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English isn't the only language that uses the Roman alphabet (which I'm pretty sure is named after the first two Hebrew letters and not old Greek). English is

by gerdesj 12d ago

English isn't the only language that uses the Roman alphabet (which I'm pretty sure is named after the first two Hebrew letters and not old Greek). English is not Hungarian, where each sound has a glyph with a diacritic to adjust to taste (sorry: sound). Well, it sort of does and I recall a Hungarian telling me that. However, I recall noting street names in Budapest and asking about one or two and it turns out that spelling with adjustments (glyh plus diacritcs) breaks down a bit. I'm not enough of an expert but I suspect Hungarian is quite as mad as any other language, at the periphery. Its also rather moot as to when "English" actually arose. I think we can allow roots, in all sorts of, not places ... but times! As this article mentions, we have lost the letters wynn and thorne from English. When you see the words "Ye olde shoppe" (often in the Gothic black letter typeface) note that the Y is actually the letter thorne and ye is pronounced the or thee. It is unlikely that anyone will actually notice!

yread 12d ago
Hungarian doesn't have that many letters with diacritic (only 9: á, é, í, ó, ú, ö , ü, ő and ű), they use digraphs (cs, sz,. ..) for some sounds. Maybe they meant Czech (15: á, é, í, ó, ú, ů, ý, č, š, ž, ř, ď, ť, ň, ě)? or Slovak (18: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, ŕ, ĺ, č, š, ž, dž, ď, ť, ň, ľ, ô, ä)
ErroneousBosh 12d ago
Gaelic only has 18 letters (and W isn't one of them) but the vowels have diacritics - grave accents - that mark them as being longer. This makes some things a bit of a nightmare because words can have different meanings based on those sounds, and that can drastically alter things. "Fèis" - "faaysh" - means "festival", "feis" with a short vowel is not a word you'd use in polite company.
- Tangurena2 11d ago
  Some of the letter combinations (at least in Irish) can be represented by another Roman letter. Like mh can be represented by v. One short showing how funny this can be is: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1EBnFqRKZ7A https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1EBnFqRKZ7A

by gerdesj 12d ago

yread 12d ago

Hungarian doesn't have that many letters with diacritic (only 9: á, é, í, ó, ú, ö , ü, ő and ű), they use digraphs (cs, sz,. ..) for some sounds. Maybe they meant Czech (15: á, é, í, ó, ú, ů, ý, č, š, ž, ř, ď, ť, ň, ě)? or Slovak (18: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, ŕ, ĺ, č, š, ž, dž, ď, ť, ň, ľ, ô, ä)

ErroneousBosh 12d ago

Gaelic only has 18 letters (and W isn't one of them) but the vowels have diacritics - grave accents - that mark them as being longer. This makes some things a bit of a nightmare because words can have different meanings based on those sounds, and that can drastically alter things. "Fèis" - "faaysh" - means "festival", "feis" with a short vowel is not a word you'd use in polite company.

Tangurena2 11d ago
Some of the letter combinations (at least in Irish) can be represented by another Roman letter. Like mh can be represented by v. One short showing how funny this can be is: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1EBnFqRKZ7A https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1EBnFqRKZ7A