If you are sitting next to someone on public transportation who irritates you...

Tref · 02-23-2007, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Phonetically it looks like "ladabat namimala tawaq na hararsadmim."

That was my guess as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

But I'm 90% sure I'm screwing that up ...

I am curious about the other 10% -- how is that divided up?

Alex · 02-23-2007, 08:12 AM

Well, I'm pretty sure I have the correct consonent sounds involved but a difficulty in Arabic is that short vowel sounds are not written, they're just known by the speaker of the language. All the dots you see are indicators of a long vowel sounds, but nothing about short vowels so in trying to string the consonants together into words I am almost surely screwing up (and, like all Semitic languages, it is written from right to left; it was cool that Firefox knew this and automatically put the next letter to the left of the previous one).

I know it would make the joke less funny but "arabic numerals" are not used in Arabic (what we call Arabic numberals actually come from India and the Hindu languages) so the clock isn't presented correctly.

Ghoulish Delight · 02-23-2007, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Well, I'm pretty sure I have the correct consonent sounds involved but a difficulty in Arabic is that short vowel sounds are not written, they're just known by the speaker of the language.

Are they never written, or is it like Hebrew where they can be written in formal writing, but rarely are used by native speakers?

Alex · 02-23-2007, 10:44 AM

If I'm remembering correctly, only in sacred writing (such as the Quran). My recollection of the history is that they were originally part of the writing system (and thus the Quran) but that over time they were dropped and only written if there was ambiguity, but when printing was introduced to the written word, the complexity of it lead to dropping them completely except in sacred texts where alteration is forbidden. Arabic keyboards generally don't even have the ability to produce short vowels. The complexity of Arabic printing comes from the fact that the exact shape of a letter changes based on the letters than come before and after it (as well as the position on the horizontal line). For example this bit consists of four letters:

لداب

and this is the same text except the second letter has been removed resulting in a completely different visual presentation of the first and third letters (remember, read from right to left):

لاب

But at least they have word breaks.

innerSpaceman · 02-23-2007, 08:07 PM

Yes, beautiful.

But, there's a candidate for the dead languages pool if ever there was one. Sheesh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

the exact shape of a letter changes based on the letters than come before and after it (as well as the position on the horizontal line).

Whose ancient bright idea was that?

Alex · 02-23-2007, 08:17 PM

It's the same idea we have for cursive English (to a certain degree), there's just no such thing as non-cursive Arabic.

Besides, its positively advanced. There are plenty of other older languages that don't write vowels of any kind and don't have spaces between the words (nor, the relatively recent invention of punctuation). Also, it is helpfully phonetic rather than pictographic.

Cadaverous Pallor · 02-24-2007, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Whose ancient bright idea was that?

Hebrew has a somewhat similar (thought, IMHO, a bit less complex) concept, where certain letters look different if they are the last letter in a word. Five of the 22 letters do this.

The letter "mem" looks like this in the middle of a word מ but like this at the end of a word ם

Of course, it just looks right to me

Alex · 02-24-2007, 09:30 PM

And of course, in Latin and Greek alphabet based writing systems we have the silly idea of having two forms of each letter, one of which is only used as the first letter of a sentence and in other incomprehensible (to non-native writers) situations -- the rules for which change from from specific language to specific language). "Yes, students, aspirin was spelled Aspirin until it was used so much that a form of verbal erosion wore that A into an a."

I have also long wondered if the earliest scribes among the semitic languages were all left handed and that is why they wrote from right to left (as opposed to the more brilliant Chinese who decided on ambidextrous top to bottom).

02-23-2007, 08:12 AM	#2
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	Well, I'm pretty sure I have the correct consonent sounds involved but a difficulty in Arabic is that short vowel sounds are not written, they're just known by the speaker of the language. All the dots you see are indicators of a long vowel sounds, but nothing about short vowels so in trying to string the consonants together into words I am almost surely screwing up (and, like all Semitic languages, it is written from right to left; it was cool that Firefox knew this and automatically put the next letter to the left of the previous one). I know it would make the joke less funny but "arabic numerals" are not used in Arabic (what we call Arabic numberals actually come from India and the Hindu languages) so the clock isn't presented correctly.
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02-23-2007, 10:44 AM	#4
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	If I'm remembering correctly, only in sacred writing (such as the Quran). My recollection of the history is that they were originally part of the writing system (and thus the Quran) but that over time they were dropped and only written if there was ambiguity, but when printing was introduced to the written word, the complexity of it lead to dropping them completely except in sacred texts where alteration is forbidden. Arabic keyboards generally don't even have the ability to produce short vowels. The complexity of Arabic printing comes from the fact that the exact shape of a letter changes based on the letters than come before and after it (as well as the position on the horizontal line). For example this bit consists of four letters: لداب and this is the same text except the second letter has been removed resulting in a completely different visual presentation of the first and third letters (remember, read from right to left): لاب But at least they have word breaks.
	Submit to Quotes

02-23-2007, 08:17 PM	#6
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	It's the same idea we have for cursive English (to a certain degree), there's just no such thing as non-cursive Arabic. Besides, its positively advanced. There are plenty of other older languages that don't write vowels of any kind and don't have spaces between the words (nor, the relatively recent invention of punctuation). Also, it is helpfully phonetic rather than pictographic.
	Submit to Quotes

02-24-2007, 09:30 PM	#8
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	And of course, in Latin and Greek alphabet based writing systems we have the silly idea of having two forms of each letter, one of which is only used as the first letter of a sentence and in other incomprehensible (to non-native writers) situations -- the rules for which change from from specific language to specific language). "Yes, students, aspirin was spelled Aspirin until it was used so much that a form of verbal erosion wore that A into an a." I have also long wondered if the earliest scribes among the semitic languages were all left handed and that is why they wrote from right to left (as opposed to the more brilliant Chinese who decided on ambidextrous top to bottom).
	Submit to Quotes