Questions tagged [written-language]
Questions which apply solely or mostly to the written forms of languages as opposed to their spoken forms.
131
questions
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37 views
Boustrophedon-like writing system with single character orientation
Did a writing system ever develop that had a bi-directional writing style, alternating every line, character orientation and order between lines? (Essentially Boustrophedon, without changing the ...
18
votes
4answers
5k views
Why were writing systems invented independently during roughly the same period across multiple civilizations?
Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years, and spoken language is believed to have been around for 50,000 to 150,000 years.
Writing is a relatively new phenomenon. According to this source, ...
-1
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2answers
101 views
Which language has the most distinct written and spoken forms?
I know about Persian as an example.
For example, we have "خانه" (transliterated as Khaneh, which means home) for the written form. But we say "خونه" (Khooneh) for the spoken form ...
1
vote
1answer
127 views
Prevalence of Western/Latin Arabic numerals (digits 0-9) in cultures using the Hindu-Arabic Numeral System?
How prevalent is the use of Western/Latin Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, hereafter referred to as Latin digits)† as the primary means of symbolically manipulating numeric ideograms in ...
3
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2answers
228 views
Tabannusi in cuneiform script
I'd like to know how to correctly write a word "tabannusi" (build) in sumerian alphabet. Is there a chance then anyone can help me?
-1
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2answers
129 views
Are there any languages that don't “fit” on a keyboard?
The standard QWERTY keyboard has keys for all the letters in English, and also numbers, symbols and a few punctuation marks.
Other languages, such as French, might have diacritics in their spelling. ...
24
votes
3answers
3k views
Can Someone Identify This Diacritic?
My mother is working on genealogy and has run across a diacritic mark that I could swear I've seen before but cannot identify. Here is the last name (said to be Austrian) from two documents. It's the ...
11
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4answers
3k views
Are there languages where a change of character casing can lead to a different meaning of a word?
I'm no expert on linguistics. In fact I'm no even a proper amateur but please, bear with me on this: Are there any languages where a word would change its meaning depending on the casing of one or ...
1
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1answer
48 views
What is the technical term for the copyist error of replacing a letter with another, similar-looking letter?
One form of textual criticism (which is under the branch of corpus linguistics) is arguing that a text was mistakenly copied by a copyist to reflect an erroneous reading. An example of this is that ...
5
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4answers
2k views
Can a natural language be non-serializable?
Typically, a serializable language can be expressed by strings.
Can a natural language be non-serializable?
Fictional source which motivated me to ask this question: a character in C. Stross' novel "...
3
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0answers
45 views
Searching for an English Whats-app Corpus
I am searching an English Whats-app Corpus in order to analyse a linguistic phenomena. I had some difficulties to find one and maybe some of you can help me out. It is only for corpus driven study and ...
0
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3answers
99 views
Some “LINGUISTIQUE formulas” to translate French texts into English?
I am not sure is it correct to ask my question here or not!
I've asked this question here (in MathStackExchange) before!
Maybe it is better to see the question there, because it was written ...
1
vote
2answers
162 views
Are there differences in writing among Arabic dialects?
I am currently looking for text data in Arabic. However, for this I need to know whether there exist some significant differences among dialects in its written form.
Surely, dialects very likely ...
3
votes
2answers
583 views
How do you break words across lines in Arabic?
I have been searching for this for a few hours today and haven't found anything but this really, well maybe this is as close as it gets. Just found this, too, which is nice.
I've asked this on the ...
20
votes
9answers
4k views
Languages which changed their writing direction
I am interested in account of languages that had undergone a change in the writing direction somewhere in the history.
We might say, for example, that Greek was used to be written also (not sure if ...
4
votes
1answer
214 views
Estimating the number of words in a language before invention of alphabet
Here is my question from the title:
Given a (natural) language with its writing system based on an
alphabet, are there any theories giving (quantitative) estimates on
the number of words the ...
