Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 March 28
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March 28
editCould these languages switch to Latin alphabet?
editWhat are the chances that the following languages will switch to Latin alphabet in the future?
- Russian
- Greek
- Arabic
- Japanese
- Georgian
- Armenian
- Persian
- Hindi
- Burmese
- All other languages of India
--40bus (talk) 19:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
"We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate."
AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)- There have been historical proposals to switch Russian to the Latin alphabet: see Russian Latin alphabet (although I think it is a machine translation from the Russian article). For context, see Latinisation in the Soviet Union. But it never went anywhere because Stalin ordered to halt the project in 1930.
- For Arabic, see Romanization of Arabic#Arabic alphabet and nationalism for historical attempts in Egypt and Lebanon. Both failed. According to the article, it failed in Egypt because of cultural ties felt to the Arabic script, and in Lebanon because it was interpreted as an attempt at Western (or Zionist) takeover. BTW, one might argue that Maltese is sort of what you want.
- Japanese writing reform in favour of romaji was proposed in the Meiji period by Japanese scholars, but it failed to catch on. Apparently, it was also considered during the Allied occupation, but it was abandoned. Double sharp (talk) 02:42, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- 40bus -- The traditional scripts of at least Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, and Hindi have immense literary, historical, and religious prestige within their own cultures, so it's quite unlikely that they would be abandoned in the foreseeable future. Many Arabic and Persian (Farsi) speakers who are Muslim would identify abandoning the Arabic alphabet with renouncing Islam. As for Japanese, the result of writing it with a Latin transcription would often be very ambiguous if the text transcribed went beyond basic spoken Japanese, or was not confined to a very narrow topic. See Geoffrey Sampson's "Writing Systems" (ISBN 0-8047-1756-7) for detailed discussion... AnonMoos (talk) 09:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- As for Japanese, I'd guess it would generally be possible to write in the Latin alphabet if vowel length, gemination, pitch accent and spaces all were indicated. A lot of the homonyms seem to be specific terminology, which I guess could be worked around. But history and tradition is very strong. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Pitch-accent is rather marginal in Japanese (and doesn't exist in many dialects), and so is unlikely to be written in any practical writing system for Japanese. (It has a small "functional load", as Martinet would say.) Vowel-length and gemination are basic distinctive features of Japanese phonology, and any system which didn't notate them would be quite defective. However, including them wouldn't help too much with the forms of written Japanese commonly used in scholarly, technical, or even educated newspaper contexts, which would need to be reformulated to resemble the spoken language much more closely if Kanji were abandoned. AnonMoos (talk) 00:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Pitch accent has an even smaller functional load in Swedish and Norwegian, and is usually absent in Finland Swedish and Åland Swedish. It's usually unmarked unless for phonological analyses in extended IPA and such. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Consider the visual nightmare that is the Vietnamese written language. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 00:38, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Tone has a high functional load in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese writing system has some peculiarities, but it actually works well for the language, and the Vietnamese people are used to it... AnonMoos (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Well, sure. Is there any significant language group whose speakers are not used to their writing systems? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 01:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Languages that are not often written, perhaps? Double sharp (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- French and English. The inability in France to spell according to the official orthography has reached epidemic proportions. The situation for English is an order of magnitude better, but nevertheless most people cannot write a full page without a few spelling errors. --Lambiam 09:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Some online users seem never to have been exposed to the concepts of: sentence, punctuation, verb-pronoun agreement, common sense, et al. Bad as that is, though, it's a far cry from saying they're "not used to" their language. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 15:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Well, sure. Is there any significant language group whose speakers are not used to their writing systems? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 01:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Tone has a high functional load in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese writing system has some peculiarities, but it actually works well for the language, and the Vietnamese people are used to it... AnonMoos (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Pitch-accent is rather marginal in Japanese (and doesn't exist in many dialects), and so is unlikely to be written in any practical writing system for Japanese. (It has a small "functional load", as Martinet would say.) Vowel-length and gemination are basic distinctive features of Japanese phonology, and any system which didn't notate them would be quite defective. However, including them wouldn't help too much with the forms of written Japanese commonly used in scholarly, technical, or even educated newspaper contexts, which would need to be reformulated to resemble the spoken language much more closely if Kanji were abandoned. AnonMoos (talk) 00:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- As for Japanese, I'd guess it would generally be possible to write in the Latin alphabet if vowel length, gemination, pitch accent and spaces all were indicated. A lot of the homonyms seem to be specific terminology, which I guess could be worked around. But history and tradition is very strong. