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I've been learning Russian for two years, and I can only agree with you. Learning to read and write Cyrillic script was the easiest part of this adventure. And
by kahnpro 10y ago
I've been learning Russian for two years, and I can only agree with you. Learning to read and write Cyrillic script was the easiest part of this adventure.
And I think learning all sorts of nuances of the language would be more complicated using Latin script. Latin script also hides the fact that, even though the letters are similar, they really are different sounds. I feel like it would only hinder pronunciation.
- _samihasan_ 10y agoThe comparison of Arabic with Russian is not sound as Arabic is written with diacritics which in and of itself is a big plus if you're a native speaker or an experienced one but not so for inexperienced or novice speakers while Russian to my understanding is more explicit about that part.
- vetinari 10y agoDo I understand you right, that Arabic uses diacritics when written in Arabic script? Or did you mean Arabic when written in Latin script? Using diacritics is usually a sign, that the language uses a script that does not map very well to the target language, so the latter would be understandable. Slavic languages would the same in this regards. Those, that are written in Latin script, have to use diacritics. Those that use Cyrillic, do not need to.
- varjag 10y agoAll Cyrillic alphabets I am aware of do use diacritics. Й, Ў, Ё, Ґ..
- vetinari 10y agoWhile you are of course right, that there exist such characters, Belorussian and Ukrainian are not all Cyrillic alphabets. But then, I'm also not an expert on all Slavic languages, I just remember when I was taught Russian and azbuka years ago, there was none and that caught my attention.
- varjag 10y agoЙ and ё are in Russian alphabet. In schools it is never highlighted that those are diacritics, so to many it doesn't register.
- vostok 10y agoAre those diacritics? I tend to think of them as separate letters just as å and ä are separate letters in Swedish. Of course, ё is usually written as е so I may well be wrong about that. This is different from è, é, ë, and ê in French where these are all e, but with different diacritics.
- krick 10y agoThat's my impression of the statement as well. Even if technically they can be called diacritics it doesn't make much sense, not within this discussion. "Й" sounds absolutely unlike "и" and has pretty much no connection to it. "Ё" is a bit more tricky, but nevertheless — there's no another letter in Russian alphabet we could put umlaut on and get the result similar to putting umlaut on "е". I guess "ь" has more right to be called diacritic, because it genuinely has 1 purpose: altering the other sounds. But even that is treated as a separate letter. It's nothing like diacritics in French, German or even Latvian, let alone Arabic.
- varjag 10y agoЙ is absolutely linked with и, and it arose as alphabetic distinction from it. It appeared and disappeared for certain periods; in Russian it reestablished as a letter only in 20th century. It is still commonly collated with И in indexes and dictionaries. > "Ё" is a bit more tricky, but nevertheless — there's no another letter in Russian alphabet we could put umlaut on and get the result similar to putting umlaut on "е". This is a bizarre distinction: diacritics in natural languages aren't supposed to be freely recombinable.
- lisivka 10y ago> Belorussian and Ukrainian are not all Cyrillic alphabets. LOL Please, tell us an «all Cyrillic» alphabet. Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodius maybe? Why Belorussian and Ukrainian are «not all Cyrillic alphabets»? (I'm Ukrainian).
- lisivka 10y agoThose letters use no diacritics. They are just letters.
- varjag 10y agoThese are the letters with diacritic marks.
- lisivka 10y agoNo. іе -> ё, іі -> ї, иі -> й. оу -> ў. They are just shortened, to write less.
- varjag 10y agoWell, ў for once is not a shorthand for оу (e.g. слаўны, ўзяў). But it's beside the point, all diacritics are used to "write less".
- vetinari 10y ago> But it's beside the point, all diacritics are used to "write less". That may be the reason for misunderstanding. In my language (Slovak), diacritic is not used to "write less". It is used to express different sounds, i.e. s = с, š = ш, c = ц, č = ч.
- varjag 10y agoSure, but just as you demonstrate you have fewer distinct characters when you use diacritic than when you don't. And arguing whether Е and Ё are same character with diacritics, or just different letters that happen to have diacritics by the virtue of canonizing in alphabet is really splitting hairs. They serve same purpose, in the same circumstances, with the same visual arrangement. Quacks like a duck etc.
- krick 10y agoIt really isn't fair to compare Cyrillic script with Arabic. Cyrillic is basically the same script as Latin, even characters are alike. Hell, even something like Japanese hiragana is pretty much the same stuff as Latin alphabet, even though it looks nothing like that and is built upon syllables, not letters. And hence it is a bit harder to learn, but not by much. However Arabic script is a whole different thing. It has a whole lot of diacritics, characters change their shape depending on the position within a word, characters are notably less distinctive for an unaccustomed European than Latin letters, Cyrillic letters, hiragana or runes.