0
votes
2answers
189 views
Conventions on sorting phrases with whitespace and punctuation (for an index)
I'm sorry if this is not the correct community to ask this question, if not please suggest a transfer.
I'm compiling an index of sorts for a large songbook where all the titles and first lines of the ...
4
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0answers
89 views
How and why do languages evolve to use different types of quotation marks?
For example, English uses "...", but French uses «...».
Also, which of these is more common? What did the first written languages use?
7
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4answers
981 views
Is a text with orthographic or grammatic mistakes in a language X still a text in that language X?
Let us suppose that we have a text that in its majority follows the orthographic or grammatical rules of a language X, but 10% of the words have orthographic mistakes, and 10% of the sentences have ...
5
votes
0answers
78 views
Are there studies which attempt to quantify the information conveyed by written languages - especially Japanese/Chinese?
I'm curious as to whether anyone has attempted to come up with a quantitative measure of information conveyed by written words, symbols or graphs, and particularly curious if anyone has studied ...
0
votes
3answers
409 views
Alphabet size affects complexity of written ideas?
Do relatively simple alphabets (Rotokas, Hawaiian) limit the complexity of written ideas? Example: could Rotokas be used to write a technical manual for the space shuttle?
34
votes
2answers
12k views
Why is “ß” not used in Swiss German?
What are some of the historical reasons why the orthographic symbol ß is not used in Swiss Standard German and “ss” is used instead?
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2answers
99 views
Do any languages allow merging of two sentences without punctuation?
I teach some students who are not native English speakers and commonly make this mistake in their writing: They often combine two complete sentences without any punctuation or break between them.
...
3
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2answers
464 views
What language(s) should I learn to read the Epic of Gilgamesh?
I wasn't sure where to ask this question. I hope this is the right place...
My question is a little more complicated than the title suggests.
I'm wanting to read the Epic of Gilgamesh in the ...
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votes
1answer
61 views
What are all of the possible punctuation that are used within words in the majority of languages?
I know it's potentially a bit of an odd question, but I am working on an app that needs to analyze text that can be written in any of the most common languages. What I need to know is what punctuation/...
9
votes
1answer
169 views
Does (or should) the terms “spoken language” and “speech” include signed language?
And if not, is there a term, accepted by both the Deaf and linguistic communities, that includes both spoken and signed language, in contrast to written language?
Reputable linguistic sources, ...
2
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0answers
141 views
Ontology of logogram, pictogram and ideogram
Is it fair to say that a pictograms are a subset of ideograms which are a subset of logograms?
What is an example of an ideogram that is not a logogram or pictogram?
2
votes
2answers
2k views
If there is a pattern to Chinese characters
Many people say that written Chinese is a difficult language to learn because the characters don't have any relation to the sound of the word, like in English and other languages, even Japanese. But I'...
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votes
1answer
95 views
Does a written language exist with 1 symbol for every word?
We could create a dense written language with 1 symbol for every word.
Lets say that it is read by a computer aloud or translated into normal language.(Like a QR code)
I know that QR code does ...
0
votes
1answer
149 views
The reason some languages write down the accents while others don't
This may be a difficult question to answer but I'm curious as to the reason for this.
The word película in Spanish is pe-LEE-cu-la. It has an accent to mark how to say the word.
The word peninsula ...
2
votes
1answer
314 views
Do any languages not have the concept of “words”?
I'm wondering if there are any languages that are basically just streams of basic sound blocks, like letters or syllables, and they don't have words.
0
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1answer
111 views
Is punctuation necessary in written language?
I'm wondering if punctuation is necessary for written languages. I can't quite tell if in spoken languages we use "punctuation". It seems like "we say multiple words without pauses, breaks, or other ...
3
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0answers
73 views
Are there written languages that commonly start direct speech without marking?
In English and many common languages nowadays, punctuation marks are used to introduce direct speech. This makes it possible to start direct speech without lexical clue, as in the second example here:
...
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1answer
126 views
Is ending a sentence with a possessive considered informal? [closed]
Does corpora show any genre preferences for ending sentences with a nominal possessive? Does it occur more in spoken and informal written texts than in academic texts?