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- 40bus -- The traditional scripts of at least Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, and Hindi have immense literary, historical, and religious prestige within their own cultures, so it's quite unlikely that they would be abandoned in the foreseeable future. Many Arabic and Persian (Farsi) speakers who are Muslim would identify abandoning the Arabic alphabet with renouncing Islam. As for Japanese, the result of writing it with a Latin transcription would often be very ambiguous if the text transcribed went beyond basic spoken Japanese, or was not confined to a very narrow topic. See Geoffrey Sampson's "Writing Systems" (ISBN 0-8047-1756-7) for detailed discussion... AnonMoos (talk) 09:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- JSL romanisation indicates pitch accent in Japanese. Double sharp (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- I quite enjoyed Sampson's book, by the way. —Tamfang (talk) 05:09, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
- For Persian, Latin-script Tajik also existed in the early Soviet years. But our article points out (agreeing with AnonMoos) that part of the point of that was distancing from Islamic influence. Double sharp (talk) 13:06, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yet, Muslim post-Soviet nations, such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, switched from Cyrillic to Latin, and not back to their pre-Soviet Arabic-based scripts, despite their rich Islamic legacy 213.137.71.91 (talk) 18:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- 213.137.71.91 -- Those countries were influenced by the Turkish of Turkey (i.e. Atatürk alphabet), and their Islamic legacy was diminished by over 60 years of Soviet rule... AnonMoos (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- According to Persian alphabet#Cyrillic Persian alphabet in Tajikistan, Tajikistan did legally call for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic script from 1989 (when it was still the Tajik SSR). But this never went anywhere. The article also mentions that in 1993 the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan was banned; this might be related. Double sharp (talk) 04:24, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- 213.137.71.91 -- Those countries were influenced by the Turkish of Turkey (i.e. Atatürk alphabet), and their Islamic legacy was diminished by over 60 years of Soviet rule... AnonMoos (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Yet, Muslim post-Soviet nations, such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, switched from Cyrillic to Latin, and not back to their pre-Soviet Arabic-based scripts, despite their rich Islamic legacy 213.137.71.91 (talk) 18:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- To answer the question directly, any language could switch to the Latin alphabet. They likely won't, but there is nothing stopping them. The most recent major language to do so was Turkish, which did so less than a century ago, see Turkish alphabet. Previously, it was written using the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, which was Arabic-based. A special note should also be made for Gaj's Latin alphabet, which is used in conjunction with Serbian Cyrillic alphabet to write the Serbo-Croatian language (the two scripts vary in their use depending on the cultural and political background of the user). Gaj's Latin alphabet was introduced less than 200 years ago. AFAIK, those are some of the more noteworthy transitions into the Latin alphabet from other scripts. --Jayron32 12:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Another major language who recently switched to Latin alphabet is Romanian, in 1860 91.135.102.118 (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Good call. The article Romanian Cyrillic alphabet has some background on the adoption of the modern Romanian alphabet. There was also the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet which was in use in most of Soviet Moldova for writing Romanian/Moldovan until 1989. Modern Moldavan is written using the Latin-based Romanian alphabet, making the Moldovan language the most recent case of the adoption of a Latin-based script. As an interesting side note, I believe that makes the Moldovan language in Transnistria to be the only modern Romance language written in Cyrillic. --Jayron32 17:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- As 213.137 mentioned above, the collapse of the USSR produced even more recent instances. In addition to Azerbaijani, Uzbek and Turkmen, which transitioned in the 1990s, the Kazakh language is actually doing so right now. --Theurgist (talk) 22:23, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- The Uzbek script transition is not yet complete, too. Double sharp (talk) 03:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- I was about to ask whether any Romance language is currently written other than in Latin script, but then remembered Judaeo-Spanish. —Tamfang (talk) 05:41, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
