Orthodox country, even using the Cyrillics, but that was the legacy of the (ROMANIA-Byzantine Empire)

The Cyrillics were removed but the country's religion is still Orthodox.

so weird !
Guest   Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:11 pm GMT
Tom K.............................omagh maybe
JJM   Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:50 pm GMT
Piotr:

The Cyrillic alphabet was removed in the 19th Century as part of a very deliberate programme to "re-Romanize" the language.
Guest   Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:41 pm GMT
<The Cyrillic alphabet was removed in the 19th Century as part of a very deliberate programme to "re-Romanize" the language. >

Romanians are the only latin people in eastern-europe, how did they get there ?
Guest   Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:25 am GMT
The Cyrillic alphabet is what I believe is actually more suitable for slavic languages due to the large numbers of sounds we use.

I think languages such as Turkish, Finnish and others would also benefit because the adoption of the Roman alphabet has limited number of letters that sounds are allocated to has cause too many letters having accents.

ÀÂÄÅ <--- look how confusing and in some cases putting the wrong accent on the letter 'A' can cause misunderstanding.
Guest   Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:15 am GMT
Accents are a clever invention ! English has no accents, instead they use groups of letters that don’t make any sense, that’s why English spelling is chaotic…
Guest   Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:23 am GMT
<Accents are a clever invention ! English has no accents, instead they use groups of letters that don’t make any sense, that’s why English spelling is chaotic… >

LOL gotta agree with you. If English was smarter they should adopted fricking accents. But in my last post I was referring to the confusion that accents can bring with the ÀÂÄÅ example. I would perfer they either design completely new letters or adopt another alphabet. (which I would think it wouldn't never happen.)
someone   Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:01 am GMT
ÀÂÄÅ are easy to remember than illogical english spellings...

But even if you miss an accent is not that a big deal, just like missing the dot for I :)

But spelling English is a headache

By the way , why “ache” is pronounced aik ? It should be pronounced “achey”
And think of the insane “through” and “enough” spellings that don’t make any sense !