The importance of Latin Alphabet

Sven   Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:17 pm GMT
My question is if a language without Latin Alphabet can be an important international language.

For instance, the most important international languages are English, Spanish, and French (Latin Alphabet).

There are other important languages WITH Latin Alphabet in all the continents: German, Italian, Portuguese, Swahili, Hausa, Turkish, Indonesian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, etc


There are other important languages WITHOUT Latin Alphabet (5): Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Japanese. These languages have an important wall, other alphabet or writting system.

For instance, no one study Arabic in China or the opposite, no one study Chinese in the Arabic countries.
furrykef   Fri Aug 03, 2007 2:10 pm GMT
My own opinion is that learning another alphabet is only a minor inhibition to learning another language. I could probably have the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets nearly mastered within 24 hours without much difficulty -- although it would require either practice or constant use for a while to ensure that the letters stay fresh in my memory. It may still take some time to get completely used to them, and to be able to read as fast as I would in the Latin alphabet, but it wouldn't be hard to learn them. Hebrew or Arabic may be a bit harder, but not that much... the hard part of reading them isn't understanding the letters, but figuring out how those letters form words, since vowels in these languages are not always indicated. The Korean writing system is also supposed to be relatively straightforward and is probably not hard to memorize, and I think the same applies to Devanāgarī, the writing system used for Hindi and several other Indian languages.

Chinese and Japanese are another matter, because mastering their writing systems requires a huge amount of memorization that takes a long time. Instead of a day or a week, it will take you months *at least*. Memorizing the Japanese hiragana and katakana writing systems is not very difficult -- I did that a few years ago -- but the vast majority of Japanese is written with kanji, which are for the most part the same characters used in Chinese.

- Kef
Guest   Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:46 pm GMT
The international importance of a language depends mostly on the economic and political power of the nation (nations) that use it natively.

This means that Chinese will probably become the number one language in the decades/centuries ahead. Eventually (assuming they play their cards right, and everything goes well internally), China should be 4-5X as important as the US was at its peak, and whatever happens in countries outside of China won't matter much.

It may turn out that Chinese can become the only language of world significance, even if few non-Chinese learn it, providing the Chinese population spreads around the world through emmigration, colonization, etc.
Hutch   Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:26 am GMT
All nations should use the Latin alphabet just to simplify things.
die Wahrheit   Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:12 am GMT
I think the question should be: "Is the Latin alphabet capable of supporting all the languages of the world?"

What is an alphabet?

It is a symbolic representation of phonetics and meaning. The Latin letter (s) is no different from the Cyrillic letter (c) or the Korean letter (ᄉ). They all represent the same sound.

I think a better idea might be to create a new international phonic alphabet. The current one offered by the International Phonetic Association (IPA) is good for its own purposes, but could never be used as an actual alphabet.

However, it shows that it is possible to represent all sounds with symbols. We could create a new alphabet that is easier to use and more pleasing to the eyes. We would just have to come up with symbols that would be acceptable to the general public...which is a very difficult thing to do. There have been many attempts to do this, but no one has really had any luck with it.

However, as our world communicates more and more with each other, it may be a necessity in the future.

What do the good people here think?
furrykef   Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:33 am GMT
The trouble is, how would such an alphabet work?

Take English spelling, for example. As illogical as English spelling is, our orthography unites the language more than the phonology does. An IPA representation of British English would be very different from an IPA representation of American English, and both of those dialects has sub-dialects with variations of its own (especially British English!). Clearly, the fine distinctions that IPA makes are not essential to comprehension. Yet, the Latin standard alphabet is very inadequate for representing for Vietnamese. They had to add all sorts of diacritical marks, because they make different distinctions than we do, distinctions that are useless to English speakers. Most English speakers who haven't studied Vietnamese have, including me, no idea what those diacritics signify, so an English speaker trying to pronounce a Vietnamese name will probably get it very wrong (to the Vietnamese ear). It's just the way it is.

