Writing Systems of the World | Abjads, Alphabets, Abugidas, Syllabaries & Logosyllabaries

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  • čas přidán 6. 02. 2020
  • Buy the chart:
    usefulcharts.com/products/wri...
    CREDITS:
    Chart: Matt Baker
    Script/Narration: Matt Baker
    Animation: @AlMuqaddimahYT
    Audio Editing: @JackRackam
    Intro music: "Lord of the Land" by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0. Available from incompetech.com

Komentáře • 4,9K

  • @UsefulCharts
    @UsefulCharts  Před 2 lety +92

    Buy the chart:
    usefulcharts.com/products/writing-systems-of-the-world

    • @SoulFule101
      @SoulFule101 Před 2 lety +1

      1,493.65 Indian Rupee is what i need if in india

    • @SoulFule101
      @SoulFule101 Před 2 lety

      i also need Evolution of the Alphabet chart so totalv is2987.3

    • @SoulFule101
      @SoulFule101 Před 2 lety

      another one i need then total is 4480.95

    • @mirzo4102
      @mirzo4102 Před 2 lety +1

      Can you Talk about the yezidi Alphabet?

    • @bztc1234
      @bztc1234 Před 2 lety

      are you copyright?

  • @taowang9735
    @taowang9735 Před 3 lety +2277

    How many letters/syllables/characters?
    English: 26
    French: 26
    Germany: 27
    Russian: 33
    Chinese: Yes

    • @gamermapper
      @gamermapper Před 3 lety +49

      French has 42 letters

    • @annettayeung2332
      @annettayeung2332 Před 3 lety +121

      Green Cappy diacritic is not considered a letter

    • @gamermapper
      @gamermapper Před 3 lety +14

      @@annettayeung2332 on s'en bas lec

    • @ikartikthakur
      @ikartikthakur Před 3 lety +167

      .. I guess Chinese evolved opposite to other scripts.. Rather than being complex in grammar.. It expanded its characters to satisfy the grammar.

    • @ANTSEMUT1
      @ANTSEMUT1 Před 3 lety +56

      5,000 common characters and up to 50,000 characters.

  • @aroundthefiremedia
    @aroundthefiremedia Před 4 lety +3053

    I would love to see a family tree video for languages. Modern languages at the bottom and trace them up as far as we can. That would be very interesting.

    • @Crick1952
      @Crick1952 Před 4 lety +88

      I think that's cool because writing has only independently arisen in three places in human history: Mesopotamia, China and Mexico

    • @alwinpriven2400
      @alwinpriven2400 Před 4 lety +77

      there are thousands of languages in the world, many of them isolates or barely spoken anymore.
      there's also not enough research about all of them, but you really tried you might get the afro-asiatic, indo-european, finno-urgic, astronesian, and many other groups that I've forgotten the names of. basically this chart will be really cool but it will need to be quite big because afro-asiatic for example can be traced back 9K years if I recall, while others such as indo-european are more recent.

    • @varana
      @varana Před 4 lety +24

      @@Crick1952 And maybe Egypt, or Egypt instead of Mesopotamia - afaik, a dependency between Sumerian and Egyptian writing has neither been proven nor disproven at this point.

    • @SampoPaalanen
      @SampoPaalanen Před 4 lety +9

      While could be nice to see, the problem I could see if that when it comes to languages there's a lot more assumptions, guess work and alternative theories then there is with royal bloodlines. IIRC there isn't even an universal definition as to what constitutes a language opposed to just being a dialect or slang.

    • @ignatiusqi9736
      @ignatiusqi9736 Před 4 lety +11

      *writing systems.
      writing systems are not the same as languages.

  • @ezix3753
    @ezix3753 Před 4 lety +500

    I just found out Korean is the easiest writing system to understand between all of East Asian languages

    • @user-xp4er3cb2z
      @user-xp4er3cb2z Před 3 lety +30

      True
      And hangul history is remarkable

    • @gokulpayyanur1839
      @gokulpayyanur1839 Před 3 lety +26

      It was made that way

    • @rudeminnesotan
      @rudeminnesotan Před 3 lety +44

      You can learn hangul in a day. It's simple memorization. I often tell my students. I can READ it. Doesn't mean I understand it. (I'm an expat English teacher in Korea.)

    • @badshah7631
      @badshah7631 Před 2 lety +1

      This comment belongs to me... 🙂

    • @krillin3350
      @krillin3350 Před 2 lety +1

      Indian also

  • @MrPantheraUmbra
    @MrPantheraUmbra Před 2 lety +69

    Respect to Korean King who created Korean script!
    This guy was genious to simplify it.
    This whole time I thought it was complex as Japanese not to mention, Korean script looks all alike... now I know why it looks all the same and that actually makes it easier.
    All you need is to memorize 14 + 10 (if I counted correctly) letters to combine them by playing tetris to get desireable combination of sounds.

  • @user-hb4zz4gh5e
    @user-hb4zz4gh5e Před 4 lety +2247

    Hangul was literally designed to be easy to learn, it’s very straightforward

    • @hipeople9856
      @hipeople9856 Před 4 lety +161

      Writing and memorization, yeah, but pronunciation for me as a native English speaker *nervous laugh* ... I can't for the life of me distinguish the sounds made by certain letters or make the fine changes in pronunciation when I say them ( ㄷ ㄸ and ㅌ, for example).

    • @technocracy90
      @technocracy90 Před 4 lety +198

      Because Korean and English are very different languages, let alone the characters. A lot of Koreans also don't get the different between a lot of English phonetics. We have a better luck tho, because English is the dominant language on the planet so we can hear it everywhere. Korean, on the other hand, is not that much prevalent outside of Korea so ... good luck to you!

    • @Jonte_P
      @Jonte_P Před 4 lety +62

      @@hipeople9856 How weird, I am A native Swedish speaker, and I have no problems pronouncing the letters that are used in hangul.

    • @hipeople9856
      @hipeople9856 Před 4 lety +37

      @@Jonte_P It is quite possible that I just suck at pronunciation of any letter. I'm known to always mess up pronunciation of words even in English

    • @geoffbannister8373
      @geoffbannister8373 Před 4 lety +30

      @@technocracy90 The difference between 십팔 and...well you know the other one, has given me SO much grief ^^

  • @richardhughes7044
    @richardhughes7044 Před 4 lety +1279

    "Pacific Ocean" - all the Cs are pronounced differently...

    • @kapybara8079
      @kapybara8079 Před 4 lety +203

      The problem here is the English language mate. Not the alphabet

    • @stephenwaldron2748
      @stephenwaldron2748 Před 4 lety +55

      The feature in English that creates the sound in words like "ocean", "motion" etc. I find really interesting. It's where when you have "s", "t", and (sometimes) "z" sounds followed by "i" (long "e" or latin "i"), and then a "dead" or unstressed vowel "uh"(ə), the "si", "ti" and "zi" sounds become "sh", "ch" and "j" respectively. So in "ocean", it's really "ce" which makes a "si" sound being reduced to "sh".

    • @fajriyanuar0601
      @fajriyanuar0601 Před 4 lety +15

      I think, when the C meet 'a' and 'u', Consonant and if it in the end of the word will be pronounced as "K" like Can, Count, Class. But if the C meet "i" and "e" will be pronounced as "S". Like a City. And if the C meet "H" will be pronounce as the usual C in other language, ex : cheese.

    • @japanpanda2179
      @japanpanda2179 Před 4 lety +9

      @@stephenwaldron2748 Yeah that's true, then you get words like "luxury" where it's even more complicated: the X is "ks", the U is "yoo", and the
      "sy" sound becomes "sh" in the way you mentioned, so you end up with either "lukshury", or "lugzhury"

    • @nataliaborys1554
      @nataliaborys1554 Před 4 lety +17

      Try polish. If you remember that some pairs of letters make a different sounds together like "sz", "cz", "si", etc., you can basically read 99% of the words. It's not latin alphabet that's the problem, it's english

  • @breensprout
    @breensprout Před 2 lety +134

    i'm a native english speaker who can read both cyrillic and hangeul and even though they're both pretty simple alphabets, hangeul was so much easier to learn because you're not having to retrain your brain to recognize familiar letters as having a different sound. when i went to russia it was so hard to stop reading PECTOPAH as peck-toh-pah and start reading it as res-to-ran.

