Essay Example on Explore Europe's Alphabet Systems

Introduction

The alphabet systems used in Europe include Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Hebrew. Latin alphabet system consists of a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z (Jones et al. 67). Examples of Greek alphabets are α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, λ, μ, π and ρ. Cyrillic alphabets include а, б, в, г, д, е, ё, ж, з, и, й, к, л, м, н and о. For the Arabic, examples include الهمزة (ء), ط, and ب. Finally, Hebrew alphabets include א, בּ, ב, ג, ד, and ה (Jones et al. 95)

German has 26 letters. T

hey include a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z (Jones et al. 82). On the other hand, Romanian has 31 letters, which include a, ă, â, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, î, j, k, l, >m, n, o, p, q, r, s, ș, t, ț, u, v, w, x, y, z (Jones et al. 100). Greek has 24 letters. They include α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, ϑ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, ς, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ω (Jones at al. 133)

The unique feature about the bases of Basque, Finnish, and Hungarian is the vowel harmony displayed by the three languages. For instance, Finnish and Hungarian have a rule that almost all words comprise either back vowels, a o u or front vowels, ä ö y. Also, two vowels, e and i can go in any word. Similarly, Basque has the same vowels: a, e, i, o, u (Jones et al. 176).

Asian Languages

The Chinese character system is not based on an alphabet, but instead, it uses a character that is a more complex unit. It comprises an indication of both meaning and pronunciation. More than 100,000 different Chinese characters exist, but only between 3,000 and 6,000 are the most useful for a literate person (Bisang 34). Some of the characters in the Chinese system include 也, 池, 馳, and 弛. On the other hand, the Chinese tone system comprises four basic tones. The first tone is a high and level pitch, then rising, falling and rising, and finally falling and stressing (Bisang 77).

Vietnamese shares some similarities with the Chinese in terms of character and tone system. For instance, both are tonal languages with Vietnamese having six tones and Chinese having 4. Also, both languages are monosyllabic in that words consist of a single syllable of monosyllabic parts that have meaning individually. As an illustration, the word brother written as 兄弟 can be split into 兄([elder] brother) and 弟([younger]brother) (Bisang 129). On the other hand, the Vietnamese character and tone system differs from that of Chinese. Notably, one of the differences is in the number of tones. Also, while Chinese has over 3,000 characters, Vietnamese has twenty-nine letters; twelve vowels, and seventeen consonants (Bisang 206).

Written systems in Cambodia include Alphabets, consonants, and vowels. Some of the alphabets include ក, ខ, គ, ឃ, ង, ច, ជ, ឈ, and ញ. Consonants in Cambodia include ហ្គ, ហ្, ហ្, ប៉ and ហ្ម, and vowels include ឣ, ឤ, ឥ, and ឦ for independent vowels and អា, អិ, អី, and អឹ for dependent vowels. Similarly, Thailand has a writing system comprising 44 basic consonants. They include ก, ข, ค, ฅ, ฆ, ง, จ, ฉ, and ช (Bisang 251).

The written form of Tamil in South India uses the Tamil script and has 30 letters, which include 18 consonants and 12 vowels. In contrast, Hindi in North India uses the Devanagri script, which comprises 45 letters in its alphabet, 33 of which are consonants, and 12 basic vowels. Again, while Tamil has about 216 compound letters indicating combinations of consonants and vowels, Hindi has 396 (Bisang 188).

The basis for Tibetan, Mongolian, and Pashtun in speech is the set of vowels a/e/i/o/u, which are present in each of the three languages and dictate the meaning of words depending on vowel length.

The written form of Tibetan includes a syllabic alphabet, where each letter has an inherent vowel /a/. However, other vowels can be represented using a range of diacritics which appear either above or below the main letters. On the other hand, the written form of Pashtun utilizes all the Arabic 28 letters and three letters from Urdu and Persian. The Pashtun alphabets include ب, پ, ت, and ټ. In contrast, Mongolia uses the Cyrillic alphabet such as б, д, ё, and ж (Bisang 344).

Languages

Today, the world has over 6,000 different languages, with 2,000 of them counting fewer than 1,000 speakers (Chan 2).

Generally, it can be said that all the languages in the world form an excellent example of human diversity. Through different languages, people can express the thoughts they conceptualize, and hence, languages can be considered to use diverse ways to achieve the same functional goals. Throughout the world, language strengthens people's cultural heritage and their identity, which demonstrates the existence of diversity in humanity.

Works Cited

Bisang, Walter. The Routledge Handbook of Asian Languages. Routledge, 2018.

Chan, Kai L. "Power Language Index." Which are the World’s Most Influential Languages (2016).

Jones, Daniel, et al. European Languages. Routledge, 2003.