The number of letters in the alphabets of different peoples. Project on the topic "Letters of different alphabets" (Grade 1) How many letters are in the alphabets of different languages
In the southern Chinese province of Hunan, a unique alphabet called Nushu has been used since the 12th century. Its wonderfulness is that Nushu is used exclusively by women. This is their secret alphabet. The fact is that before the onset of the 20th century, before the revolution in China, girls in Hunan province were forbidden to go to school, because of which they were deprived of the opportunity to learn normal hieroglyphs. The old women taught the girls the Nushu alphabet - their own, ladies' version of Chinese hieroglyphic writing.
Unlike Chinese, the letters of the Nushu alphabet represent a whole syllable. There are about a thousand of these letters. It may seem that learning 1000 characters is a very difficult task. However, educated Chinese know 7-plus times more signs to convey sounds.
2. Runes
The Scandinavian epics tell that the supreme god Odin invented the runic letter after hanging on a tree for 9 days without food or drink. The rune alphabet was used by the peoples Northern Europe from the 1st to the 12th century. Runes were not only written, they were guessed at. Therefore, each symbol of the Varangian alphabet meant both a separate sound and a whole word filled with secret meanings.
In the 1980s, runic divination tablets returned to fashion and were used by divinators along with tarot decks. It is believed that the runes predict the future more accurately if they are personally drawn with the blood of the god Odin.
3. Calligrams
The religions of the Near and Middle East, Judaism and Islam, from time immemorial forbade believers to draw living beings, so as not to create idols for themselves. And the artists came up with a sure way to get around the ban, using the art of creating calligrams - visual images made up of small words. If you take these words from the sacred texts, then they can draw even a peacock, even an elephant (but not a pig, please), and no one will say anything bad.
So the Islamic calligraphers got excited. Using lines from the Koran, they began to depict animals, human figures, plants, inanimate swords and mosques. Around the 9th century, Jewish artists invented the so-called. micrography - the art of creating pictures from the small letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
4. Tifinagh
The ancient Libyan letter "tifinagh" comes from an ancient, heavily modified Phoenician alphabet. Tifinagh is similar to the alphabet of alien invaders from a science fiction movie, but it is still used in North Africa by the Berbers - the aboriginal inhabitants of Morocco and Algeria. Tifinagh was also used by the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands - the Guanches, who mixed with the Spaniards and adopted the Latin script. Until 2003, in Morocco, the use of the ancient Libyan script was forbidden for political reasons, but now it is the official script of the Berber people.
The most interesting thing about tifinagh is what it consists of - right and sharp angles, thick dots and ideal circles. It is somewhat reminiscent of runes, something - an electronic circuit. Having visited some regions of Algeria and reading the signs and graffiti on the walls, you can feel like you are on another planet. And be close to the truth.
Mysterious alphabets, like mysterious languages, are dying, becoming unnecessary. If a people wants to preserve its identity, it preserves its alphabet, no matter how unnecessary it may be. So, only an Indian who passes an exam on knowledge of the Cherokee script, developed by the red-skinned “Lomonosov”, leader Sequoia, in 1819 on the basis of a misunderstood Latin alphabet, can become a full member of the North American Cherokee tribe.
Someday we will definitely visit the cipher Indians, and now we will continue to study the seven most unusual writing systems on Earth.
5. Voynich Manuscript
The manuscript, called the Voynich Manuscript, dates from the early 15th century and consists of 240 parchment pages of the greatest riddle. It is written in an unknown alphabet, unlike any other writing system, so to this day this strange manuscript with drawings has not been deciphered. There is not a single word in the book longer than 10 letters. The drawings in color depict plants, astronomical symbols and a lot of nonsense. The question arises: what did the author smoke? By the way, Voynich is a revolutionary of Russian origin who bought a mysterious script from the Jesuits in 1912. His wife wrote the best-selling book from the time of our grandmothers, the novel The Gadfly.
To answer the question about smoking, one must dive into the abyss of theories. There are many versions of the authorship and language of the Voynich manuscript: it is a language invented by the author himself; it is a real language, but carefully coded; it is nonsense with a hidden message; the author did not smoke anything, he is crazy. latest version: the text is written in "proto-Ukrainian" language. Now the manuscript is located at Yale University, whoever solves it and translates it into human language is entitled to respect and respect.