    • @DarkOxypPS
      @DarkOxypPS Před 2 lety +7

      arabic next

    • @Lynn-pw9nw
      @Lynn-pw9nw Před 2 lety +13

      When I learnt Russian, it was quite easy for me to read words in Russian with English letters- however, it backfired and now sometimes I pronounce H, B, X, Y, P as their Russian counterparts.

    • @molarcos
      @molarcos Před rokem +6

      As a Belarussian & Russian speaker, to me it was easy to start reading letters with Latin sound, even in the 3rd form, when I started learning English.

    • @LaurenPebble
      @LaurenPebble Před 7 měsíci +4

      I am totally the same.
      I also have this problem with numbers. I can read Korean no problem, but if a sentence has a number in it I will say that number in English without even realising.

    • @solesurvivor7989
      @solesurvivor7989 Před 4 měsíci

      ​@@Lynn-pw9nwI had no issue getting used to that translating Russian heavy metal titles however once I tried to learn some Greek I got some of the Cyrillic letters mixed up with that since I learned that alphabet first

  • @thefoolonthehill8394
    @thefoolonthehill8394 Před 3 lety +178

    0:14 Introduction
    0:49 Alphabets
    3:09 Abjads
    5:11 Syllabaries
    7:08 Logosyllabaries
    8:05 Abugidas

  • @user-pb1tl6kk6f
    @user-pb1tl6kk6f Před 4 lety +2130

    Fun fact:
    If you(as a Chinese Characters learner) always forget how to write Chinese Characters, and that frustrated you much
    The fact is: We (as a native Chinese speaker) also forget how to write Chinese Characters quiet often!
    EX:
    我的舅舅喜歡在客廳吃鳳梨
    Eng translation: My uncle likes eating pineapple in the living room
    Within this very simple sentence, 12 characters, I can't write 5 characters
    Let me be clear, I can read, speak, understand it. I can type these words on computer easily
    but I don't remember how to write it on paper with pen
    I believe there are also quiet many native Chinese speakers can't write above sentence with only paper and pen lol

    • @ricorezende
      @ricorezende Před 4 lety +129

      And the result is that young is giving up on handwriting? If the answer is yes... Even in Portuguese which is a language where words are written quite similar the way they are spoken young people can't write as well... I think it's technology's fault.

    • @foreverknight4292
      @foreverknight4292 Před 4 lety +24

      I don't speak Chinese but as a kid I didn't know how my native language's numbers were like but did with English's, until I moved to a government school I had to learn the numbers lmao

    • @stephenwaldron2748
      @stephenwaldron2748 Před 4 lety +4

      @GUSTAVO666BR Error1010010101010 oh, that's easy, it's just O--O

    • @moondust2365
      @moondust2365 Před 4 lety +40

      @@foreverknight4292 To be fair, 1, 2, and 3 in Chinese is basically Roman numerals flipped horizontally. It's very literal. - would be 1, = (don't have a Chinese keyboard, sorry) is two, and so on. Starting with 4 it gets confusing, sorta.

    • @hanneyrito560
      @hanneyrito560 Před 4 lety +20

      It is easy to write for the mainland Chinese.

  • @moekacchi1326
    @moekacchi1326 Před 4 lety +724

    Japanese is also using Chinese words which they call "Kanji" (Chinese Character) along side those kanas.

    • @jlxip
      @jlxip Před 4 lety +116

      That's a pretty important point. Most Japanese words use either only kanji or a combination of kanji + okurigana, so it would've been nice if he had made it clear. Even though it appears on the video, it's not given enough attention to it.

    • @theharper1
      @theharper1 Před 4 lety +21

      Wouldn't it be better to describe kana as phonetic writing systems? (And yes, you can't talk about Japanese writing without including all four types; hiragana, katakana, kanji and romaji)

    • @ulysseslee9541
      @ulysseslee9541 Před 4 lety +4

      but Japan people also can read Chinese if u write the Chinese with Japanese style :P

    • @stanislavkostarnov2157
      @stanislavkostarnov2157 Před 4 lety +22

      @@theharper1 if he started talking about all of the writing systems in Japanese, it would have taken all the video... このヴィデオが日本語についてではありません。仮名を例しか使えなかったよ…
      but yes,
      I agree Kana is purely phonetic, in fact it is a rarely good example of a pure syllabary (the minimal distinguishable written unit is exactly 1 syllable, neither more nor less)...
      the other such, purely phonetical, syllabary-system is used for the Yi language; maybe other unrelated cases exist, can't think of any.
      my disagreement with him would be about Hangul... I would put it in a totally different category, that of a Phonoglyph (a character, who's elements are describing the method of pronunciation, rather then symbolizing a sound, i.e: front/back/lateral, fricative/stop...[for consonants], length[for vowels])
      I also feel slightly chagrined he forgot to mention other, less well known, types of writing system variations...
      such examples, as those odder systems in which symbols bear no, or nearly no, relation to spoken words & sounds, rather, a single character often representing a whole clause or complex concept. examples like the Runic-Lokadharmish, where a religious sign language is recorded as characters written atop a score, whose horizontal lines marked the direction and body-part preforming the gesture.
      from the picture icon, I expected a more extensive and thorough list, I hoped for something beyond that which I already knew.

    • @theharper1
      @theharper1 Před 4 lety +2

      @@stanislavkostarnov2157 I guess the disclaimer should be extant writing systems?

  • @eatntell
    @eatntell Před 4 lety +290

    When we talk to people from Asia or the Middle East we must always remember that in order to learn English they had to learn the Latin alphabet too. Respect them.

    • @kangzhilou4207
      @kangzhilou4207 Před 2 lety +73

      Latin alphabet is not hard, only 26. The hard part is a foreigner must memorize the spelling & meaning of thousands of combinations of alphabets(i.e. words).

    • @kayrakaya4719
      @kayrakaya4719 Před 2 lety +2

      Turkey?

    • @silvermeasuringspoons6462
      @silvermeasuringspoons6462 Před 2 lety +9

      I would say the grammar are the bicth here. I still can’t understand why we can’t use “5 cat” without S because the number already indicated plural. That’s no point of adding S. And why the difference between 1 and 2 is so important but different in 2 and bajillion don’t.

    • @justinzhang9935
      @justinzhang9935 Před 2 lety +3

      ​@@silvermeasuringspoons6462 haha, good pointing out. Even from the computer view instead of natural languages, add the 's' while already stated the number before is just a wasting space of RAM and disk.

    • @danieltreshner4955
      @danieltreshner4955 Před 2 lety +4

      @@silvermeasuringspoons6462 If I had to guess, the -s at the end of most plural nouns either resulted from a misspeaking that became so widespread it permeated to modern English, or because that "-s" sound allows one to easily and quickly shape the mouth and tongue into a much wider variety of sounds than dropping the "-s" entirely.
      As for the difference between 1 and 2, English is much simpler when compared to other languages. After all modern English doesn't even have a dual, trial, or paucal system.

  • @paul2958
    @paul2958 Před 3 lety +38

    Japanese is both a syllabary and a logo-syllabary. It’s a mix between Japanese kana (hiragana/katakana) and kanji. A good amount of kanji came from China, but some were made in japan. Chinese uses strings of their characters together, while Japanese has kanji mixed with kana. 小 means “small” in Japanese as well, one of its readings is “shō,” but in its adjective form, 小さい” “chīsaī,” it’s pronounced “chī.”

  • @jimcho9412
    @jimcho9412 Před 4 lety +456

    Don't get overwhelmed when you see the Korean alphabet chart. You only need to know 5 basic consonants and 3 vowels. Adding or combine these 8 characters to make other sounds

    • @AK-jj1qj
      @AK-jj1qj Před 3 lety +19

      네, 맞아요!

    • @SmileyRamonHappytime
      @SmileyRamonHappytime Před 3 lety +30

      Exactly! We only need to know ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅅ, and ㅇ to get ㅋ, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅂ, ㅍ, ㅈ, ㅊ, and ㅎ (ㄹ is one exception, though), and same goes to vowels- add •, ㅡ, and ㅣ well together and you can get all of the others!

    • @rowonder3897
      @rowonder3897 Před 3 lety +7

      yes! thai is very challenging. But I'm still trying to learn it 😁

    • @tofferooni4972
      @tofferooni4972 Před 2 lety +15

      @@rowonder3897 Oh yeah, even us Thai people struggle with it. When 9-10th graders can’t properly read in their own native language, you know it’s difficult.

