Writing Systems

[@virtuousvibes2852]

Writing systems are what got me into linguistics and conlanging too. I'm so glad.

[@TrueSchwar]

I have a two videos in the works about conlanging in the future, one going over two of my personal conlangs, and another about a conlang I tried making with a group of friends.

[@virtuousvibes2852]

@@TrueSchwar That's great! Looking forward to it.

[@whohan779]

Can you write Ithkuil or latinized Klingon already? 🤣

[@Rabid_Nationalist]

Same!

[@TrueSchwar]

@@whohan779 nope

[@challalla]

5:14 King Sejong did not order the creation of the Korean alphabet. He was the one that created the alphabet. The notion that he ordered the scholars in his court to create the alphabet for him arose later and is still a popular one among many Koreans, but all the evidence from contemporary records points to the creation of the alphabet being a personal project that was kept secret from his court until it was completed. The new alphabet actually met considerable resistance from some of the scholar officials as an alphabet for writing the vernacular language would threaten their monopoly on literacy based on Classical Chinese.

[@TrueSchwar]

I saw that, but honestly don't think King Sejong would have done it all himself. While I can definitely see it being the case that he didn't order scholars to do it, I also don't really see the case that he made it himself. He had to have some support from the scholars, even a small minority. How else would the script have spread. King Sejong may have been great, but I doubt he himself would go out and spread the script he invented by himself. He would need at least some support from some scholars who may have supported his vision.

[@challalla]

@@TrueSchwar Creating the alphabet and spreading it are two different things, and at issue here is who created the alphabet. In fact, naïvely one may think that it is easier for a king to spread a newly created alphabet than to invent one himself. The Sejong Sillok (세종실록), the official annals of the king's reign, records in December 1443 that he 'personally created (chinje 친제) the twenty-eight letters of the vernacular script.' There is no record of the alphabet before this entry, meaning that it was probably announced only after the letters were already created. Out of all the accomplishments of his reign, this was the only instance in which the king was personally credited. From the records, we also know that the king was greatly interested in Chinese phonetics and phonemics, and when there was a petition against the new alphabet from Choe Malli, the king is recorded to have replied 'What do you know about phonology?' 'Analysis of the Debate Surrounding the Inventor of Hunminjeongeum' by Myeonghui Cheon (2019) gives a detailed overview of the current state of scholarship. Sejong's sole invention is the majority position supported by historical records and researchers: 'Denying the sole invention of Hunminjeongeum by King Sejong without presenting any evidence that can override the veracity of the historical resources of the official records and publications can be defined as the results of unscientific imagination.'

[@TrueSchwar]

@@challalla huh, fascinating. Guess I have to do a bit more personal research into the origin of Hangul I guess.

[@balonkita185]

@@TrueSchwar but a king coming up with an entire script sounds a lot like political propaganda. It could've happened, and historically speaking, weirder things have happened, but it just seems too on the nose

[@romaliop]

@@challalla I think either way it would have been beneficial to attribute it to the king himself, to shield it and commoners who would use it from the nobles' discontent. But if you are going to say that, then you could just as well have the king personally create it. It would be an extremely simple job for the king to choose the symbols as long as the base logic was thought through, and that you can easily count as the king creating it. However, I also have to say that the decision to publish it and to let the common people use it speaks much more about his virtues as a king, than whether or not it was his own personal pet project that he made entirely by himself.

[@deacudaniel1635]

Happy to find one more fresh linguistics channel.I became interested in linguistics starting with writing systems too, especially the Chinese one.

[@TrueSchwar]

Haha, thanks for the warm welcome. I have a few video ideas about the Chinese writing system and related scripts in the works, so stay tuned!

[@reze_dev]

I just finished learning kana, hangul, Cyrillic, and greek. And this video got recommended. What a time to be alive.

[@Liggliluff]

When you say you finished learning Cyrillic, did you learn all the usages? Like Serbian, Kazakh, Tatar? A lot of people who say they have learned Cyrillic, has only learned the Russian usage of it.

[@reze_dev]

@Liggliluff I only want to learn Russian though. The reason I wanted to learn the scripts are just I can recognize the words and type them with my keyboard so I can google something in Russian. Well to get a level of fluency in that language is probably too hard for me and takes so much time.

[@My-nl6sg]

Small correction: The only living logography is not just Chinese 汉字, traditional Yi script ꆈꌠꁱꂷ (aka Classical Yi, the predecessor to the modern reformed syllabary) from China is also a logography that while influenced by Chinese had originated independently and is distinct. Some logographic Yi is still in use: The are currently two standardized modern Yi syllabaries, the pure syllabary Liangshan Standard Yi Script 凉山规范彝文 for the northern Nuosu dialects ꆈꌠ꒿, and the Yunnan Standard Yi Script 云南规范彝文 for another dialect which mixes syllabary with 2258 logographic glyphs. The Liangshan Yi syllabary is much more widely used, and the Yunnan Yi syllabary is not as popular. In addition, Classical Yi is not completely out of use. The Liangshan Yi has been included in Unicode, however, the 88,613 Yunnan Standard Yi glyphs submitted in 2007 had yet to be included.