6. Nasi
The Naxi people live in the southwest of China. This ethnic Lolo-Burmese minority has 309 thousand people. The Naxi writing system, called Naxi or Dongba, has been around for a thousand years and is so complex that it takes 15 years to learn how to use it.
The Naxi alphabet seems simple and funny, because, like a comic book, it consists of pictures - pictograms. Humans, animals... But in fact, everything in Nashi's texts is very confusing, whole words sometimes fall out of the outline of the story, sometimes they are replaced by "foreign" pictures. Today, only a few elderly priests speak the Dongba alphabet. Young people use the Latin alphabet.
7. Witch Alphabet
An alphabet or cipher system of unknown origin, also known as the Theban alphabet. The correspondence table of witch and Latin letters first saw the light in 1519 in the manuscript "Polygraphy", and its authorship is attributed to a certain Honorius from the city of Thebes. It is unknown if this person is real or fictional.
Nowadays, adherents of the Western neo-pagan religion Wicca, invented by Gerald Gardner, a retired official who suddenly felt like a sorcerer, showed interest in the Thebes script. Wiccans believe in magic and are full of secrets. To write secret texts and create tattoos, they use the alphabet of witches. Now it is fashionable.
An alphabet is a kind of collection of letters used in some kind of writing system, while the graphic symbols are arranged in a certain order that cannot be violated.
Various writing systems
It is difficult to determine which alphabet is considered the most difficult. This is too controversial a concept, since when assessing complexity, one involuntarily has to start from mother tongue. Of course, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages will seem the simplest to native speakers.
Hieroglyphic writing
The hieroglyphic writing system can be called an alphabet only with a great deal of convention. A hieroglyph is the outline of some sign in some writing systems, which can mean both a certain sound and a word or sentence.
He does not point to correct pronunciation, while the letter is reflected phonetic features language. This is why Chinese or Japanese is difficult for people whose mother tongues are based on a letter system.
Ethiopian writing system
Ethiopian writing is also quite difficult to master, but also to classical alphabet it cannot be carried. This is a hybrid letter that is official in Eritrea and Ethiopia.
But if you still evaluate the Ethiopian script as an alphabet, then the Ahmar dialect will be the most difficult to write. Letters are written with additional signs that are introduced to indicate specific sounds. The Ethiopian system is abugida, that is, a letter in which any character is a combination of a vowel and a consonant sound, and they are grouped depending on what sounds they represent. The characters are written from left to right.
The most complex classical alphabet
Arabic script
If he speaks exclusively about letter systems, then perhaps the most difficult can be considered Arabic language. This is one of the most difficult to master sign systems. The same letter can be written in different ways, up to 4 spellings depending on the location of the letter in the word. There is not a single lowercase character, hyphenation is strictly prohibited, and vowel sounds are not reflected in written language. Another feature is that the words are written from right to left.
Other complex letter systems
The Guinness Book of Records got the Eskimo alphabet. There are 54 letters in Tabasaran, and, for example, in the Abkhaz language there are only three vowels - “aa”, “a” and “y”. All other vowel sounds, which are denoted by the symbols "y", "e", "o", "and", are formed from combinations of different sounds.
But Abkhazian has a very large number of consonants - 58. The Bzyb dialect contains an even greater number of them - 67. The basis of the Abkhazian writing system is Cyrillic, the alphabet was developed in 1862, and the first alphabet was published three years later.
Therefore, our alphabet is not as difficult as it sometimes seems.
The largest number of letters in the Guinness Book of Records is the Khmer alphabet. It has 72 letters. This language is spoken in Cambodia.
However, the largest number of letters contains the Ubykh alphabet - 91 letters. Ubykh language (the language of one of Caucasian peoples) is considered one of the champions in terms of sound diversity: according to experts, there are up to 80 consonant phonemes in it.
At Soviet power Serious changes were made to the alphabets of all peoples living on the territory of the USSR: in the Russian language in the direction of reducing the number of letters, and in other languages, mainly in the direction of increasing them. After perestroika, the number of letters in the alphabets of many peoples living on the territory of the former Soviet republics decreased.
Modern Russian has 33 letters. According to official sources, before the reform of Cyril and Methodius, there were 43 letters in the Russian language, and according to unofficial sources - 49.