    • @karthiktirumala1773
      @karthiktirumala1773 Před 2 lety +5

      yeah same with Telugu, 57 basic letters but then you have "combo letters" which you add letters together to make a new one. This results in like 250+ letters lol.
      Edit: So I counted again and it’s like 700 letters…

  • @ky9129
    @ky9129 Před 4 lety +821

    Korean was designed rather recently with intention to replace difficult Chinese writing system. And it even got a proper documentation.
    No wonder why it is more logical.

    • @questworldmatrix
      @questworldmatrix Před 4 lety +9

      Looks like Chinese Zhuyin.

    • @ky9129
      @ky9129 Před 4 lety +47

      @Austin Thekkanath To be fair, they are one of the oldest and you cannot renovate entire writing system in a day. Think about London tube. It's first ever metro but considered terrible nowadays due to its age.

    • @user-qh3hv3fv9w
      @user-qh3hv3fv9w Před 3 lety +10

      @@questworldmatrix If you consider the time line Zhuyin looks like Gugyeol(old korean writing system). And Zhuyin is sylabery Hangul is alphabet they are way diffrent.

    • @avgvstvs7
      @avgvstvs7 Před 3 lety +7

      @@ky9129 Turks did this 2 times in history with success.

    • @yipingcuiv
      @yipingcuiv Před 3 lety +33

      Austin Thekkanath The Chinese writing system is somewhat more independent from pronunciation. It’s easier to keep writing standardized. That was what keeps Chinese as a single language instead of evolve into a family of languages like what happened in Europe.
      There is also added bonus. For average Chinese, it’s quite easy to read and understand texts form 2000 years ago. Not many Europeans on the other hand, can read Latin these days.

  • @Brevicauda
    @Brevicauda Před 2 lety +27

    It's so mind-blowing because somehow, I accidentally learned all five-way to write.
    From
    Abjads: Arabic (I learned it for at least a decade since I grew up in the Indonesian Muslim community)
    Alphabet: just like the rest of you, learn it at school
    Abugidas: Javanese ancient ha-na-cha-ra-ka (Since I am a Javanese tribe)
    Syllabaries: Korean 안영! (if it still counted, finally learn it for the last three years, cuz I love their movies and dramas)
    And the last, Logo-Syllabaries: Mandarin (learn it because I have a hard time with the double consonant in the Korean and found apparently, that Mandarin is so much fun! 你好 我是Amy!我很高兴认识你🤗

  • @rithvikmuthyalapati9754
    @rithvikmuthyalapati9754 Před 4 měsíci +6

    One important note about the abugida system is that you do not need to memorize they symbols for every single constant+vowel pair. The same exact vowel diacritics can be used to attach that vowel to any consonant sound. For example to write ke in Hindi, you would need to add a slanted tick on top of the symbol ka(क) and you get ke(के). To write pe in Hindi, you need to do the exact same thing of adding that slanted tick on top of the symbol, so pa(प) becomes pe(पे).

  • @asdkotable
    @asdkotable Před 4 lety +1714

    Cut him some slack, guys, Chinese is hard.

    • @abhisheknanda9956
      @abhisheknanda9956 Před 4 lety +34

      Tray writing odia or Tamil then

    • @horacewonghy
      @horacewonghy Před 4 lety +105

      其實唔難

    • @stanislavkostarnov2157
      @stanislavkostarnov2157 Před 4 lety +77

      @2freeIvX it makes sense for a written only language, one which has problems with its pronunciation... (you cannot easily say, this word is pronounce xxxx and means so & so)
      If you look at Chinese characters internally, there is an (albeit rather inaccurate) logical system... for example, in Taiwanese-Mandarin, each character is clearly divided between a radical (approximation of the words meaning... e.g: a bird, a mode of transport, a food, an instrument, action done with the hand, a force of nature etc) and a phonetic, giving you the approximate reading... knowing both, you can usually figure out the word meant even if you do not know it. (this system became less usable as its symbols were simplified with time, but, became forcibly returned to Taiwanese-Mandarin, which, unlike simplified-Chinese, is the product of a conscious effort to keep the language systematic, even at the cost of greatly increasing symbol complexity...)
      in short, if your language is stable, you can write it as a set of phonemes(sounds), but if your confidence in how the language is spoken is wanting, you may prefer to put in elements which point directly to the morpheme(unit of meaning) bypassing the difficulty of pronunciation.

    • @kaylaho
      @kaylaho Před 4 lety +33

      @@stanislavkostarnov2157 Good point! Fyi, Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan also use Traditional Chinese for writing, in Chinese we call it 正體字/繁體字

    • @terryfang8087
      @terryfang8087 Před 4 lety +76

      2freeIvX It’s more efficient to write and read Chinese than English. Based on life experience, the same content in Chinese takes about 30%-50% less space than that in English. 读写汉字更有效率。生活经验表明,相同内容汉字比英语节省约30%-50%的空间。

  • @UsefulCharts
    @UsefulCharts  Před 4 lety +881

    CORRECTION: The vowels on Shalom should be שָׁלוֹם

    • @elizabethstart7466
      @elizabethstart7466 Před 4 lety +112

      I don't want to dis anyone writing style. But practicality and ease of use seem to be Alphabetic.

    • @ankavoskuilen1725
      @ankavoskuilen1725 Před 4 lety +100

      I think the most beautifull are hieroglyphs and I also like the curly forms of arabic.
      Edit: I suppose everybody thinks their own writingsystem is the most logical but that is because you know it the best.

    • @DenisBourveau
      @DenisBourveau Před 4 lety +77

      "Russian (Cyrillic)"
      Angry Bulgarians incoming

    • @thatotherguy3348
      @thatotherguy3348 Před 4 lety +65

      latin alphabet most logical because I'm biased.

    • @karlmachnow4961
      @karlmachnow4961 Před 4 lety +83

      Abugidas are in my opinion the most fascinating way of writing. Alphabets can be more logical, but often they aren't, English is the best example for that.

  • @GoodGoga
    @GoodGoga Před 4 lety +63

    This was eye-opening! Thank you very much! Never in my life could i imagine that in 10 minutes i would be able to understand the mechanics of a dozen languages that usually look like random symbols to me.

    • @zephdef1781
      @zephdef1781 Před 4 lety +1

      Shouldn't you be making some NLSS compilations? ;)

  • @Katerina-kqkq
    @Katerina-kqkq Před 3 lety +110

    “In alphabets a single letter represents a sound”
    ЯЮЕЁ: huh?

    • @md_hyena
      @md_hyena Před 3 lety +17

      ЬЙЪ: WHA?

    • @666fedr
      @666fedr Před 3 lety +7

      ЬЪ!

    • @julystargaryen9452
      @julystargaryen9452 Před 3 lety +11

      Theoretically yes, but as he mentioned there are exceptions, even in English. It's mostly because languages evolve but ppl conserve their writing so at one point they become different. In the case of ya yu ye and yo these leters are mostly used to indicate that the preceding consonant is palatalised, thus 1 letter = 1 sound. They are used as pure ya yu ye and yo bcs some guy thought thay it was cooler tp write this way than "y" + "a/u/e/o".

    • @mihanich
      @mihanich Před 3 lety +3

      Cyrillic is thus partially syllabic because Slavs decided to create separate letters for ye, yu and ya (Russians also added a letter for yo) syllables because they're used very often in slavic languages

    • @FuelFire
      @FuelFire Před 3 lety +3

      Also russians using ye for yo:

  • @mesopotamiansenpai9091
    @mesopotamiansenpai9091 Před 4 lety +272

    I just linked that Korean has this similar trait to Arabic. Almost each letter changes shape or form based on the letter after it. For example [ ب ي ت ] means house each letter on its own. But we write it [ بيت ]
    Kind of interesting

    • @kumarslvr1
      @kumarslvr1 Před 3 lety +22

      Korean has a lot of similarities to Tamil, in Korean and Tamil, there are over 200 words that are same including words like. Search on youtube so see the link.

    • @shaman8375
      @shaman8375 Před 3 lety +6

      @@kumarslvr1 was thinking how according to this video, Korean should fall into syllabic alphabet, same as all the south asian languages.

