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Written language is a trip
27 Jan 2022 12:56 amThis is a little piece I wrote back in December that I thought I'd share with folks here. I might come back and edit this further the next time I read it. Also, my apologies if the device you're on doesn't recognize all the non-Latin symbols!
Perhaps you may have looked at a handwritten Chinese character and wondered, where do I start?! In Mandarin, the system of writing radicals or parts of characters is called 部首 (bùshǒu) and it dictates how and in what sequence each stroke is made.
Today I realized that though I've seen plenty of Hindi and Sanskrit text, I had no idea how it was actually written. My first stop down the rabbit hole was watching this video.
Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other languages are written in देवनागरी Devanāgarī script. And it turns out that the ledger line across the top शिरोरेखा (shirorekhā) is indeed the last mark made when writing a word. It effectively indicates where each word begins and ends. This is something I particularly enjoy about writing in cursive Roman or Cyrillic alphabets and find useful for language learning.
To me, one of the most amusing aspects of written language is noticing similar symbols between systems. Like, there area SO MANY permutations of strokes, but there's also ONLY so many, y'know? It seems that there are just some marks we humans like to make, no matter where (or when) we are on this globe!
( Read more... )
Perhaps you may have looked at a handwritten Chinese character and wondered, where do I start?! In Mandarin, the system of writing radicals or parts of characters is called 部首 (bùshǒu) and it dictates how and in what sequence each stroke is made.
Today I realized that though I've seen plenty of Hindi and Sanskrit text, I had no idea how it was actually written. My first stop down the rabbit hole was watching this video.
Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other languages are written in देवनागरी Devanāgarī script. And it turns out that the ledger line across the top शिरोरेखा (shirorekhā) is indeed the last mark made when writing a word. It effectively indicates where each word begins and ends. This is something I particularly enjoy about writing in cursive Roman or Cyrillic alphabets and find useful for language learning.
To me, one of the most amusing aspects of written language is noticing similar symbols between systems. Like, there area SO MANY permutations of strokes, but there's also ONLY so many, y'know? It seems that there are just some marks we humans like to make, no matter where (or when) we are on this globe!
( Read more... )
