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As a native arabic reader, Mongolian gives me headaches. My brain keeps seeing it as an unreadable arabic script rotated 45 degrees to the left. (It also turns

As a native arabic reader, Mongolian gives me headaches. My brain keeps seeing it as an unreadable arabic script rotated 45 degrees to the left. (It also turns out it does have some arabic influence[0]) Still fascinating and super cool. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_script

mrweasel 4y ago
It doesn't really help that they use Arabic numerals and rotate them 90 degrees.
HopenHeyHi 4y ago
No kidding! At some point Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan. Over the next century Pax Mongolica made it as far as Egypt. Conquered swathes of Persia, felt cute, sacked Baghdad. Just Mongol things. Splintered into a bunch of Khanates that started fighting each other.. Arguably they fell apart because they picked up so many scripts and cultural and religious influences the different types of Mongols could no longer communicate or tolerate one another. Then the bubonic plague came and they became insular again instead of expansionist.
- omneity 4y ago
  Indeed. The fall of Baghdad [0] during that century at the hand of Hulagu Khan[1], the grandson of Gengis Khan, is thought to be a critical turning point that ended the islamic golden age and drove the eastern islamic caliphate to a dark age Iraq and other descendant countries never fully recovered from. <graphic warning> According to some accounts, Hulagu cut open the belly of the Caliph Al-Musta'sim, pulled his guts and left them on top of the caliph's head to drip while he was slowly dying. Some other accounts relate that he was killed by horse trampling wrapper in a rug.</graphic warning> It's also fascinating that Mongols, with all their mighty army, would settle in a land upon invading it, marrying into the locals, adopting their religion and traditions. Some modern Russian, Turk and Persian populations have this "reverse influence" from past Mongol invasions and admixture with actual Mongol people. Tatars[2] are a notable example, a Russo-Turko-Mongol population descending from Golden Horde troops who settled around the Volga (as everything in ethnographics, this is contested). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Tatars
  - omeid2 4y ago
    The Mongoles did some horrible things. In the Shahr-e-Gholghola, when the grandson of Gengis Khan was killed, he ordered that everyone in the city be killed, including children in cribs. As if that was not enough, they left the city and returned a few days to kill any survivors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahr-e_Gholghola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahr-e_Gholghola
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "Arguably they fell apart because they picked up so many scripts and cultural and religious influences the different types of Mongols could no longer communicate or tolerate one another. " Interesting thought and it certainly had influence, but I would argue that the trope that one strong ruler conquers a big kingdom, but it doesn't stay united, because his heirs cannot settle on the next great king, is a quite common and often repeated one.
csomar 4y ago
Same here. It seems like my brain is trying to process it as Arabic and "find" the patterns when there are none?
- omneity 4y ago
  Yes and right when my brain thinks it found something it could make sense of, my head tries intuitively to tilt to the left and I have to forcefully resist it.
roydivision 4y ago
Even as a non-arabic reader my head still wants to tilt 45 degrees automatically.
- shpx 4y ago
  But probably in the wrong direction, unless you've internalized that Arabic is written right to left.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  You mean 90 degrees right?
forinti 4y ago
I can't read arabic at all and this gives me a strong impression of being on its side too.
pneumic 4y ago
Not-native Arabic reader here. To my eyes, it pretty clearly has a "baseline" that, if you tilted the text 45° to the right, would run along the "bottom". With this in mind, the similarity of many characters and ligatures to those in Arabic is striking.
slothtrop 4y ago
Incidentally, having listened to a few clips of the language, it sounds like it has a slight Arabic tinge in some words. And otherwise reminds me of Russian, and sometimes Hangul.
antman123 4y ago
As a native Syriac speaker, saying Mongolian has Arabic influence is like saying it has Hebrew influence. Syriac =/= Arabic. And Mongolian is influenced by Syriac not Arabic and if you are wondering :) yes, a lot of letters ARE Syriac rotated 45 degrees
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  That’s a super fancy !=
  - robofanatic 4y ago
    that's a good attempt to represent the original "not equal" symbol ≠ better than <> used by t-sql
    - lionkor 4y ago
      And pascal!
    - hashmush 4y ago
      <> is simply "<" or ">" in the same way you have >= (">" or "=") and <= ("<" or "="). It's obviously not meant to look like ≠.

mrweasel 4y ago

It doesn't really help that they use Arabic numerals and rotate them 90 degrees.