    • @magdymohammed5207
      @magdymohammed5207 Před 3 lety +13

      In Arabic every letter Written is pronounced in a mathematical predictions No exceptions
      I believe that the phonetics of Arabic is the clearest and most of letters can be traced in all other tongues In a way

    • @tescomealdeals4613
      @tescomealdeals4613 Před 3 lety +7

      Wow, i am a native English speaker and we have two different ways of writing: manuscript, and cursive. (Cursive used to he more popular up until recently where it is now slowly being phased out). We are currently writing in manuscript btw. But that is similar to cursive in the Latin alphabet, because on its own an s may look normal hut when you connect an s with other letters it changes. The way it changes also depends on the letter it is being placed near, for example, a w would bridge two letters high up while an a would bridge then low. I guess you can see why its being phased out now lmao.

    • @mr.alhusaini8250
      @mr.alhusaini8250 Před 3 lety +21

      The difference between these two is that in arabic, the many forms of a letter are based on where the letter comes in a word ex:
      بيت let's discuss every letter
      ب have 4 forms based on where it comes in a word
      بـ in the beginning / ـبـ in the middle/ ـب at the end / ب alone and separated
      Same goes for ت and ي
      While in Hangul is not based on the position but rather the vowel that comes with the letter

  • @philipr.8197
    @philipr.8197 Před 4 lety +140

    Additional information: Japanese Hiragana and Katakana are originally from Chinese, as modern latin alphabet is developed from Phoenician alphabets. Hiragana is the cursive form of a Chinese character that makes the same sound. For example, Hiragana あ [a] is a cursive form of Chinese character 安 [ān], and か [ka] is a cursive form of Chinese character 加 [jiā]. Katakana is either derived from the radicals of the Chinese characters, or cursive form of Chinese characters that make the same sound, like Hiragana. For example, Katakana シ [shi] is a deformed version of Chinese character 之 [zhī], and Katakana ア [a] is from a radical of a Chinese character 阿 [é], 阝.

    • @bryansiew9707
      @bryansiew9707 Před rokem +3

      Actually it is from old writing way of Chinese which is known as 草书(cǎo shū)

    • @kentarinko
      @kentarinko Před rokem +7

      The shape of the letters is from ancient Chinese yes. The phonetic concept was from ancient Indian languages. There used to be Chinese Buddhist monks immigrated to Japanese islands like missionary who brought Indian classic texts with them.

    • @krisannabad7902
      @krisannabad7902 Před rokem

      Shalom

  • @justrandomthings709
    @justrandomthings709 Před 3 lety +19

    Old Filipino Writing or baybayin as we called it here also follows the Abugida system, it's like. Based in Brahmic script as well:
    ᜑ (ha)
    ᜑᜒ (he/hi)
    ᜑᜓ (ho/hu)
    ᜑ᜔ (h)
    And it has fewer characters, I think there's only 18 characters in Baybayin.

    • @revinhatol
      @revinhatol Před 2 lety

      17 as d and r share the same sound.

    • @barbs1853
      @barbs1853 Před 2 lety +1

      17 letters original old baybayin
      Hanggang sa modern and advance. baybayin (ᜊᜌ̟ᜊᜌ̊ᜈ̟ ) ay parte ng abugidas sa south east asia

    • @junkyyard2273
      @junkyyard2273 Před 2 lety +3

      It's not only Baybayin
      There's a lot of Old Filipino Writing systems.

    • @barbs1853
      @barbs1853 Před 2 lety +1

      @@junkyyard2273 yes true
      sampu ang old writing system ng bansa natin. Tulad ng mangyan script, basahan script, tagbanwa script baybayin script at iba pa.

  • @jamesthompson7282
    @jamesthompson7282 Před 2 lety +1

    Matt makes terrific videos! Engaging AND a public service. Thanks!

  • @saqlainsiddiqui7170
    @saqlainsiddiqui7170 Před 4 lety +924

    দারুন ভিডিও হয়েছে!
    It means, "excellent video"
    It's Bengali script which is an abugida. Really very informative video. Loved it!

    • @NoName-sz5lu
      @NoName-sz5lu Před 4 lety +5

      @Mario sylheti? Chittainga bolbo?
      Ken goror? Gom asona? Ar ghorot aisshu. Baat haiu.

    • @Morningstar19916
      @Morningstar19916 Před 4 lety +12

      @Mario এত দিন পর জানলাম আমরা আবুগীদা তে লিখি ।। Awesome

    • @boycottnok1466
      @boycottnok1466 Před 4 lety +3

      Thik bolechen, apni.

    • @TheTNTBox
      @TheTNTBox Před 4 lety +2

      Why not Arabic style, like Pakistan?

    • @bluefairy7304
      @bluefairy7304 Před 4 lety +58

      @@TheTNTBox we are Bengali. Bengali is one of the most richest language in the world. Why we will use arabic?

  • @jessicas2165
    @jessicas2165 Před 4 lety +149

    First impressions for me is, oh, so that's how Korean written works... how wonderfully logical.
    It's nice to learn a few things about languages today, I'm not sure how much will stick, but I'm glad I saw it at least once.

    • @thebravegallade731
      @thebravegallade731 Před 4 lety +24

      Colours correction: a wise person can learn in a day, a stupid person could in a week
      (King sejong, the king who was behind the creation of hangul)
      Its simple and scientific (each consonant represent the part of the throat/mouth that makes the sound) because it was made so recently, in the 14th century.

    • @reiriley1780
      @reiriley1780 Před 4 lety +8

      Yea, korean symbols are surprisingly easy to learn, but knowing how to read the syllable blocks quickly is a whole other story dhdjd. Like??? 안녕???

    • @reiriley1780
      @reiriley1780 Před 4 lety +5

      Interceptor Cop it actually is pronounced the same as written, save for a few rules that make it easier to say quicker, such as 국립 would be pronounced 궁닙 instead.

    • @maarirs12894
      @maarirs12894 Před 4 lety

      Devanagari is very similar in system too. But u need training to get the sounds right. But it’s all codified. Very easy.

    • @quabledistocficklepo3597
      @quabledistocficklepo3597 Před 4 lety

      @@COLOURzen
      With a tutor. Don't expect to learn it by yourself.

  • @unioneness
    @unioneness Před rokem +5

    Oh wow! Hi, I'm korean and love linguistic and each letter's writing systems. I can speak Korean, English, Japanese and as a beginner Russian, Chinese, Mongolian, Indonesian, Kazakhstan, and studying Koine Greek as well, and I can read Hebrew and Arabic only their letters also.
    Though I can't understand Hebrew and Arabic, when I taught myself to read them, I just thought all of those 5 each writing systems(Latin, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic) feel like pretty similar to me. And when I said this to others(random foreigner friends) no one believed me. But then when you explan about 'Abjads', you just showed us here that they came from common origin. And that's why I felt like they are similar and it wasn't hard to me memorizing each of them.
    And also I have been always so curious about Abugidas' letter systems, Cuz I can't even guess how their reading system and sounds and look just alien and nothing similar to Latin. But now I got know even they are all in same group and how they work. (Well I have tried to learn them by myself few times and then usually couldn't continue long)
    I'm so excited and thank you, you made things clearer for me like certain things to be more certain, and condensed complicated things into one. I'm very glad you made this video and I discovered it.
    Lastly, I'm of course glad and proud of Korean writing system is the easiest one. (It's just always we have known and acknowledged ourselves too) thank you. 🤗

  • @matthewmcree1992
    @matthewmcree1992 Před 2 lety +16

    Hangul might be the most brilliant writing system ever invented. It's so simple to understand and each character was designed based upon the shape your mouth is supposed to make, plus it doesn't involve many characters in the first place. Now if only Japanese could simplify itself to be less insane and totally complicated. Even written Chinese is simpler to learn according to many polyglots. Written Japanese looks cool as hell, but it makes it impossible to learn for non-native speakers!

    • @qingl5148
      @qingl5148 Před 2 lety +1

      the simpler, the less information being delivered. That is why Chinese character nowadays still being attached on South Korean's national ID card and used in Japanese legal provision, which helps to distinguish and clarify difference between people and things. I agree traditional Chinese cannot be easy to be widely learned by many people, but currently simplify Chinese has proved that it can help all Chinese people who born after 1950s getting away from illiteracy, in the meantime, it remains Chinese characters' function.