The first 5 letters were thrown out by Cyril and Methodius, because there was no Greek corresponding sounds, and four were given Greek names. Yaroslav the Wise removed one more letter, 43 remained. Peter I reduced it to 38. Nicholas II to 35. As part of the Lunacharsky reform, the letters “yat”, “fita” and “and decimal” were excluded from the alphabet (E, F should be used instead , And ), and also the solid sign (Ъ) at the end of words and parts would be excluded compound words, but kept as separating mark(rise, adjutant).
In addition, Lunacharsky removed the images from the Initial Letter, leaving only phonemes, i.e. language has become unfigurative = ugly. So instead of the Primer, the Alphabet appeared.
Until 1942, it was officially believed that there were 32 letters in the Russian alphabet, since E and Yo were considered as variants of the same letter.
The Ukrainian alphabet includes 33 letters: in comparison with Russian, Ёё, Ъъ, Yы, Ее are not used, but Ґґ, Єє, Іі and Її are present.
The Belarusian alphabet has 32 letters today. Compared with Russian alphabet i, u, ъ are not used, but the letters i and ў are added, and the digraphs j and dz are sometimes considered to have the status of letters.
The Yakut language uses an alphabet based on Cyrillic, which contains the entire Russian alphabet, plus five additional letters and two combinations. 4 diphthongs are also used.
The Kazakh and Bashkir Cyrillic alphabet contains 42 letters.
The current Chechen alphabet contains 49 letters (compiled on a graphic basis Russian alphabet in 1938). In 1992, the Chechen leadership decided to introduce an alphabet based on the Latin script of 41 letters. This alphabet was used to a limited extent in parallel with Cyrillic between 1992 and 2000.
The Armenian alphabet contains 38 letters, but after the reform in 1940, the ligature "
և "undeservedly received the status of a letter that does not have a capital letter - thus the number of letters became, as it were," thirty-eight and a half."Tatar alphabet after translation in 1939 Tatar writing With romanized alphabet on the alphabet based on Russian graphics contained 38 letters, and after 1999 the alphabet based on the Latin script of 34 letters is widely used.
The Kirghiz Cyrillic alphabet, adopted in 1940, contains 36 letters.
The modern Mongolian alphabet contains 35 letters and differs from Russian in two additional letters: Ө and Y.
In 1940, the Uzbek alphabet, like the alphabets of other peoples of the USSR, was translated into Cyrillic and contained 35 letters. In the 90s of the last century, the Uzbek authorities decided to translate the Uzbek language into the Latin alphabet and the alphabet became 28 letters.
The modern Georgian alphabet consists of 33 letters.
There are 31 letters in the Macedonian and Moldavian Cyrillic alphabet. The Finnish alphabet also consists of 31 letters.
The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet includes 30 letters - compared to Russian, it lacks the letters Y, E and Yo.
The Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 syllable letters, which are considered consonants. Each of them, composing the initial letter of the syllable and not having another vowel sign, is accompanied by the sound “a” during pronunciation.
The Swedish and Norwegian alphabets have 29 letters.
The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters.
There are 26 letters in the Latin, English, German and French alphabets.
The Italian alphabet "officially" consists of the 21st letter, but actually has 26 letters.
The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, while the standard Portuguese alphabet has 23 letters.
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, there is no difference between uppercase and lowercase letters.
The smallest number of letters in the alphabet of the Rotokas tribe from the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. There are only eleven of them (a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, t, u) - of which 6 are consonants.
Considering how many letters there are in the language of one of the Papuan tribes, it is interesting that in all alphabets the number of letters gradually changes, usually downwards.
A change in the number of letters in the alphabet in all countries of the world, as a rule, occurs with the advent of new government in order for the younger generation to be cut off from the language, literature, culture and traditions of their ancestors, and after a while speak a completely different language.
In the modern era, there are many alphabets. There are alphabets of the peoples of the world used for communication, "dead" and lost, international and technical alphabets.
Popular alphabets
In addition to the Russian alphabet, other popular and popular alphabets are distinguished:
The Latin alphabet is also called the Latin alphabet, the Latin language is called Latin. The phrase “write in Cyrillic” means writing using Russian letters, the phrase “writing in Latin” generally means writing using English letters.
Each language has its own alphabet: English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, German, Italian and others. English is considered to be an international language, it is studied in educational institutions, it is used at international conferences, negotiations are conducted at it, it is often installed by default in computer programs and information systems. Most of languages is an offshoot Latin, therefore, in the fields of science and medicine, Latin is the undisputed leader.