[@TrueSchwar]

Interesting, from my readings, I had gathered the traditional Yi logography has been dead since the 1973 reform. It's nice to know that the logography is still alive, even if it's only to a small extant in religious and scholarly communities. Unfortunately in 40~50 years, the traditional script may disappear as it appears that use is declining. Though I would love to hear if what little research I did is wrong as well. Are you a speaker of Yi, or just an enthusiast?

[@My-nl6sg]

@@TrueSchwar I'm Chinese and I happen to run into an enthusiast on Bilibili who is from the Yi ethnicity and culture so he talked a lot about the script in his videos but I don't know too much myself. It's unfortunate how poorly publicized the Yi script is even domestically in China.

[@deacudaniel1635]

An even better example for another logographic system would be the Naxi Dongba script.

[@My-nl6sg]

@@deacudaniel1635 I think its more of a mnemonic system and not quite a complete writing system tho

[@deacudaniel1635]

@@My-nl6sg I didn't know logographic Yi is still used today.I've only seen Yi sillabary until now...I guess, so I didn't count Yi as a logographic script still used today.However, although Naxi symbols are not considered a true writing system, it resembles a logographic script a lot, in the way it's structured.

[@agentsmidt3209]

I was watching a video on programming and this video was in my recommendations. I thought the title meant something else (writing computer code) but ended being enthralled by "writing systems". It amazes me how human can come up with these complex communication systems.

[@philosophicsblog]

Thanks! I've been interested in language and linguistics forever, but I never knew most of this. I'm glad I followed KZbin's recommendation.

[@teacupanimates]

finally, an actually active liguistics channel.

[@b.k.5425]

გაუმარჯოს ქართულ ანბანს, ყველაზე ლამაზ და დახვეწილ დამწერლობას მსოფლიოში!

[@kishanvaishnav2812]

This script is so similar to South Indian scripts, I thought it is written in that language. Btw I don’t know any South Indian language

[@ImBasedKids]

I agree

[@TommoLinks]

learning languages is honestly so much fun

[@Rand0mperson433]

Amazing explanation of all the different types of scripts! You are extremely underrated and just gained a new sub!

[@n0us.]

flag of South Sudan as a pfp? interesting lol

[@TrueSchwar]

Thanks for the sub, and thank you for the comment! Though, can I really call myself underrated when I only have two videos posted?

[@Rand0mperson433]

@@TrueSchwar Absolutely you can

[@Rand0mperson433]

@@n0us. I just like the design 🤷‍♂️

[@sksk-bd7yv]

This is the best vid to introduce hangul that I've ever seen.

[@stidium]

Great video! It’s great to see new linguistics channels! I can’t wait to see more from you!

[@glitterstar3333]

Thank you for this! I’m about to start on a tonal language for my world and I wanted them to use a logolgraphy or something in between bc I think they’re cool, and this simplified them :)

[@stvp68]

I can give this video to my World Literature classes-thanks!

[@TrueSchwar]

Go ahead! Are you the teacher or one of the students?

[@TheStickCollector]

Glad I can find great writing scripts in the thumnail Good job

[@091lsm._]

As a linguaphile I'd like to say writing system is totally my favorite topic while learning language especially abugidas one🫶🏻💖 thanks for sharing remarkable information🙏🏻 🇮🇩ᬫᬢᬸᬃᬲᬸᬓ᭄ᬲᬫᬓᬂᬕᭀᬇᬦ᭄ᬧᭀᬃᬫᬲᬶ 🇮🇩ꦩꦠꦸꦂꦱꦸꦮꦸꦤ꧀ꦏꦁꦒꦺꦴꦆꦤꦭ꦳ꦺꦴꦂꦩꦱꦶꦤꦺ 🇮🇩ᮠᮒᮥᮁᮔᮥᮠᮥᮔ᮪ᮊᮀᮌᮧᮄᮔ᮪ᮖᮧᮁᮙᮞᮤᮔ 🇹🇭ขอขอบคุณสำหรับข้อมูล 🇱🇦ຂອບໃຈສໍາລັບຂໍ້ມູນ 🇰🇭សូមអរគុណចំពោះព័ត៌មាន 🇲🇲အချက်အလက်အတွက်ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ် 🇱🇰තොරතුරු සඳහා ස්තුතියි 🇳🇵सुचनाकाे लागी धन्यबाद 🇧🇩তথ্যের জন্য আপনাকে ধন্যবাদ 🇮🇳जानकारी के लिए धन्यवाद 🇮🇳தங்களுடைய தகவலுக்கு நன்றி 🇮🇳ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು ತಮ್ಮ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಾಗಿ 🇮🇳మీ సమాచారమునకు ధన్యవాదాలు 🇮🇳വിവരങ്ങൾക്ക് നന്ദി 🇮🇳ସୂଚନା ପାଇଁ ଧନ୍ୟବାଦ 🇮🇳માહિતી બદલ આભાર 🇪🇹ለመረጃው እናመሰግናለን

[@stargazer904]

Cool video, you inspired me to create my own writing system! Love your videos!