    • @you2be839
      @you2be839 Před 9 měsíci

      Exactly my thoughts given what I know about it from a western point of view. For me, Japanese is Chinese with an extra added twist on top, and that's why I usually say that the easiest way to learn Japanese is to first learn Chinese: you start with difficult, so that the more difficult becomes slightly easier... and that's Japanese in a nutshell for me!

  • @b1n319
    @b1n319 Před 4 lety +623

    hangul is the most easiest writing system!!! i memorized it in one hour

    • @CluelessBerk
      @CluelessBerk Před 4 lety +123

      NOW LEARN ITS PRONUNCIATION DEAR

    • @Ahrang2019
      @Ahrang2019 Před 4 lety +191

      "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days." - That's exactly what King Sejong intended to do!

    • @chrischin5454
      @chrischin5454 Před 4 lety +2

      Are you here after watching crash landing on you?

    • @srahims3218
      @srahims3218 Před 4 lety

      Nice joke

    • @bulk_manifesto3624
      @bulk_manifesto3624 Před 4 lety +33

      Good luck on pronunciation and missing/confusing reading rules. Tbh, if not for Japanese kanji, korean is harder than Japanese

  • @200kolya
    @200kolya Před 4 lety +54

    the shape of the korean alphabet is also relevant to the ones with similar sounds. thus makes it easier to memorize

  • @erikziak1249
    @erikziak1249 Před 3 lety +9

    I see big potential in this channel. Finally the YT algorithm seems to kick in.

  • @akshattewari
    @akshattewari Před 4 lety +38

    वयम् भारतस्यभाषाःगर्वित।
    हमें अपनी सभी भारतीय भाषाओं पर गर्व है।
    We're proud of all our Indian languages.

    • @shahanshahpolonium
      @shahanshahpolonium Před 4 lety +8

      Jai Hind

    • @jijiivisha8843
      @jijiivisha8843 Před 3 lety

      🇮🇳❤️

    • @Propapanda0213
      @Propapanda0213 Před 3 lety +1

      Is this Hindi, and the language most Indians use (except Eng)?

    • @jijiivisha8843
      @jijiivisha8843 Před 3 lety +4

      @@Propapanda0213 the first sentence is written in Sanskrit language. It is usually written in Devanagiri Script.
      The second sentence is written in Hindi which is also written in Devanagiri Script. Hindi is spoken by almost 40% Indians.
      And English is also widely spoken by there are only 10% people (according to most of the sites) who can speak English quite well. English is mostly used with the native language making a portmonteau mixture of it.
      For example, I'm a Hindi native and all my life I've spoken Hindi+ English more than either of these languages.

    • @Propapanda0213
      @Propapanda0213 Před 3 lety +2

      @@jijiivisha8843 ahhh that’s very informative thank you! I thought Hindi was just another name for Sanskrit haha; so, is Sanskrit also widely spoken? I’m Chinese and I really love the diversity of Indian cultures and peoples :)

  • @himangG
    @himangG Před 4 lety +308

    India has 22 official languages, 800 total sub languages

    • @srinidhi7140
      @srinidhi7140 Před 4 lety +29

      ನಮಸ್ಕಾರಗಳು ನಾನು ಕರ್ಣಾಟಕದಿಂದ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೇನೆ

    • @joshina4497
      @joshina4497 Před 4 lety +46

      @@srinidhi7140 I have no idea what you wrote there, but it's looking so beautiful

    • @supr33
      @supr33 Před 4 lety +35

      ​@@joshina4497 it says "Hello, I am from Karnataka" in the Kannada script (also I love yoongi's gummy smile 😁)

    • @user-mz7bh1eh9v
      @user-mz7bh1eh9v Před 4 lety +10

      ਇਹ ਤੋਂ ਵੀ ਜਾਦਾ ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾੰ ਹੋੰਗੇ

    • @sinoroman
      @sinoroman Před 4 lety +7

      tfw most of middle east were arabized

  • @atulgaonkar2230
    @atulgaonkar2230 Před 4 lety +107

    "English is bit confusing" 😂 I thought they never knew this.

    • @ValeriePallaoro
      @ValeriePallaoro Před 2 lety +7

      We know; we have 'ough' in our words
      as in though (rhymes with toe).
      as in through (rhymes with true).
      as in rough (rhymes with ruffian).
      as in cough (rhymes with. coffin).
      as in thought (rhymes with taut).
      as in bough (rhymes with cow)
      Enough said!

  • @comradecetacean1927
    @comradecetacean1927 Před 2 lety +24

    8:57 क doesn't sound like "ka", but का, that is formed of the consonant क and the vowel आ. Every letter kind of has a silent अ behind it, I guess that's why they end up being pronounced like "ka" as english represents both अ and आ with the vowel "A". क kind of sounds like "ko", but I find it hard to explain accurately as English has less than half the number of vowels as hindi.

    • @inamuvlog
      @inamuvlog Před 2 lety +4

      the problem is with the narrators pronunciation, likely due to lack of interaction with indic languages. क is not pronounced as "kha" rather a clear sound akin to "kuh" - it's not aspirated nor is it combined with आ to make the "ah" sound in "kha"

    • @cheemsdoge6724
      @cheemsdoge6724 Před 2 lety +3

      *क is Ka* and *का is Kaa*

    • @Smitology
      @Smitology Před 2 lety +3

      Yeah, English doesn't have true voiceless stops, only aspirated stops, so he pronounced it more like between खा (khaa) and खॉ. Also because the schwa sound is a fundamental part of Indian phonology whereas Latin doesn't have such a sound, we don't have a good Latin letter to represent अ so us English speakers use "a". That leads to misconceptions as in most European languages, "a" is pronounced like आ.
      It gets even more confusing, as some like using "a" for अ and "aa" for आ, some like using "a" for both which makes it hard to know the pronunciation unless we already know the word, and some use a macron which isn't easily available on a standard English keyboard.
      So yeah, in IPA which is a lot more clearer, क​ is /kə/, but he pronounced it /kʰɑ/.

  • @onewxrldmusic7303
    @onewxrldmusic7303 Před 3 lety +2

    This is a fascinating presentation. I watched this like 6 times to grasp all explanations.

  • @gundabalf
    @gundabalf Před 4 lety +489

    the first letter of the english alphabet is "eyy" and it stands for the sound "aarghh"

    • @nofanfelani6924
      @nofanfelani6924 Před 4 lety +47

      English is awesome isn't it?

    • @feynstein1004
      @feynstein1004 Před 4 lety +55

      That's what happens when your language gets heavily mixed with other languages

    • @novvain495
      @novvain495 Před 4 lety +28

      The vowel letters were all pronounced with long vowels /aː eː iː oː uː yː/,which then broke into dipthongs → /eɪ i aɪ oʊ ju waɪ/.
      English spelling makes more sense when you detect patterns in it.

    • @maximilianopena
      @maximilianopena Před 4 lety +9

      And that's why I'm happy to be a native spanish speaker

    • @lordman5497
      @lordman5497 Před 4 lety +2

      @@maximilianopena **smiles in pizzalandese*

  • @Demildiel
    @Demildiel Před 4 lety +99

    I would love to see one with ancient writing systems, including undeciphered ones!

    • @ilznidiotic
      @ilznidiotic Před 4 lety +4

      Can people PLEASE give this comment some likes?

    • @kiddydut
      @kiddydut Před 4 lety +2

      Ilznidiotic done

    • @only_fair23
      @only_fair23 Před rokem

      I wonder what ancient Maya and the Rapanui scripts were. I believe cuneiform is syllabic.

  • @robertschlesinger1342
    @robertschlesinger1342 Před 3 lety +2

    Absolutely superb introduction to the major types of writing systems of the world.

  • @thomasb7237
    @thomasb7237 Před 3 lety +4

    Hiragana and Katakana were developed from simplified versions of Chinese characters that had those sounds to speed up writing. For example か (Hiragana) and カ (Katakana), both pronounced as "ka" were developed from the Chinese character 加, pronounced as "ga" in Cantonese.

  • @antivalidisme5669
    @antivalidisme5669 Před 4 lety +71

    Love both the logic and the efficiency of Korean. Good old King Sejong!
    Nice work by the way, very concise. Perfect for an awesome chart indeed.

