There are discussions on which Mongolia (Mongolia or Inner Mongolia) is the true descendent of the Golden Horde. Mongolia usually claim that they directly descend from Genghis Khan, but genetic analysis suggest that Inner Mongolians are much closer. Now you can find statues of Genghis Khan in both Inner Mongolia and Mongolia...
Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
281–290 of 292 posts
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#282UI issues aside, I think this is quite fabulous. Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it. Although I do wonder how easy it will be for the whole nation to switch from one alphabet to another when they're so drastically different. I don't suppose any Mongolians are here to give their input?
> Preserving their traditional alphabet and de-colonializing their culture is a good thing, no matter how I look at it There are downsides to any situation. E.G: - cost - available resources for education and work - adding one more obstacles for different cultures to be able to understand each other I'm french, and in my country, language protection is a big thing. It's also why we have such a terrible ability to spe…
I don't think the rumored bad English-speaking capacities of the French are coming from the protection of the French language, but rather from an inadequate teaching methods and funding.
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used seán as a username once. I gave up after I realised it was fine on my own personal computer but once I jumped on to an azerty keyboard or something simpler tasks just became more difficult -- finding the letter with a fada just results in searching the charmap rather than keyboard. You can have fadas in URLs e.g. seán.dev using a technique called Punycode. Ogham is another Irish script and is vertical but uniq…
One of the few features I like on a Mac is that you can hold a key and it pops up a little menu which lets you chose many common variations of the letter without having your fingers do gymnastics on the keyboard. This can be done without key combinations or a charmap: aáªàäâãåąæ Is this possible on Windows or Linux? I constantly toggle between 3 keymaps.
That's clever, I like it. Not sure if something like this exists for Linux, but using compose keys is standard—e.g. to type å, I hit (in sequence) RightAlt, a, o.
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Russians writing system tries to be phonetic but doesn't seem to do well this way. It does not? Creating a fully phonetic writing system that is also consistent is an impossible task. For example, different dialects can interchange "o" and "a" sounds, how this should be solved in a "proper" phonetic system?
> Creating a fully phonetic writing system that is also consistent is an impossible task. Look at Czech or Korean. Nothing is 100% perfect but these are pretty close to. > For example, different dialects can interchange "o" and "a" sounds, how this should be solved in a "proper" phonetic system? Use å ;-)
It would be ӭ, as it is not exactly a, instead somewhere between a and ə.
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as I know, in Swedish å does not have any ambiguity and is always read as "o" (as in "ocean"). perhaps in Geordie dialect! it's actually closer to the "o" in "thought"
Aside, I wonder how long UK dialects will survive: my kids often come out with US Americanisms - of both word choice [garbage] and pronounciation - because of the media they consume.
I do not know much about UK dialects, but someday US will speak a Kiwi-influenced dialect. Received Pronunciation will survive due to preservation efforts.
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally writing systems with higher workloads to read/write lead to less native literacy rates due to people with learning disabilities not being able to get over the hump, not to mention less foreigners learning the language due to the higher barrier of entry.
Is there research supporting that (specifically in reference to native literacy rates)? Would be curious to see it.
I remember reading it in something semi academic many, many years ago, so you'll have to google it.
I think it was linked to dyslexia and languages with spelling and maybe japanese, and how china simplified it's characters led to higher literacy, although that might have a few confounding variables.
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Académie Française tries really hard to be prescriptive, and perhaps that works for the handful of elitist writers hanging out around Saint-Germain-des-Prés but it definitely can't keep up with the connected world, the language that is actually spoken and used by everyone, and often gives in by being descriptive with a noticeable lag and awkwardness. It is more of a self-congratulatory circle of elites trying to…
It also happens a (400 year-old) tradition that was quite intentionally set up to be overly complex so to prevent unwashed gray masses from learning "proper" written French and to keep it reserved for the elite. I can't find a link right now, but there was an interview with a French linguist who explained the history of the grammar and how it came about. Was quite an eye opener and helped making some sense of why it…
It's easy enough for a foreigner to learn it in a year (so all what's left is to expand the vocabulary and polish the pronunciation). How can it be hard enough to prevent natives from learning "proper" written French? Was it also illegal to teach them so being hard enough to be impossible to figure out intuitively was sufficient?
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside, I wonder how long UK dialects will survive: my kids often come out with US Americanisms - of both word choice [garbage] and pronounciation - because of the media they consume.
I do not know much about UK dialects, but someday US will speak a Kiwi-influenced dialect. Received Pronunciation will survive due to preservation efforts.
you have my attention, do go on..
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a matter of talent. It's a matter of language. Shakespeare and Twain couldn't write their books in latin because their writings are tied with the language itself not to mention the culture with the language helped to define. So they might have written great latin literature, but we'd still lose out on great english language literature. It's stilly to say we should get rid of spanish, german, russian, etc lit…
On the other hand, when I am reading a book in Classical Greek with accompanying translation to English, I more often than I would like to catch myself reading the translation - not because I do not understand the Greek text but because the translation is so delicious!
What "other hand"?
Your comment essentially backed my point. Isn't it great to have both ancient greek and english rather than only ancient greek? Ain't diversity great?
Re: Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it make latin glyphs pointless? Isn't it better to have a closer match to the phonemes that one actually has to say than having ideoglyphs? (Which are harder to learn, because writing and speaking becomes only loosely coupled.)
These are the written vowels: Aa Ăă Ââ Ee Êê Ii Oo Ôô Ơơ Uu Ưư Yy On each of which you can add 5 different tone marks: https://vietnamesetypography.com/alphabet/ Plus there are diphthongs and triphthongs (look at the zero coda and off glide coda columns): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_phonology#ref_Notes Disclaimer: I know stuff all about Tiếng Việt, but it seemed really hard to learn how to hear and say t…
Thanks! Since there are already many different languages using latin script I'm not surprised that this very heavily annotated version too differs. (I'm Hungarian, so maybe that's why I prefer explicit markings for pronunciation.)