[@TrueSchwar]

Always a good use of time. Ping me on reddit when you finish it, I'd love to see it. I'll be adding a link to my reddit in my bio later this week.

[@kohaku_amba]

Writing was my gateway to linguistics as well! I've always been fond of logographies in particular, and I hope to create my own someday.

[@dara_1989]

any talk on writing systems 1st brings to mind .. the hangul

[@Aman-qr6wi]

In devnagarī, you missed का which is kaa as in CAR. Also, the inherent vowel अ in indian abugidas have a purpose. Since, most indian scripts were used to write sanskrit which in turn had most proto-indo-european vowels modified into "a" , so you'll see a lot of "a" in sanskrit, even the word "devanagari" or the word "Ashtadhyayi", because of this inherent a, abugidas were much useful.

[@taududeblobber221]

i don't think they intended to show all of them, because there are की and a lot more.

[@idkatthispoint-s9s]

2:53 Correction: The Linking of the Brahmi script to Proto-Sinaitic is just a theory. There is no proof linking them. Most probably Brahmi originated from the Indus Valley Script.

[@TrueSchwar]

As I’ve mentioned in other places, it’s our best accept and most supported theory at the moment, as we have yet to actually make any substantial connection between the Indus script and Brahmi. Not to mention the fact that we aren’t sure if the Indus script was a script yet or a form of Proto-Writing.

[@bletwort2920]

Yeah there are very few Semitic characters that have any semblance to Brahmi characters. Brahmi characters are also organised in an entirely different arrangement based on their place on articulation

[@phs125]

Your channel name is so on point. We all know schwa. But also, swar is sanskrit for tone or vowel or letter.

[@TrueSchwar]

I didn’t know that, what a funny coincidence… I mean that was 100% intentional. Though honestly my name refers to the rhoticized schwa Symbole ə˞, which is called Schwar, and became a sort of running joke among my friends and I.

[@shu830]

4:00 THAK YOU so much man for this. For context: we call them "matra" in Hindi i and i was always wondering what the concept was called in English. I'm new to linguistics and want to create a conlang, but i couldn't find anything what the concept of "matra" is called internationally, but now i think i understand it even better thanks to you.

[@TrueSchwar]

Oh cool, I never new they were called Matra in Hindi. Should probably just call them that in English to better differentiate them from diacritics in Alphabets.

[@satyakisil9711]

That's interesting. In Bengali the matra refers to the bar put above the syllabary. The bar chains different syllabaries into words, with the end of the bar indicating the word has ended. In Bengali, glyphs are called kārôk like া(ākār), ো(ôkār), etc.

[@shu830]

@@satyakisil9711 can you give an example? I'm now wondering if I'm dumb and didn't understand the video correctly. I was referring to the this: Take the word "भूख" (hunger) (Bhook in literal translation), the letters used are Bhə (भ), (ऊ) oo's matra which below "भ", and then "ख" (khə).

[@satyakisil9711]

@@shu830 the ऊ = ू example which you mentioned is called আকার(ākār), not মাত্রা(mātra). The mātra refers to the line drawn above the word, that touches the top of the syllabaries.

[@shu830]

@@satyakisil9711 hmm, Bengali is different in that regard then. Because both in Hindi and In Punjabi, which is my native language, that is what we call a matra.

[@TACTGY]

Hey thank you for the great video. There's one mistake in language alphabet tree on 2:51. There is "кириличен" under Cyrillic, but it should be "кириллица". "Кириличен" is kinda odd form of "кириллица". It's in adjective and short form. You can never see someone using that form. Ps sorry for my english

[@TrueSchwar]

Ah! Thanks for pointing that out.