I really appreciate your input.
4
votes
3answers
305 views
Is capitalization a recurring feature across writing systems?
Is it a common feature for a writing system to include a capitalized variant of itself?
What is the purpose of capitalization in itself? Is it ever truly necessary for comprehension?
4
votes
2answers
41 views
What's a good resource where I can publish some narratives in a minority language?
During my fieldwork, I recorded, transcribed and translated a dozen or so narratives in an indigenous language of Central America, in close cooperation with a couple native speakers (including some ...
0
votes
1answer
125 views
Where might the given name Xelefon originate?
I was recently reading some historical records wherein a lady was mentioned, Olga Malar (née Cuch), born in "Napodiwka," Poland, in 1922. She was said to be the daughter of Xelefon Cuch and Jewdokia ...
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vote
1answer
133 views
How do languages which prefix proper nouns (by case marking, clitic article, etc) do capitalization in Latin Alphabet?
There are languages which put a prefix or a clitic before a noun to mark definiteness or case. How different languages using Latin alphabet which have this declension or marking deals with ...
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votes
1answer
106 views
Why no 'i' in Albanian for digits from 0 to 9? [closed]
According to OEIS the only other alpha language that has no numbers 0 to 9 with an i is Albanian.
http://oeis.org/A159878
1 – një
2 – dy
3 – tre
4 – katër
5 – pesë
6 – gjashtë
7 – shtatë
8 – tetë
9 – ...
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1answer
101 views
What is the language on this bracelet? [closed]
I found this silver bracelet in the early 1950's and cannot identify the language, even after checking several help sites on the internet.
4
votes
1answer
216 views
How are algebraic operations written in a right-to-left language?
Arabic is a right-to-left language, so when using Google Translate to translate this expression:
x/y
from English to Arabic, it returns
س / ص
where 'x' is on the right, 'y' is on the left.
...
-2
votes
1answer
172 views
Can someone assist translating a handwritten note I found? Possible Devanagari script [closed]
EDITED:
I found a handwritten note that was folded. I don't know where it came from. It was located in a trash can in my home. I live in rural United States. No one in my house claims to know where ...
3
votes
3answers
405 views
Can one “sentence” belong to multiple languages?
I am a machine learning developer who is currently working with natural language processing.
Today, I was thinking about language identification. I have a couple of ideas how to do so for the ~200 ...
2
votes
1answer
1k views
Significance of 'ฯ' in English orthography
The special characters page of my English keyboard on Android contains what appears to be a Thai character (ฯ). I've so far found that it is used as a kind of punctuation or phrase-shortening particle ...
1
vote
1answer
97 views
Trying to find language written on item [closed]
I have an item that has text on it, written in a different language. Ive been doing research trying to find it or something similar, but no luck. Anyone know what it says or the language? Much ...
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votes
1answer
446 views
What language is this? And, what does it mean? [closed]
I've been trying to figure out the meaning of this image, but I couldn't find anything. Anyone knows?
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0answers
115 views
What only native speakers and native writers (?) know
Even after many years, even after getting proficient in a foreign language, non-native speakers won't lose their foreign accent.
Is there an equivalent to this for non-native writers? Will be ...
0
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0answers
41 views
required standards for US domestic foreign language education
In reference to my earlier post, I'm going to be teaching foreign languages in some capacity and was advised by a board of education that I ought to understand and incorporate foreign language edu. ...
9
votes
3answers
390 views
Are non-spoken elements, such as capitalization and punctuation mark usage, part of the English language?
On the English Language Learners SE meta site, I'm involved in a conversation that I find somewhat bizarre. In the order in which they appear, here are the assertions (paraphrased with supporting ...
8
votes
1answer
215 views
Are there literate speech communities for Sign Languages?
I am aware of some systems of sign writing (e.g. Sutton SignWriting). They are used in dictionaries, teaching materials, or scientific documentation. But did some Sign Language speech communities ...