  • @user-mr3wf3xy4t
    @user-mr3wf3xy4t Před 4 lety +388

    I was learning Korean like a year ago. I learned a little. Then Thai became interesting so I started learning it.
    *Korean is easier*
    -I gave up on Thai-

    • @ladybeige323
      @ladybeige323 Před 4 lety +11

      Psyrorooo right? I had already learned hangeul when I tried to learn thai, and I gave up with the first 2 letters😭

    • @user-mr3wf3xy4t
      @user-mr3wf3xy4t Před 4 lety +18

      @@ladybeige323 thai is like effin' easy, to be honest.
      Like you are chopping soup

    • @thastayapongsak4422
      @thastayapongsak4422 Před 4 lety +9

      อย่าพึ่งยอมแพ้สิ ภาษาไทยง่ายจะตาย ;)

    • @sinoroman
      @sinoroman Před 4 lety +14

      english -> greek -> hebrew -> arabic -> persian/farsi -> hindi? -> thai (try this learning transition)

    • @notavailable403
      @notavailable403 Před 4 lety +18

      I recently started learning Thai (after learning other languages including Korean) and I also thought that the writing system is hard to learn but I'm getting used to it! It's amazing how much/fast you can learn when you're motivated. You can learn reading any language pretty quickly when you just... Read and read a lot :D That's also how i learned reading Hangul. But I heard that Thai doesn't have complicated grammar - there are no verb tenses.

  • @agytjax
    @agytjax Před 3 lety +3

    @8:35 : It is not a "small change". It is a decoration/enrichment to the unqualified consonant. In most cases, the decorative symbol is an appendment to the consonants.

  • @alexsorto6183
    @alexsorto6183 Před 3 lety +1

    Dude, u r a monster (in the good way) your vids are amazingly filled with knowledge. Keep up the good work man!

  • @filiushermesio
    @filiushermesio Před 4 lety +46

    PS: Georgian has medieval and ancient scripts as well ( Asomtavruli-ancient one, Nuskhuri- medieval and Mkhedruli -modern)

    • @UhtredOfBamburgh
      @UhtredOfBamburgh Před 3 lety +1

      one of my favourite alphabets and cultures!

    • @finrodfelagund8668
      @finrodfelagund8668 Před rokem +1

      Nuskhuri is also ancient, not medieval (if we start medieval era from the 5th century) and Mkhedruli is medieval not modern

  • @Bpapayaboy
    @Bpapayaboy Před 4 lety +9

    CZcams recommendation suck. It should recommend this channel a long time ago. Such an underrated channel.

  • @rogerstone3068
    @rogerstone3068 Před rokem

    Where else can you find such a collection of comments, providing insights from languages all around the world? The power of the internet is great, and this channel offers it the chance to flourish.

  • @ItsMzPhoenix
    @ItsMzPhoenix Před 3 lety +12

    I find it cool that Hangul (Korean) follows such a pattern!

  • @kiw6024
    @kiw6024 Před 4 lety +414

    BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY
    Other writing system can't do this, a man with hat next to table and chair :
    홋 ㅜ ㅟ 😏😏

    • @FunnyParadox
      @FunnyParadox Před 4 lety +45

      Â T _j
      ...and it was a fail

    • @ADeeSHUPA
      @ADeeSHUPA Před 4 lety +14

      @@FunnyParadox ㄱ홋 뷰 뤼

    • @netizen8146
      @netizen8146 Před 4 lety +12

      한글 이스 브에리 구드 ㅋㅋㅋ

    • @Annyeong1
      @Annyeong1 Před 4 lety +10

      긁릵곩 넑넭는 읽런걹돍 몴핡잖앍 엵싥 킹갌한긁

    • @kiw6024
      @kiw6024 Před 4 lety +12

      @@Annyeong1 사실 그런 문맥 숨겨놓기는 다른 친구들도 할 수 있어용...

  • @danielbosch8811
    @danielbosch8811 Před 4 lety +6

    This channel is going to be HUGE, i already binged 10 videos and subscribed immediatly

  • @MrRaul8Z
    @MrRaul8Z Před 3 lety +1

    I like the videos from this guy. Clearly, he is a great educator!

  • @voidericspenceracemperor9710

    You learn new things everyday, thanks for teaching me about the Japanese Sylabarries

  • @johnlacey3857
    @johnlacey3857 Před 4 lety +6

    Love this stuff! Love it when an expert can distill the basics down to the level that a “layman” can understand.

  • @rickmitton6971
    @rickmitton6971 Před 4 lety +12

    I'm sure it takes a lot more work, but I love the highlighting around each section as you talk about each part. Thanks again for the video!

  • @sumneetkaurbamrah1982
    @sumneetkaurbamrah1982 Před 3 lety +1

    Very informative! Your oratory and research skills are praise-worthy.

  • @riverscuomosulista
    @riverscuomosulista Před 3 lety +10

    I love learning new languages, my father is trying to teach me Italian , love from Brazil 💞

  • @lucasan8855
    @lucasan8855 Před 4 lety +26

    I'm so happy because I watched the whole video in English and I understood everything he said.
    Greetings from Brazil 🇧🇷

    • @leonardokosta5059
      @leonardokosta5059 Před 4 lety +3

      dá uma sensação boa, né? continue consumindo conteúdos em inglês que a fluência vem naturalmente
      tô tentando aprender francês, fico vendo jornais o dia todo pra tentar entender

    • @lucasan8855
      @lucasan8855 Před 4 lety

      @@leonardokosta5059 verdade Man, agora tô tentando aprender italiano , tô assistindo vídeos em inglês para aprender essa nova lingua e tá dando super certo kkk

    • @chicoti3
      @chicoti3 Před 4 lety +2

      I know exactly the feeling

    • @mundiantobachke6151
      @mundiantobachke6151 Před 3 lety

      A fluência vem conforme você consome conteúdo no idioma que está aprendendo

  • @guindywest3220
    @guindywest3220 Před 4 lety +8

    உலகில் உள்ள மொழிகளில் மூத்த மொழி நம் தமிழ் மொழி....வாழ்க தமிழ் வளர்க அதன் புகழ்✌

  • @Silkroute
    @Silkroute Před 2 lety

    Thank you Matt ! You have made such inspirational videos showing your quest for knowledge & Truth . Also sharing with rest of of world increases a lot awareness among others . kind Regards
    Ehsan

  • @aespa690
    @aespa690 Před 4 lety +311

    Im sorry but I died of laughter when he tried to pronounce 小

    • @tcphd2506
      @tcphd2506 Před 4 lety +54

      He did admit it sounds "something like"...

    • @runningriot7963
      @runningriot7963 Před 4 lety +27

      Same with the Japanese lmao! Sounded funny as hell. At least he tried though.

    • @tonygilbert5256
      @tonygilbert5256 Před 4 lety +8

      Zeee YAO!

    • @cuteworld1637
      @cuteworld1637 Před 4 lety +5

      Yeah, it would've pronounced Xiao (shao)

    • @runningriot7963
      @runningriot7963 Před 4 lety +9

      @@cuteworld1637 It had the Pinyin on it. But Chinese is hard to pronounce, especially if you've never studied it.

  • @wissamkhaled5106
    @wissamkhaled5106 Před 4 lety +276

    still waiting for languages family tree

    • @UsefulCharts
      @UsefulCharts  Před 4 lety +107

      I'll get to it eventually 😀

    • @tugadmundo
      @tugadmundo Před 4 lety +4

      @@UsefulCharts words ,just words

    • @caesaraugustus7990
      @caesaraugustus7990 Před 4 lety +3

      @@tugadmundo literally

    • @OHYS
      @OHYS Před 4 lety +2

      I NEED THIS

    • @carmenmonoxide7459
      @carmenmonoxide7459 Před 4 lety +3

      +Juicy Boy ::: I ain't even gonna front. This was interesting af. Never bought a chart before...until now!

  • @clauaome25
    @clauaome25 Před 2 lety

    You explain so wonderfully! Peace to you!

  • @mohitgrover8889
    @mohitgrover8889 Před 3 lety +1

    Being a language enthusiast, I loved this video. I liked the religious family trees as well 😊

  • @user-qw3sc2pl5t
    @user-qw3sc2pl5t Před 4 lety +293

    There are total 11,172 combined Korean letters 🤣
    But, Koreans need to memorize only 31 letters to make 11,172 letters.

    • @lu6687
      @lu6687 Před 4 lety +3

      wait really? that much??

    • @moka8267
      @moka8267 Před 4 lety +37

      @@lu6687 Not really. These "combined Korean letters" would match more with the definition of syllables

    • @user-uc5ok7xj6v
      @user-uc5ok7xj6v Před 4 lety +45

      @@lu6687 Well, the number of Hangul syllables is 11,172 if we count all available combinations. However, about 2,500 syllables are in practical use.

    • @sinoroman
      @sinoroman Před 4 lety +9

      very efficient, should be used world-wide, but english still spread thin

    • @kyusangtux
      @kyusangtux Před 4 lety +12

      @@sinoroman Korean language can be syllabified but many other languages such as English cannot be syllabified. That means hangul is optimized for East Asian languages, especially Korean. The maker of the character King Sejong(15c) was not keep it could be used world wide in mind.

  • @ClifffSVK
    @ClifffSVK Před 4 lety +72

    0:50
    "I'm going to start with the category that is most familiar to English speakers - alphabets."
    "In an alphabet, each letter represents a single sound."
    English + each letter + single sound LOL

    • @FranP25
      @FranP25 Před 4 lety +3

      One word for the english mercedes

    • @EgnachHelton
      @EgnachHelton Před 4 lety +18

      Yeah, he really should use Spanish as example.

    • @pastellla-ri8471
      @pastellla-ri8471 Před 4 lety

      Charlie He agree

    • @mikicerise6250
      @mikicerise6250 Před 4 lety +2

      English spelling does make sense, but only if you understand the etymology of all the words, and the hideous Great Vowel Shift. If you know French, Italian, German and Spanish, probably you will find a reasonably close match to English spelling in one of them for any given word - but which one for which word? Unless you are very familiar with European languages, it will look random. ;)

  • @edwardcone6860
    @edwardcone6860 Před 2 lety

    Thank you for this very clear and enlightening presentation!

  • @toribern816
    @toribern816 Před 2 lety

    Glad I found this. Answered like a million questions I’ve always wondered. Thanks. New sub

  • @Daniel-vj9oq
    @Daniel-vj9oq Před 4 lety +72

    Historically, ogham was used as a writing system in Ireland. In the made of many dashes and was used to write Old Irish. In UCC in Cork there is a large collection of ogham stones.

    • @UsefulCharts
      @UsefulCharts  Před 4 lety +18

      Ogham is very cool.

    • @Daniel-vj9oq
      @Daniel-vj9oq Před 4 lety +8

      @@UsefulCharts Though mainly found in Ireland's province of Munster, ogham stones have also been found in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and Cornwall. Its cool how we had our own alphabet here in Ireland. 🇮🇪

    • @helliswar
      @helliswar Před 4 lety +5

      Most love to the irish people from north africa ♥️

  • @livefromfortworth
    @livefromfortworth Před 4 lety +493

    7:29 :
    Siiiiiaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
    Me, someone who speaks Chinese: my eaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssssssssssss

    • @vladimirdmitrov6678
      @vladimirdmitrov6678 Před 4 lety +17

      Omg same :"

    • @mrbilter83
      @mrbilter83 Před 4 lety +1

      i suppose it's pronounced "jiaõ"?

    • @zxxNikoxxz
      @zxxNikoxxz Před 4 lety +27

      As a Chinese speaker I feel offended. He could have just used a TTS voice.

    • @lixixilin
      @lixixilin Před 4 lety +102

      @@zxxNikoxxz just forgive him lol, mimicking pronunciations isn't quite easy for most people

    • @sethhu20
      @sethhu20 Před 4 lety +28

      @@zxxNikoxxz he's forgiven, some chinese syllabus is simply never spoken by anyone before, foreigners rarely pronounce 选 and 全 correctly

  • @AlexTarazona
    @AlexTarazona Před 3 lety

    Thank You one of the best videos I had seen in long time.

  • @moosesnWoop
    @moosesnWoop Před 3 lety

    This is someone, who found something to do that is interesting and makes money. Living the dream there Useful Charts.

  • @pogeman2345
    @pogeman2345 Před 4 lety +7

    As a conlanger, this would be really great to show to a first-timer who's trying to get into making their own conscripts

  • @Jitendra_Rawat
    @Jitendra_Rawat Před 4 lety +5

    वसुधैव कुटुंबकम, means the whole world is a family, lot's of love from great country BHARAT 🇮🇳🙏

  • @awaviarybangalore
    @awaviarybangalore Před 3 lety +1

    Best educational video on writing systems, I had gone through Omniglot website for language systems learning but couldn't understand so deeply. Short and Helpful video. 👍

  • @arnoldkorok5859
    @arnoldkorok5859 Před rokem

    Gyönyörűen összeszedett videó. Köszönöm szépen!

  • @fspo1112
    @fspo1112 Před 4 lety +5

    Wow I was literally just looking this up right now after months of not seeing this chart, and you just happened to upload this video an hour ago! :)

  • @tompeled6193
    @tompeled6193 Před 4 lety +18

    3:58 Hebrew has niqqud, diacritics placed under letters to indicate vowels; however, they're only used in children's books, religious texts, and in teaching Hebrew.

    • @tompeled6193
      @tompeled6193 Před 4 lety +3

      We need to use niqqud all the time.

    • @ayoubdado7927
      @ayoubdado7927 Před 4 lety +1

      Arabic has pretty much the same thing

    • @argus456
      @argus456 Před 4 lety +6

      If you gave it 10 more seconds, you would have seen that he mentions that.

    • @c.y.hollander5592
      @c.y.hollander5592 Před 4 lety

      They're also used on an individual basis to clarify an ambiguity for which context might not be sufficient.

  • @martin0499
    @martin0499 Před 6 měsíci +2

    Phoenician is like an ancient computer which runs most of the internet without us realizing it

  • @regular-joe
    @regular-joe Před 4 lety

    A ton of information organized so elegantly.

  • @7azim3
    @7azim3 Před 4 lety +28

    Actually Arabic has 3 dedicated letters for the vowels: Alif "not same as Hamza", Waw and Yaa', in addition to the short vowles "Harakat".

    • @fahadalmutair
      @fahadalmutair Před 4 lety +1

      and Korean is more similar to Hebrew than Arabic.

    • @HREros
      @HREros Před 3 lety

      Actually, alif, waw and yaa arent considered vowels because the "harakat have to be written on top of them for them to make sense. It is just like how the letters W and Y in english aren't really vowels but obviously consonants. Source: Im a native arabic speaker

    • @a.maskil9073
      @a.maskil9073 Před 3 lety +7

      @@fahadalmutair lol what? in what way whatsoever is Hebrew more similar to Korean? Hebrew and Arabic literally have the same letter name origins and same pronunciation for those letters for 75% of the abjad.
      EDIT: Oh, misunderstood. You mean because of the blocky shape of the characters?

  • @ulysseslee9541
    @ulysseslee9541 Před 4 lety +93

    Chinese Character typically known as "漢字", Kanji in Japan, as Japan learn the culture from Chinese in the past, since Tang Dynasty(~A.D. 690-900), Japanese also using Kanji for their words.
    And the Japanese's Hiragana was taken from Chinese Cursive script(中國草書) originally and change the Cursive script to Hiragana.
    On the other hand, if u know the theory of Chinese characters, it is very easy to know them. Because Chinese characters are logograms and basically created from 6 types:
    Pictograms(象形) from drawings,
    Ideograms(指事): express an abstract idea by drawings,
    Compound ideographs(會意): combine two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to a new meaning, such as 信; 'truthful', formed from 人; 'person' (later reduced to 亻) and 言; 'speech'
    Rebus(假借): "borrowed" to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme. Moreover, 'interchangeable borrowing' also own as this.
    Phono-semantic(形聲): combining phonetic and semantic to create a new word, such as 菜(vegetable), 艹= plants, 采 = harvest; but this is using "采" for the pronunciation and the original meaning of vegetable, but the new created character, 菜, make as a new specific use as for vegetable only.
    derivative cognate (轉注): It is the smallest category and also the least understood.well-own: 老 & 考.
    For writing the Chinese characters, more than 90% of them are combination character, combined with different radicals. Basically, there are 214 main radicals using in Chinese Dictionary (from Kangxi Dictionary ). As lots of non-index radicals also combine with other 214 main radicals, so Chinese Characters' combination are very unique. But u don't need to know all of them one by one, just can using their Main radicals and done.
    If u start at traditional Chinese(Taiwan / Hong Kong), it will be better to carry the simplified Chinese.