[@TACTGY]

​@@TrueSchwar Hello again. did a little research and found out that "кириличен" is the word Cyrillic as an adjective in the Macedonian language.(the noun is almost the same "кирилица") So technically you are correct. It's just that in ordinary speech (I think in almost all Slavic languages ​​using this alphabet) they use the noun Cyrillic and not the phrase Cyrillic alphabet. So this got me confused. sorry :)

[@noahnaugler7611]

I find it funny that Arabic and Devanagari ended up on opposite sides of your tree, because they each inspired one of the two writing systems for Punjabi (Shahmukhi in Pakistan, and Gurmukhi in India, respectively)

[@MandMs05]

I'm currently learning Mandarin and got excited to see the Thumbnail having Hanzi to try and read First hanzi - No clue Second hanzi - Zì, Character Third hanzi - No clue Fourth and Fifth - Wǔshí, fifty (five ten) Last hanzi - Yīn, Sound (as in 拼音 Pinyin) Getting frustrated unable to recognize the first and 3rd, I used Google Lens to tell me that it's apparently Japanese for "Kanji and Japanese syllabary"

[@TrueSchwar]

To be fair, they are Chinese characters, except for と.

[@yoshilovesyoshi]

Japanese also uses older/more traditional Chinese characters from Modern Chinese because Japanese writing comes from an era where Middle Chinese was dominant. They look the same, but hard to tell the meaning if you're Chinese 😅

[@fanaticofmetal]

The first character means Chinese

[@wasmic5z]

漢 is used to mean "China" or "Chinese" in both Japanese and in mixed Korean script (although mixed Korean is very rarely used nowadays). と is just pronounced 'to' and has no inherent meaning, being a Japanese kana character. In this case, however, it's a single-character word that means "and" or "with". The Japanese syllabaries are typically organised into the "50 sounds table", the 五十音 (gojuuon). It only contains 46 sounds, though, since yi, ye, wi, wu, and we are missing, and an extra n/ng/m character was added. There used to be characters for wi and we, but they were removed because the sounds disappeared from the language. And of course, each syllable is there twice - once as a hiragana and once as a katakana, so あ and ア are both pronounced 'a'. Fun fact, 聞く in Japanese means "to hear", but 聞 in Mandarin Chinese means "to smell" - this is because in Chinese, the meaning used to be "hear" as indicated by the 耳 radical, but then the meaning changed to first "to sense" and then "to smell".

[@whohan779]

Tell me you're learning simplified, w/o telling me, lol. The 漢 indeed sees no modern use in simplified, but is crucial for traditional and derivatives as one of the first characters to learn. As wasmic5z already eluded to the と is atypical for Chinese as it's mostly round (which exactly only the character 〇 is) and isn't composed of common Chinese radicals because it's a Japanese syllabary. Rule of thumb: any Chinese character (but 〇) can be written angular without looking wrong.

[@jamesjohhson3888]

Amazing video, It was super informative !

[@twisted_tapestry]

This is fantastic!

[@yash1152]

2:37 > _"Proto-Sinaitic"_ ahw, have read Proto-IndoEuropean _Language_ before in wikitionary etym section, but this name of _script_ is new to me. thanks for introducing it.

[@memsesosmo5084]

I didn't know old Korean had vowel harmonics!!! I only know that feature from Mongolian, so this probably helps theories that connect Mongolian, Korean and Japanese as related languages. I haven't learned sanskrit (yet), but rn I am doing Tibetan which has one of the weirdest writing systems. Spelling featuring letters no longer spoken isn't new, English and French are cruising along with it. Why tf they decided to letters above and below though??? Which is extra weird because the alphabet was adapted from brahmi script - hence me sort of recognising the vowel markers they use in sanskrit, they are clearly inspired from them. I really would like to know where they got the idea, since I haven't seen any syllabric system do this. I guess maybe Korean, but they were designed as whole characters that way.

[@bhangura3026]

May I Know Why Brahmi Script is Weird ?

[@memsesosmo5084]

@@bhangura3026 No, no, Brahmi script doesn't do this, it's just the basis for tibetan. Hence me going ???? Why are you suddenly putting letters on top or below?

[@gasun1274]

Kadazan and Hungarian have vowel harmony. So does that mean they're related too?

[@TrueSchwar]

Don’t know why I didn’t see this comment chain earlier, but now I’m curious about why Tibetan has those letters above and below… let me look into that and I’ll get back to you. Also, yes, vowel harmony was part of the reason Mongolic, Turkish, Tungusic, and Koreanic language groups were theorized to be part of a larger language family called Altaic. However, the Altaic family has been fairly disproven at this point, especially from one of its first and earliest supporters, so there’s probably no genetic relation between Korean and Mongolian. However, the vowel harmony + agglutinative grammar, and similar morphological patterns points to another, not wide spread idea outside of linguistics, of the Sprachbund (language area). This concept is the idea that languages in close proximity, can influence each other in various ways; whether they’re related or not. A good example of this would be the indo-Iranian branch of PIE. The Iranian branch phonologically doesn’t have retroflex consonants as a major distinction, but the Indo-Aryan branch developed one after contact with the Dravidian languages.

[@TrueSchwar]

I’ve made a comment below about the Altaic languages. The Uralic languages, like Hungarian and Finnish, were included in this hypothetical family. But as I mentioned there, the language family is now mostly debunk, meaning Hungarian and Finnish are not genetically related to Mongolian, Korean, or any of the other Altaic language groups that we know of.

[@janesoren4079]

Wow, that's very interesting! Thank you

[@Liggliluff]

Note that the Arabic script is used as an alphabet in languages like Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, ..., where all vowels are written.

[@user-pd6ci6fk1i]

Excellent explaination :) Thanks!

[@blanketedspace7297]

Ah shit, */throws this video into the ‘useful things playlist I’m making my own fictional silly writing systems, as a fiction (hobbyist) writer. I’m not actually going to make entire languages, of course. Just the concept for some of the fantasy world languages. So getting to see how others and our own works is going to be helpful! Thanks!

[@AISPs]

8:28 Old Chinese phonology for pre-AD era. You did quite a work here.

[@TrueSchwar]

Haha, the it was hard to choose which system to do.

[@mohamedvm7917]

Did anyone realised that alphabet is just two Greek letter's name alpha beta like we say abcd

[@youssef.elmoumen]

Thank you for making this video🙏🙏

[@JohnDoe-gv9gi]

perfect video to fall asleep to thanks algorithm

[@sarah_fides]

The Greek script shown at 2:49 is incorrect. Under 'Greek' it says 'ελληνικός' (Greek), but it is in the masculine singular nominative, when it should be 'ελληνικά', in the neuter plural nominative (literally meaning 'Greek things', which is what we call the language colloquially).

[@aguacateadosmilpesitos]

...the video ended so abruptly, the next one on my list played and I was so confused. But I enjoyed it very much

[@TrueSchwar]

Ya, not really great at endings…

[@Bawhoppen]

I absolutely love writing systems. The term 'writing system' has always felt a little bulky though. I've been hoping that the term 'scribion' can start becoming used as a shorter term for writing systems. Of course I make note of it being different than a script, since of course a writing system can contain multiple different scripts.

[@stickss22]

Orthography is often used as an alternative for writing system.

[@Bawhoppen]

@@stickss22 Well absolutely. But orthography is a non-discrete term. As in, you might say "I type with English orthography" but you couldn't say "I type using the English orthography." And I do think it can be useful to have something for that.

[@mapache-ehcapam]

Dude, I'm sorry but that word sounds too weird, like from a lame sci fi show.

[@zoshida]

Brand new channel PagMan

[@hyewonity]

the korean writing system is sooo interesting and smart

[@bijoychandraroy]

this was very informational

[@dude-e]

Thanks for the interesting lesson

[@MaddoxMadness]

Very interesting and educative.

[@FlabbyAbi]

Subbed, can't wait to see more :)

So what you're saying is that all Scripts either came from Egypt or from China. Korean kinda had chinese influences tbh. so despite it being constructed I'd still count it as coming from chinese script.

[@TrueSchwar]

Not really. Korean, and many other languages/cultures created their own scripts. They just didn’t invent writing. Mycenaean Greek had its own logography that looked different from Egyptian. But they probably got the idea of writing itself from the Egyptians. So while Hangul has some influence from Chinese, it can’t be said to be descended from Chinese.

@@TrueSchwar I would say in a way, it is descended from both. It has style of Chinese Logography, and idea of Alphabet from one of the scripts used in the west, most likely latin. And meanwhile being it's own thing in a way.

[@lynnchance8219]

The ʼPhags-pa theory theory proposes that the Korean Hangul alphabet had a limited influence from the ʼPhags-pa script, which was used to transcribe Mongolian, the Uyghur language, various Sino-Tibetan languages, and even Sanskrit during the Mongol empire.

[@mintusaren895]

Which music instruments you use on shoulder

[@mahdimoulayaissa5395]

small correction 2:05 the و in "walad ولد" is actually a consonant in this case because و is pronounced as w

[@TrueSchwar]

Yep, that was there to show that و worked as a vowel and consonant.

[@nikayra9564]

1:58 I still don't know about that small minority of modern day abjad script like I searched EVERYWHERE!!

[@spaghettiking653]

3:54 I don't really understand this part... On the one hand, the idea that each character is a "consonant letter plus a vowel diacritic" is wrong, but also "each character is a consonant plus an inherent vowel"? Isn't that just the same thing? 10:42 But, the consonants did change? is the "r" not considered a consonant in Egyptian? I also hugely love writing systems. If there is one thing I love the most when immersing in a new language, it's to be able to read anything in that script and appreciate its richness. I always get a primal urge to read signs when I'm abroad lol.