- Good call. The article Romanian Cyrillic alphabet has some background on the adoption of the modern Romanian alphabet. There was also the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet which was in use in most of Soviet Moldova for writing Romanian/Moldovan until 1989. Modern Moldavan is written using the Latin-based Romanian alphabet, making the Moldovan language the most recent case of the adoption of a Latin-based script. As an interesting side note, I believe that makes the Moldovan language in Transnistria to be the only modern Romance language written in Cyrillic. --Jayron32 17:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Another major language who recently switched to Latin alphabet is Romanian, in 1860 91.135.102.118 (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Jayron32 -- Atatürk wanted to cause a big break with what went before when he replaced the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. Turkish as written with the two alphabets was not the same, since Turkish written with the Arabic alphabet had been partially a kind of artificial Turkish-Arabic-Persian hybrid suitable for use by a narrow elite, while Turkish written with Atatürk's Latin was much more closely based on spoken Turkish, and thus suitable as a tool for mass literacy. Romanian was traditionally written with the Cyrillic alphabet because it's Orthodox in religion. The changeover to Latin was because influential Romanians wanted to affiliate the Romanian language with the other Romance languages, and not-so-coincidentally symbolically distance Romania a little from Russia and become a little more like France. Without someone in authority intending to cause a significant cultural discontinuity, changing scripts is not so likely... AnonMoos (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- All of that is quite true and well known by me, but I didn't mention it for sake of brevity. Thanks for correcting my mistakes in omission. --Jayron32 11:43, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Jayron32 -- Atatürk wanted to cause a big break with what went before when he replaced the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. Turkish as written with the two alphabets was not the same, since Turkish written with the Arabic alphabet had been partially a kind of artificial Turkish-Arabic-Persian hybrid suitable for use by a narrow elite, while Turkish written with Atatürk's Latin was much more closely based on spoken Turkish, and thus suitable as a tool for mass literacy. Romanian was traditionally written with the Cyrillic alphabet because it's Orthodox in religion. The changeover to Latin was because influential Romanians wanted to affiliate the Romanian language with the other Romance languages, and not-so-coincidentally symbolically distance Romania a little from Russia and become a little more like France. Without someone in authority intending to cause a significant cultural discontinuity, changing scripts is not so likely... AnonMoos (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- Zhuang also changed from its previous Chinese-based script (Sawndip) to a Latin script in 1957. Vietnamese is also a fairly recent example of script change across the whole community of speakers: although it existed since the 17th century, Latin-script Vietnamese was mostly used by the Catholic community, until it was enforced by the French colonial administration in 1910. Uyghur has a fascinating history: within the 20th century it switched from Arabic to Latin to Cyrillic to Latin and then back to Arabic again. Double sharp (talk) 03:49, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- The Indonesian language and Malay language switched from Jawi script to the Latin alphabet in the 20th century. Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 16:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
- There is a Greek dialect, Calabrian Greek, written using the Latin alphabet. --Amble (talk) 20:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Why does Swedish and Norwegian double long vowel letters?
editWhy does Swedish and Norwegian not double long vowel letters? --40bus (talk) 20:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
- Since it's mostly superfluous according to the orthography. This has been answered before. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
- But doubling long vowels would have spelling closer to pronunciation. Tal (/taːl/) could easily be spelled taal and tall (/tal/) could be spelled tal. This would create more languages with common doubled vowel letters and create some ugly combinations, such as ⟨åå⟩ in both languages (which appears only in Skolt Sami) and ⟨ææ⟩ and ⟨øø⟩ in Norwegian (which appear in no language I know). --40bus (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Lots of things could have been done. They just aren't. Language is not built on perfectly coherent and logical systems you invent because you think you have an improvement over the current way things are done. That just isn't how this all works. You've been told time and time again that "why doesn't" or "why not" questions of this time are fundamentally meaningless and unanswerable. There is no reason why something didn't happen the way you imagine it should have. It is what it is. That you have a better way to do it is irrelevant. Language change is a fundamentally arbitrary and organic process, and the forms of language as they exist don't do so for any particular designed purpose. We can tell you what did happen at best, but not why it did nor even more so why it didn't happen some other way. It just did happen the way it did. Norwegian and Swedish just don't spell words like that. There is no reason why not. They just don't. --Jayron32 17:43, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- But doubling long vowels would have spelling closer to pronunciation. Tal (/taːl/) could easily be spelled taal and tall (/tal/) could be spelled tal. This would create more languages with common doubled vowel letters and create some ugly combinations, such as ⟨åå⟩ in both languages (which appears only in Skolt Sami) and ⟨ææ⟩ and ⟨øø⟩ in Norwegian (which appear in no language I know). --40bus (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
40bus -- Historically, the origins of Old Norse orthography were mainly influenced by Old English (which did not use doubled vowel letters). Continental Germanic influences on the Scandinavian languages apparently didn't become too significant until the late middle ages, maybe too late to result in major changes to orthographic conventions (Swedish uses umlaut-dotted vowel letters, but Danish and Norwegian do not). P.S. Verb agreement would usually require "Why do Swedish and Norwegian" in the question above... AnonMoos (talk) 00:07, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
- I think the current Swedish alphabet might have originated due to Gustav Vasa's wishes to sever the ties with Denmark, and bring the country closer to Germany. (Although I'm not an expert on the matter.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC)