
The Beauty Of Typography: Writing Systems And Calligraphy, Part 2 - danh
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/22/the-beauty-of-typography-writing-systems-and-calligraphy-part-2/
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anoved
Together with part 1 ([http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/18/the-beauty-
of-typ...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/18/the-beauty-of-
typography-writing-systems-and-calligraphy-of-the-world/)), quite an
informative summary of different writing systems. I find different scripts
fascinating, and know little about most, so this is a nice entry point to
learn more.

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ComputerGuru
Fascinating article. It really impresses upon one the differences and
commonalities between the different scripts. I never realized how much art
there was involved in these other languages.

I'm bilingual, perfectly fluent in both English and Arabic. From my
studies/experiences, I find that English alone from all others that I've come
across is a purely functional language. It serves no other purpose than to
_get the message across_ and do so effectively. Most other languages are a
form of sacred art, with a million rules deciding how the script itself is
formed, what's acceptable and what's not, and tend to hang on to certain
words, typefaces, accents, and dialects in written form even when the spoken
language so greatly diverges from the traditional written script.

A primary example here is Arabic: the spoken and written languages differ
quite drastically, with the spoken dialect turning into an almost different
language as you move across from the Levant areas
(Syria/Jordan/Palestine/Lebanon) over into Iraq and then the Gulf countries
(Saudi, Kuwait, etc.) and finally into Africa at which point it doesn't even
come close to resembling its spoken counterpart that we started off with.

Yet, with all that, the written language is 100% identical. Even though there
are new _words_ from region to region (not just a matter of
intonation/inflection/dialect), the written language is perfectly identical
and can be shared understood without difficult. In reality, these people know
two different languages entirely. This is, by and large, caused by the
memorization of the Quran, which is the holy scripture for Muslims which
comprise the majority of the Arab world. The Quran is set in the official
"formal Arabic" and Islam doesn't allow for the rewording or modernization of
the script since Muslims believe that the actual wording (rather than the
meaning) of the Quran was sent down from Allah and is sacred and not be
modified (though translations of the Quran exist in almost all languages for
reference/reading purposes, the religious actions such as prayers, etc. must
be done with the formal arabic script, even in non-arabic-speaking parts of
the world such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and even the States).

Back to the point at hand: In French, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, and more there
is so much attributed to the beauty of the script, the perfection of the
symbols, the fluency of the spoken language, and the scientific rules holding
the language together. Languages aren't _really_ living in the same sense as
they are in English: new words aren't _officially_ added as often, and the
languages themselves serve a much more interesting and less "mundane" task
than simply getting ideas across. These languages exist in and of themselves,
in a way, they're not only there to serve the speaker: the speaker actually
serves the language in many ways.

~~~
nopassrecover
English is very germanic and the germanic languages are very functional as you
say. However, it has both celtic and romantic influences (both formal latin
through the Roman conquest and later French influence). It is this interesting
hybridisation that gives it both functional power (I hear an anecdote of how
the French do not have a general purpose word for 'get', instead it is
strongly contextual) and (often unused) artistic extensibility.

~~~
a-priori
English is interesting in that we almost have two independent vocabularies.
When speaking informally, you tend to use Germanic words more, and when
speaking formally, you tend to use Romance words. I'm writing this formally,
which is why I'm using words like "speaking" (which comes from Latin) instead
of "talking" (which comes from Middle English).

For example, compare "I need to pick up bread from the store when I'm
finished." (Romance words, sounds formal) to "I must get bread from the shop
when I'm done." (Germanic words, sounds informal). Both mean the same thing,
but (ignoring the stiff wording) the first sounds like something you would say
to your grandmother, and the second sounds like something you'd say to your
pal at the bar.

~~~
mahmud
Minor correction. "Speaking" sounded like Germanic to me, sprechen/spreken,
and Merriam Webster confirmed it. The latin roots gave us "orate", "dictate",
and "eloquence".

~~~
a-priori
Ah, yes, you are right about that. I don't know where I got the idea that
"speak" was Latin-based.