[@TrueSchwar]

So there's this idea that abugidas are just like alphabets, where each base character represents a consonant and all vowels are marked with diacritics. What I'm saying is wrong is the idea that the base character is only representing a consonant, as the base character actually has an inherent vowel, in Sanskrit and Hindi, this is /ǝ/. So क isn't just /k/, most of the time, but is instead /kǝ/. Look at the word नकली for example. broken down it would be nǝ-kǝ-lī (न-क-ली). The only vowel marker in that word is the /ī/, which replaces the inherent /ǝ/ in ल /lǝ/. For the other two characters, only the base glyph is written as the /ǝ/ sound is inherently part of the same glyph as न /nǝ/ and क /kǝ/.) The r is considered a consonant, what I'm pointing out there is the trilateral root system of semitic languages. In the first word, náfir, the root n-f-r is inserted into a template of _ā_i_, which represents a masculine adjective. When it becomes a feminine adjective, the root n-f-r is inserted into a template of _a_ _t. The only consistency with these words is that root n-f-r. That's what I meant by the consonants don't change.

[@spaghettiking653]

@@TrueSchwar I see now, thanks a lot :) I didn't realise what you meant by "inherent vowel" and that each symbol is a syllable in its own right, even without modification, I didn't notice either.

[@monsieurLDN]

Cool video, what are the other linguistic topics you will look at?

[@TrueSchwar]

I made a post on my community tab, if you wanna check that out.

[@andrefmartin]

Although in the first slide you show Mongolian writing system, you haven't mentioned it in any of the writing systems you described and discussed in the video.

[@TrueSchwar]

I didn't realize until after I uploaded the video that I left the Mongolic script up... If it's any consolation, I plan on doing a series later about various different scripts, their histories, and how they are used in the modern day. Though I'm still in the planning stages of that, so it'll be a while before they come to light.

[@Liggliluff]

Mongolian script is interesting, because it's one of the few scripts, only script? That is still used for a major language that must be written top to bottom. Mongolia uses Cyrillic though, but Inner Mongolia uses Mongolian. Supporting top to bottom scripts is very limited.

[@kirilvelinov7774]

The Abkhaz writing system has this 2003 Fen TV looking symbol that makes a "y" sound Big lowercase E with flourish???

[@kirilvelinov7774]

Or capital upside down schwa

[@jellymunoz8555]

2:36 i need to do a correction, Brahmi , Hebrew and Arabic do not have their own branches, They are connected to Aramaic that is a branch of Phoenician

[@TrueSchwar]

Wondering one Someone would catch that. It was originally a place holder slide I made quickly as I worked on the other parts of the video. Forgot to update it before posting.

[@BDizzleMySchnizzle]

Very nice video

[@qwertyTRiG]

How would you classify Sutton SignWriting?

[@TrueSchwar]

Probably as a mix between a logography and a featural system.

[@qwertyTRiG]

@@TrueSchwar It's definitely featural. Not so sure about the logography.

[@Damjes]

ä could be not only umlaut but also dieresis/hiatus, so vowel is pronounced (when normally it would assimilate)

[@TrueSchwar]

True, I just defaulted to Umlaut due to the fact that I'm both learning German and Chinese, as well as my general involvement with Germanic linguistics.

[@justfrankjustdank2538]

nice vid :)

[@maneatingsquirls]

Writing systems were my gateway drug to linguistics too 🤣

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

@1:14 Did you misspell hiccough?

[@TrueSchwar]

No?

[@LearnRunes]

@@TrueSchwar On screen you spell it "hiccouph" instead of "hiccough". Was that intentional?

[@TrueSchwar]

@@LearnRunes!!!!!!!! How the hell did I miss that!

[@LearnRunes]

@@TrueSchwar Do you use a Dvorak keyboard?

[@TrueSchwar]

@@LearnRunes nope, I’m using a Japanese keyboard though. Why? Cause I was wondering about different keyboard layouts, then like a month later, I needed to order a new keyboard, and the shopping site I used to by the keyboard had saved on the Japanese keyboard and was to lazy to replace it.

[@bijoychandraroy]

this was very interesting

[@kalinkavelinova2529]

Japan needs to use a Hangul based script known as Aziana: Aziana is similar to Turkish Elmas script(see Elmas on Omniglot) Consonant letters(plus vowel carrier) Vowel diacritics(bottom) Coda consonants(right) No diphthongs For consonant blends:a null vowel is used

[@n0us.]

I'm just starting my linguistic journey, also because of my fascination with writing systems.

[@TrueSchwar]

They're great, aren't they!

[@MikFrost00]

Latin alphabet is the most popular, Korean alphabet is the simplest one, whilst the Georgian alphabet (Mkhedruli) is the most beautiful, in my opinion.