International alphabet
There is an international alphabet developed in 1956 by ICAO. This is the phonetic alphabet adopted for use by most international organizations, including NATO. The basis for its creation was English language. The alphabet includes letters and numbers with a fixed sound. In fact, the international alphabet is a set of sound signals. The alphabet is used for radio communications, transmission of digital codes, military signals and identification names. The alphabet is also known as the radio alphabet. In addition to the international phonetic alphabet, there are phonetic alphabets in different languages, including Russian.
Technical alphabets
Alphabets (alphabets) of a technical nature have been developed, encoding letters of alphabets into symbols and designations. They are used to exchange information in environments where writing or speaking normal letters is not possible. The most popular alphabets:
- Morse code (Morse code or "Morse code");
- Braille alphabet (the alphabet of the visually impaired and the blind or the Braille alphabet);
- the Gestuno alphabet (the alphabet of the deaf and dumb or the dactyl alphabet);
- semaphore alphabet (flag alphabet).
History of the alphabet
Today it is difficult to imagine the life of mankind without the alphabet. However, it was not there for a long time. It is interesting to look at the origins of the origin of the first alphabets, to understand the idea of their creation, the first experience of using them.
With the development of Homo sapiens, an urgent need arose to develop a unified way of transmitting history, advice and traditions from generation to generation. Initially, drawings and oral speech. The carriers of information were people who passed on their knowledge to generations through speech. However, this method was ineffective. The accumulation of knowledge, the change in speech concepts and the subjective perception of oral data transmission led to inaccuracies and the loss of many important aspects of history. Therefore, humanity faced the need to develop a unified system for the transfer of accumulated knowledge.
Northern Syria is considered the ancestor of the alphabet, the creation of the alphabet marked the beginning of the development of writing. Egypt is called the ancestor of writing, but those used in the XXVII century BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs cannot be considered an alphabet in the sense we are accustomed to. Over time, the alphabet developed, changed by different peoples, new systems and letters were developed.
The very word "alphabet" ancient history, the word appeared after the appearance of the first alphabet only 700 years later. The word "alphabet" in its usual sound appeared in the Phoenician alphabet by combining its first two letters into one word.
After the emergence of the alphabet in the Middle East around 2000 B.C. writing systems from different languages and cultures came and went. The classic example is the Egyptian system. The heritage of this highly developed civilization is contained in the famous hieroglyphic script, which mankind has never been able to fully decipher.
Over the past 2,500 years, the Latin alphabet has become so popular that it has suppressed the writing of the peoples who once dominated the Romans. However, more than two billion people still use other writing formats, and some of them show truly impressive handicraft.
We've rounded up 5 of the world's most aesthetically pleasing alphabets and explained why you'll most likely never learn to read them.
Burmese (Myanmar)
The Burmese alphabet consists of circular shapes that are always drawn clockwise. Despite the fact that the threat of extinction of this script is the smallest compared to the rest of the participants in our rating, now the Burmese alphabet is often used only during sacred ceremonies, and in Everyday life is being replaced by Hindi and even the Latin writing system.
Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)
It is considered one of the most extensive alphabets in the world, with over 50 phonemes. Although only 38 phonemes are used in modern writing. This language, which is native to half of the population of Sri Lanka (almost 10.5 million inhabitants), is taught in Buddhist monasteries and schools. Because of low level Geographically, it is endangered.
Georgian (Georgia)
Located between Turkey and Russia, Georgia has its own alphabet and language, which are under threat of extinction due to the widespread and dominance of the Russian language. The Georgian alphabet shows an elegance similar to the Arabic one, combined with a childish simplicity expressed in rounded curves.
Tagalog (Philippines)
Derived from the Indo-European group, Tagalog remained the dominant writing system in the Philippines until the arrival of the Spanish. At first, colonization only changed certain aspects of the alphabet. But then Spanish became the official language of the Philippines, dealing a death blow to the traditional writing system.
Hanakaraka (Indonesia)
Originally originating on the island of Java, the hanakaraka writing system began to spread to neighboring islands and receive regional variations. There were repeated attempts to standardize the alphabet in the 19th and 20th centuries, but these efforts were interrupted by the Japanese occupation during World War II, when the use of the hanakaraka script was banned. Since then, the alphabet has been superseded by the Latin writing system.