I think it may be possible to make a much better phonetic alphabet than IPA, though. Have you ever heard of an abugida? An abugida is a syllabary where each syllable form has a basic shape, and the vowels change by making regular changes. For example, you might rotate a symbol or add a mark to change the vowel from "a" to "e", and this applies for all of the symbols in the syllabary: you do the same thing to turn "ba" to "be" that you do to turn "ka" into "ke". Well, the same idea can be applied to a phonetic alphabet: the basic letter forms indicate whether a consonant is bilabial, labio-dental, and so on to glottal, and simple changes can be used to indicate whether it's nasal, plosive, etc. The articulation points of vowels would be handled similarly. I don't know of such a system could adequately represent tones as in Chinese, though, because tones are often two-dimensional (rising, falling, falling-then-rising, etc. not to mention you have to indicate what pitch level you're falling from or rising to).

Hmm. I might actually design such a system just for the fun of it. But it still would be overkill, and doesn't solve the problem that different dialects of English would be written very differently, etc.

- Kef
die Wahrheit   Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:44 am GMT
I wanted to try and explain this...

They have these portable phonetic transcription devices already, but they are extremely expensive and they can only support five languages at a time.

Let's say that three men are standing in the middle of the desert. One man is an American and only speaks the English language. One man is a Russian and only speaks the Russian language. And the last man is a Korean and only speaks the Korean language.

The Korean man wants something to drink and writes (차) in the sand. The Russian man thinks the Korean wants tea, so he writes (чай) in the sand and hopes that someone will understand him. The American just stares at the symbols in the sand because he doesn't know what the two words mean.

Now let's say we are using the current IPA phonetic alphabet.

Instead of writing (чай) in the sand...the Russian mans writeswrites (ʨai). The American man recognizes these symbols and sets his computer to Russian, which he knows the man is speaking, and types in these phonetic symbols. What does the computer show him... ʨai = tea.

The Korean sees that the American can understand these symbols so he writes in the sand (ʨa) in the sound. Again the American recognizes the symbols. He switches the computer to Korean, which he knows the man is speaking, and types the phonetic symbols. What does the computer show him... ʨa = tea.

The American now knows that they are talking about tea....and he didn't have to learn Russian or Korean. He only had to know how to know a common code or phonetic symbols and plug them into a computer.

Now this isn't the greatest form of communication, but it is more than three men standing in the desert just looking at each other because they don't know how to speak or write each other's languages.
Guest   Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:50 am GMT
I am going to try this again...it is very late as I am typing this and I made more mistakes than I care to admit...I apologize....

I wanted to clarify my statement above.

They have these portable phonetic transcription devices already, but they are extremely expensive and they can only support five languages at a time.

Let's say that three men are standing in the middle of the desert. One man is an American and only speaks the English language. One man is a Russian and only speaks the Russian language. And the last man is a Korean and only speaks the Korean language.

The Korean man wants something to drink and writes (차) in the sand. The Russian man thinks the Korean wants tea, so he writes (чай) in the sand and hopes that someone will understand him. The American just stares at the symbols in the sand because he doesn't know what the two words mean.

Now let's say we are using the current IPA phonetic alphabet.

Instead of writing (чай) in the sand...the Russian man writes (ʨai). The American man recognizes these symbols and sets his computer to Russian, which he knows the man is speaking, and types in these phonetic symbols. What does the computer show him... ʨai = tea.

The Korean sees that the American can understand these symbols so he writes in the sand (ʨa) in the sand. Again the American recognizes the symbols. He switches the computer to Korean, which he knows the man is speaking, and types the phonetic symbols. What does the computer show him... ʨa = tea.

The American now knows that they are talking about tea....and he didn't have to learn Russian or Korean. He only had to know a common code or phonetic symbols and plug them into a computer.

Now this isn't the greatest form of communication, but it is more than three men standing in the desert just looking at each other because they don't know how to speak or write each other's languages.
furrykef   Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:01 am GMT
Minor correction to my post:

<< Yet, the Latin standard alphabet is very inadequate for representing for Vietnamese. >>

The second "for" should be omitted.
furrykef   Sat Aug 04, 2007 5:29 am GMT
<< Most English speakers who haven't studied Vietnamese have, including me, no idea what those diacritics signify, so an English speaker trying to pronounce a Vietnamese name will probably get it very wrong (to the Vietnamese ear). It's just the way it is. >>

Ugh, another correction to my post. I should have put "including me" before "have", not after it.

I need to proofread my own posts more often.

- Kef
die Wahrheit   Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:27 pm GMT
I only saw this type of computer once at the University of New Mexico where it was being tested...and that was in the late 80's. I am sure they have gotten much better in the last few years.