[@Liggliluff]

(1:00) The way you specify "ough" for English, but treat the rest as general features, is misleading. Y is always a vowel in Swedish, for example. The /f/ is always written as F in Swedish (someone might point out some obscure word, but it's "foto", "filosofi" and so on).

[@TrueSchwar]

I probably should have specified that I was talking about English. But that section was about how Alphabets aren’t one to one between letter and phoneme, and since most of my audience would be English speakers, seemed best to use it as an example.

[@shu830]

4:28 wait the "‌‌क" does not inheritly produce a "aa" sound tho. It's only when you make it "का" it becomes "ka".

[@TrueSchwar]

It inherently possesses a schwa sound /ǝ/, the problem with my dialect of English is that it's hard for me to make a schwa sound as it just becomes either /ʌ/ word internally or /a/ word finally.

[@shu830]

@@TrueSchwar that's interesting

[@ThurusTaiKedillo]

@@TrueSchwar does that have anything to do with your name??

[@TrueSchwar]

@@ThurusTaiKedillo nope, my name is actually the result of an inside joke with my friends.

[@myyoutubechannel6280]

this video surprised me

[@trixaquilon2786]

2:40 think you should've mentioned that Brahmi having a semitic origin isn't 100% true or universally accepted.

[@TrueSchwar]

While it is disputed that the Brahmi scripts are descended from Aramaic or another system related to Aramaic, it is currently our most accepted and best supported theory at the moment. Though that might change if we ever crack the Indus script, but that day may take a while still.

[@okurrt5836]

in devanagri the base letter क is created by adding the vowel अ to the consonant क् so im having a hard time understanding how devanagri is alpha syllabary

[@TrueSchwar]

क् has a diacritic underneath it known as a vowel suppressor, it’s purpose is to show that the inherent vowel in क is suppressed. क also isn’t the result of adding अ to क्, because क inherently has a vowel. Hence the need to specially mark when the vowel isn’t pronounced.

[@JJ-hb9in]

Message to monolinguals: stop worrying about "butchering" words in foreign languages. If you only knew how we all import English words, and "butcher" their pronunciation. Det är okej, och najs.

[@aeaeeaoiauea]

Is a logography without any rebus possible?

[@TrueSchwar]

Very unlikely to appear naturally, as many concepts and words used in daily language are hard to put into a concept that can easily be represented with a picture or ideograph. But if people sat down, and put their minds to creating a logography without any rebus used, then it might be possible. But that'll take enormous amounts of time, resources, and efforts.

[@kalinkavelinova2529]

Aziana script also has letters used in loanwords not from Middle Chinese or Japanese(kun-on) origin

[@lantranthiphuong5650]

I think korean is not only the alphabet but its also a alphabetic syllabary

[@TrueSchwar]

While that is a common belief, Korean doesn’t qualify as an alphabetic-syllabary (abugida/alpha-syllabary) for one reason. To be an alpha-syllabary, its consonantal letters need an inherent or base vowel. But they don’t, ㄱ is just /k/ and ㄷ is just /d/. This is in contrast to say, Devanagari, where basically every consonant has an unmarked /ə/ with it.

[@D__Ujjwal]

Do you think devnagari used for Hindi(not Sanskrit)​ can be considered like Hangul after schwa deletion@@TrueSchwar

[@marioo849]

Amazing

[@APSATAUTTPLeader]

My favorite writing system is Overfielded Hebrew: (sample: אחק)

[@TrueSchwar]

I love the Hebrew script as well! Though not as big a fan as the Niqqud System.

[@NickRoman]

While some of these have interesting features that I like in principal, I wonder how quick they are for writing on paper. And, how useable and quick could it possibly be with a computer?--presuming the use of some kind of keyboard as that seems to be the only idea that has worked so far for input.

[@TrueSchwar]

There of course are some differences in writing speed, but probably not as drastic as you think. Scripts with more complex characters often encode more information in a single character, so you don’t have to write as many characters in Chinese then say English. But the reverse is also true scripts with simpler characters don’t encode nearly as much information in a single character, so they have to write more characters per word or phrase. This doesn’t even include the fact that while each script has a standardized form, people often develop short cuts to write faster, weather it be the Latin or Chinese. All languages have a keyboard input of some sort, some of the scripts with more many more characters than Latin’s 26, say Japanese, may have systems where you type in Latin script and the computer converts the Latin into Japanese characters. This is necessary for Chinese. Though Chinese also has drawing input for Trackpads and drawing Tablets, so you can literally write the characters like that.

[@komaichan99]

Sumerian is syllabary?

[@TrueSchwar]

It’s a logo-syllabary. It’s a logography with syllabic tendencies. It does later develop into a syllabary for Sumerian and other languages like Akkadian however.