    • @ulysseslee9541
      @ulysseslee9541 Před 4 lety +2

      Beside the Traditional way of learning Chinese character, I would suggest to learn the Chinese digital typing input method, ChangJie. The concept of ChangJie is very close to the method u need for writing Chinese characters. The creator of ChangJie simplify the Chinese character characteristic into 25 alphabet keys on Keyboard & Z key for the punctuation mark.
      Alphabet category to several types:
      A - G keys= Philosophical Group
      H - N = Stroke group
      O - R = Body group
      S - W, Y = Character shapes group
      X = Collision/Difficult key

    • @gudseygood3622
      @gudseygood3622 Před 4 lety +4

      Chinese writing is difficult,
      Could they change it simpler, like Korean ?

    • @codyshi4743
      @codyshi4743 Před 4 lety +3

      Even though I only know the simplified Chinese characters but I’m still able to read traditional Chinese characters. And one mandarin expert said that over 80% of the Simplified and Traditional characters are the same!

    • @qoenntrell
      @qoenntrell Před 4 lety +6

      @@codyshi4743 There are many characters. It's not possible to systematically simplify most of them without making it worse.

    • @qoenntrell
      @qoenntrell Před 4 lety +10

      @@gudseygood3622 If you think it's difficult, that's because you haven't learnt it yet. To us natives, the writing system is systematic and efficient, especially in the internet age.

  • @spkumar2004
    @spkumar2004 Před 2 lety

    Great effort you have put to collate and explain. Thank you

  • @varunyadav9573
    @varunyadav9573 Před 2 lety

    आपने बहुत ही अच्छी वीड़ियो बनाई है। बहत सी नई जानकारियां प्राप्त हुई। मैं यह पांचवे प्रकार की एक भाषा हिन्दी में लिख रहा हूँ। हिन्दी सहित भारत की विभिन्न भाषाओं का जन्म संस्कृत भाषा से हुआ है। धन्यवाद।

  • @yvelkram
    @yvelkram Před 4 lety +45

    Actually, hangul is more hard to makes "table* of it.
    there isn't "의/ui/" or /w-/ series like 위(wi) in that table, however very commonly used.
    You could make some table, but It must be 3 dimensional table, for 곰/gom/ thing.

    • @terrytang9785
      @terrytang9785 Před 4 lety +7

      I certainly think there are many words similar in korean🤔like 오/ 어 ㅈ/ㅊ (i am just a beginner learning korean)

    • @yvelkram
      @yvelkram Před 4 lety +1

      @@terrytang9785 I'm not sure what did you mean, but, yea.
      most verbs are just two words. that maybe makes you complicate. however, If you write that words as kanji(or hanja), you found difference of it

    • @user-vw2mw6xc9n
      @user-vw2mw6xc9n Před 4 lety +4

      I'm a Korean living abroad. One of my friends who started learning Korean kept saying "초장 (a type of sauce)" instead of "저장 (to store)," so I began to ask around these people if they can get the differences among 저장 (jeojang), 조장 (jojang; leader), 주장 (jujang; argue), 추장 (chujang; chief), and 초장 (chojang). No single person correctly distinguished them so far. I'm not so sure about other cultures tho

    • @terrytang9785
      @terrytang9785 Před 4 lety +2

      @@yvelkram yeah ,I am Chinese, so I do find many words are derived from Chinese or other languages. what I mean is it is really hard to differentiate these similar word/characters.🧐so I am wondering you Koreans really can differentiate these characters (for example 오 /어/우. ㄱ/ㄲ /ㅋ),or you just guessing it by the context?

    • @8607mole
      @8607mole Před 4 lety +5

      @@terrytang9785 The examples you mentioned (오/어/우, ㄱ/ㄲ/ㅋ) are 100% able to be differentiate by a native Korean speaker or who is fluent in Korean. There are some cases where modern Korean speakers(as far as I know, it had different sounds in the past but now have been kind of combined) cannot differentiate, like ㅐand ㅔ or maybe ㅙ and ㅞ. I could only think of the aforementioned 2 cases that are not able to be differentiated by just sounds.

  • @Crick1952
    @Crick1952 Před 4 lety +20

    I'd love if you could make a video about various undeciphered scripts like the Harappan script, Rongorongo or Linear A

  • @rimzimpandita4435
    @rimzimpandita4435 Před 3 lety

    Wow,so fascinating! Technical but nicely explained!

  • @user-gb8oz2td9m
    @user-gb8oz2td9m Před 4 lety +8

    I'm a Japanese.We use kanji,too.When we see one kanji,we have some impressions .So,we can sometimes make out a word that we
    don't know its meaning.Very useful.

    • @JcDizon
      @JcDizon Před 3 lety

      What is the first writing system that Japanese are usually taught in school? Is it Hiragana? I've looked at mangas in Japanese and in some of them, kanji sometimes has a hiragana transliteration beside it.

    • @user-gb8oz2td9m
      @user-gb8oz2td9m Před 3 lety

      @@JcDizon
      Yes.We are taught Hragana and Katakana before taught kanji in school. As Hiragana and Katakana indicate only pronunciation like Alphabet,they are much easier than kanji.Transliterations you looked at are called "yomigana".

  • @HebaruSan
    @HebaruSan Před 4 lety +3

    Not only a cool new topic, but also the return of the best voice

  • @joanmackie1735
    @joanmackie1735 Před 4 lety +6

    Thank you for this. I find writing systems fascinating, and
    I’m waiting for delivery of a book which explains how the ancient Mayan language was decoded.

  • @sksk-bd7yv
    @sksk-bd7yv Před 2 lety

    Incredibly well explained and interesting! Cheers!

  • @sarahsb2237
    @sarahsb2237 Před 3 lety

    Thanks for the clear interpretation.it's very easy to comprehend

  • @SiceeChoi
    @SiceeChoi Před 4 lety +13

    한글이다! ❤️ 자랑스러운 내 모국의 글자예요.

    • @cheemsdoge6724
      @cheemsdoge6724 Před 2 lety

      मुझे दक्षिण कोरिया बहुत पसंद है । 😊🇮🇳💓🇰🇷

  • @deblawson1575
    @deblawson1575 Před 4 lety +7

    Thank you I really enjoyed this one, would like more of this if you can no pressure though. I understand how much work goes into this, like I said THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!! May God bless You and Yours
    Your friend, Deb

  • @Kleinerfloter
    @Kleinerfloter Před 3 lety +1

    Thanks for the enlightenment, professor.

  • @cosmicpri
    @cosmicpri Před 2 lety

    thai language and writing is so beautiful. this makes me want to go back to studying

  • @uncinarynin
    @uncinarynin Před 4 lety +92

    9:29 Oriya "i" looks like a comic character with glasses.

    • @Inversed00
      @Inversed00 Před 4 lety +2

      😂

    • @srsw1233
      @srsw1233 Před 4 lety +18

      Its a beautiful script with less straight line as in ancient time they used to write on palm leaf which is fragile. Straight line would break them easily thats why odia script have more circular characters.

    • @akshaykumarbagh8737
      @akshaykumarbagh8737 Před 4 lety +2

      yes...i'm a native speaker of the language. it's pretty straightforward and has a well defined grammar meaning very less exceptions and confusion.

    • @keralachapter3209
      @keralachapter3209 Před 4 lety

      i pronunciation is e

    • @szecr
      @szecr Před 3 lety

      @@srsw1233 that's very interesting, theres still a little bit of straight lines on all the letters though

  • @dasigkatama029
    @dasigkatama029 Před 4 lety +10

    Baybayin, Badlit, Kulitan, Mangyan
    Philippine Writing System is beautiful and diverse
    I think it is all Abugida

  • @WhirlybirdFlyer
    @WhirlybirdFlyer Před 3 lety +15

    Great video. Interesting to see the different forms of written language. Just a side note, Japanese primarily uses symbols from Chinese in their written language. Hiragana is mainly used for vowel conjugation and particles, and as a teaching aid as they learn the harder Chinese origin characters called Kanji.

  • @shahanshahpolonium
    @shahanshahpolonium Před 3 lety +4

    this dude deserves my sub