Josh Lalonde,

You are correct that it could be just as easy to create a portable device with the actual alphabets. However, the problem is one of interface. The person would have to be able to input the individual alphabet. Now with modern technology that might be easier to do with virtual keyboards, touch displays, and laser scanners but in the 80's they didn't have that option.

They got around this problem be creating a purely phonetic keyboard based off the IPA chart that at first seemed complicated because of all the keys...but like all keyboards you got used to it after a while.

They were able to prove that every language could be broken down in a common phonetic code and this code could be used as a medium for translation.

I thought it was a clever idea then, and I still think it has potential today.
Xie Z.A.   Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:20 am GMT
<<For instance, no one study Arabic in China or the opposite, no one study Chinese in the Arabic countries.>>

FYI, since China is having a lot of trade with many countries... and it's also politically significant, all the UN languages are studied. Though, Arabic may be the least studied for a number of reasons.

<<There are other important languages WITHOUT Latin Alphabet (5): Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Japanese. These languages have an important wall, other alphabet or writting system.>>

I have only studied the latter two scripts for some time, so may I comment that ...

The Cyrillic isn't that difficult at all. Among the 5, it's the closest to the Latin script.
mac   Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:19 am GMT
Guest
<< The international importance of a language depends mostly on the economic and political power of the nation (nations) that use it natively.

This means that Chinese will probably become the number one language in the decades/centuries ahead. Eventually (assuming they play their cards right, and everything goes well internally), China should be 4-5X as important as the US was at its peak, and whatever happens in countries outside of China won't matter much.

It may turn out that Chinese can become the only language of world significance, even if few non-Chinese learn it, providing the Chinese population spreads around the world through emmigration, colonization, etc. >>

Geez someone sure likes to boost Chinese. I understand that Chinese already is becoming a more important language in the world but I swear some people get too hyped about it. Yes it will become more important and popular but that doesn't mean it will totally dominate the Earth.

Assuming China does continue to develope and grow at it's currnet pace, that doesn't mean that the U.S., Europe, India and others won't continue to grow as well. The world is a different place now and there are more powerful players in the game.

Besides, English has been accepted and established as an international language like nothing else before. It is practically everywhere and it won't be easy to replace. That is assuming people would want to replace it anyways, which I'm not sure the will.
die Wahrheit   Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:14 pm GMT
I am the first to agree that economics is one of the most powerful influencers in determining the status of a language, but it has a serious rival that is in my opinion more influential...strength of arms.

As a native English speaker, I usually support all things English. However, I will be the first to admit that English would not be as strong as it is today if it had not been for strict enforcement and domination of Great Britain and the United States during the 1800-2000.

Through military might, the English speaking world spread and converted the masses. Now I am not trying to point fingers at England and the United States, but we are the guiltiest in this conquest. People were not learning English because they liked the language, or they felt it was superior to their native languages. There were learning it because they had to! We had control of their lands, resources, and in some cases...their very lives. It was a matter of survival.

Now we live in a different world. If things stay the way they are, there will never be another conquest like this because our world has become more connected. We have grown up a little and now, we cannot touch one nation, without touching all nations. If a country was to seriously try to take over country area like we have in the done last three centuries...the world would be in an uproar and stop it.

Which brings me to the US in Iraq. I know this forum doesn't want us to talk about this because it is not language related, but there an interesting thing happening that is language related...as well as...related to this thread. On CNN, they did a report on some of the changes that have taken place in Iraq. One of the more visible changes is the increase in the use of the Latin alphabet. Not the increase in English, but signs, billboards, and even government documents are being written in the Latin script.

This is very interesting to me because it is a perfect example of how the Middle East has mastered the art of adapting. They have maintained their linguistic identity while finding a way to change and adapt to the western world. I think this is a perfect example of how unique and special the Middle Eastern world is. Now this is nothing new....they have been doing this long time, but they have really started doing it more lately.
Sven   Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:24 pm GMT
"I am the first to agree that economics is one of the most powerful influencers in determining the status of a language, but it has a serious rival that is in my opinion more influential...strength of arms."

Well, there are a lot of things that determine the status of a language. Economics is one of them, but not too much because German or Japanese are not very important.

Military power is also other point, but also not very important because Russian has an important decrease (and Russia is the second most powerful country in the world).

So, there are more than 10 points to determine the status of a language. It is more complex!!