HopenHeyHi 4y ago

No kidding! At some point Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan. Over the next century Pax Mongolica made it as far as Egypt. Conquered swathes of Persia, felt cute, sacked Baghdad. Just Mongol things. Splintered into a bunch of Khanates that started fighting each other.. Arguably they fell apart because they picked up so many scripts and cultural and religious influences the different types of Mongols could no longer communicate or tolerate one another. Then the bubonic plague came and they became insular again instead of expansionist.

omneity 4y ago
Indeed. The fall of Baghdad [0] during that century at the hand of Hulagu Khan[1], the grandson of Gengis Khan, is thought to be a critical turning point that ended the islamic golden age and drove the eastern islamic caliphate to a dark age Iraq and other descendant countries never fully recovered from. <graphic warning> According to some accounts, Hulagu cut open the belly of the Caliph Al-Musta'sim, pulled his guts and left them on top of the caliph's head to drip while he was slowly dying. Some other accounts relate that he was killed by horse trampling wrapper in a rug.</graphic warning> It's also fascinating that Mongols, with all their mighty army, would settle in a land upon invading it, marrying into the locals, adopting their religion and traditions. Some modern Russian, Turk and Persian populations have this "reverse influence" from past Mongol invasions and admixture with actual Mongol people. Tatars[2] are a notable example, a Russo-Turko-Mongol population descending from Golden Horde troops who settled around the Volga (as everything in ethnographics, this is contested). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Tatars
- omeid2 4y ago
  The Mongoles did some horrible things. In the Shahr-e-Gholghola, when the grandson of Gengis Khan was killed, he ordered that everyone in the city be killed, including children in cribs. As if that was not enough, they left the city and returned a few days to kill any survivors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahr-e_Gholghola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahr-e_Gholghola
hutzlibu 4y ago
"Arguably they fell apart because they picked up so many scripts and cultural and religious influences the different types of Mongols could no longer communicate or tolerate one another. " Interesting thought and it certainly had influence, but I would argue that the trope that one strong ruler conquers a big kingdom, but it doesn't stay united, because his heirs cannot settle on the next great king, is a quite common and often repeated one.

csomar 4y ago

Same here. It seems like my brain is trying to process it as Arabic and "find" the patterns when there are none?

omneity 4y ago
Yes and right when my brain thinks it found something it could make sense of, my head tries intuitively to tilt to the left and I have to forcefully resist it.

roydivision 4y ago

Even as a non-arabic reader my head still wants to tilt 45 degrees automatically.

shpx 4y ago
But probably in the wrong direction, unless you've internalized that Arabic is written right to left.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MichaelZuo 4y ago
You mean 90 degrees right?

forinti 4y ago

I can't read arabic at all and this gives me a strong impression of being on its side too.

pneumic 4y ago

Not-native Arabic reader here. To my eyes, it pretty clearly has a "baseline" that, if you tilted the text 45° to the right, would run along the "bottom". With this in mind, the similarity of many characters and ligatures to those in Arabic is striking.

slothtrop 4y ago

Incidentally, having listened to a few clips of the language, it sounds like it has a slight Arabic tinge in some words. And otherwise reminds me of Russian, and sometimes Hangul.

antman123 4y ago

As a native Syriac speaker, saying Mongolian has Arabic influence is like saying it has Hebrew influence. Syriac =/= Arabic. And Mongolian is influenced by Syriac not Arabic and if you are wondering :) yes, a lot of letters ARE Syriac rotated 45 degrees

fnordpiglet 4y ago
That’s a super fancy !=
- robofanatic 4y ago
  that's a good attempt to represent the original "not equal" symbol ≠ better than <> used by t-sql
  - lionkor 4y ago
    And pascal!
  - hashmush 4y ago
    <> is simply "<" or ">" in the same way you have >= (">" or "=") and <= ("<" or "="). It's obviously not meant to look like ≠.