[@themidochannel]

I ❤Arabic

[@santhoshrider7348]

2:36 தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி 👏🎉👌 5:31 If korean Hangul are designed in such a that they are representing the Tongue shape while pronouncing, then the letters ㅅ, ㅈ, and ㅊshoukd be Palatal (ç, c, ɟ) , right?! How come they are Alveolar (s, tʃ, dʒ) ?!

[@SHLEE-ob5bu]

ㅅ shape is the joint shape of tongue and front teeth. and, this shape is alveolar.

How do we name a writing system that uses only Vowels, and you have to guess the consonants?

[@TrueSchwar]

Could call it Old McDonald

@@TrueSchwar Or : "O Oa" in the script.

[@canesvenatici4259]

Are you related to Xidnaf in any way?

[@TrueSchwar]

Nope

[@kori228]

7:56 you slipped into a French accent there for like 2 lines lol also the volume across the video kinda fluctuates wildly

[@TrueSchwar]

Yaaa, I had no idea how to video and audio edit in this video. Still no idea now, but I think my later videos are better.

[@yurishevchenko5177]

Я люблю грузинский алфавит, хотя совсем не говорю по-грузински. ქართული ანბანი მიყვარს, თუმცა ქართულად საერთოდ არ ვლაპარაკობ.

[@Shenepoy]

ابجد or الابجدية means alphabet though I understand when you say vowels aren't written, yes in normal day to day speech and non scientific work, this assumes the listener knows the word from context. for less ambiguity you may add them. and vowels there are two main types(there's more but let's just simplify it ) in arabic short form(٠َ٠ُ٠ِ) and long form(ا ي و), short form you have the option to not write them but long vowels you must write them and they act as constant if short vowel on them, you dont have to write short form on them for them to be constant but when you write short vowel on the word this comes to action.

[@Lars_Porsenna]

Кириллический:)

[@Cardinal724]

I dont think you can call Japanese dakuten "featural" because their shape is arbitrary. For them to be featural, they'd have to somehow look-like the vocal coords vibrating. Otherwise, they're just arbitrary squiggles like most other written symbols.

[@TrueSchwar]

The thing about featural systems, or features (pun intended) is that they provide a clue as to how a character is pronounced. Korean is just extra in that it maps the vocal equipment of the human biology. In this sense, dakuten is 100% featural as the mark is deliberately added to characters in order to show that the character is voiced. It’s similar to how the tilde mark shows nasalization of a vowel. You see a dakuten, you know it’s voiced, you see a tilde on a vowel, you know it’s nasalized.

[@andrewrobinson2565]

Rhythm 🤔 I've been using the Arabic abjad for 44 years without knowing it wasn't an alphabet. 😭+1

[@TrueSchwar]

Unfortunately I left out a small bit about how the segmental scripts (alphabet, abjad, and abugida) are all often lumped under the term alphabet. To a larger extent, syllabaries and logographies also get lumped under the term. So it’s both correct and incorrect to call the Arabic abjad an alphabet. Casual term in reference to the specific letters and orthography of a language’s script or the scientific specific definition one’ll see used among linguists.

[@elborrador333]

Brahmi is thought to be influenced by Aramaic, not a descendant of it.

[@TrueSchwar]

We aren't quite sure how Brahmi developed, however our best guess is that it is descended from the Semitic scripts, as not only are there graphical/phonetic similarities between the two, it's the closest scripts to the region that could possibly be related. As I mentioned in another comment, the other closest contender of originator of the Brahmi systems is the Indus script, however, there is no where near enough evidence to support that fact as there is too large of a time gap between the last vestiges of the Indus script and the beginning of Brahmi, and we have yet to decipher the script.

[@elborrador333]

​@@TrueSchwar That's all fine, the Semitic origin is a hypothesis, one that is subscribed by many (most? 51%? 99%?) of Western scholars, unlike Kharosthi, which is clearly derived from Aramaic. What I'm saying is that Brahmi in many ways is also very different from Aramaic, and there are probably more differences than there are similarities. So to put it as a descendant of Proto-Sinaitic in the same way as Phoenician and modern Semitic abjads is a little weird.

[@scarespooks]

Η ελληνική γλώσσα είναι η πιο όμορφη γλώσσα στον κόσμο

[@idraote]

3.34 as far as I know, Ainu is only written with katakana and not with hiragana as you show here, although kanji may sometimes be used for loanwords from Japanese.

[@TrueSchwar]

It is, I just kept the characters in Hiragana to make it easier for people who don't know hiragana or katakana to make a connection between them.

[@кайцарькаталонский]

my favorite writing system is 中文

[@TheItalianoAssassino]

I feel like I could learn Russian, Persian and Korean in the time it takes to master Japanese. It's so difficult lol

[@neco5740]

8:58 damn imagine you had to write that somebody lost their life by being hit by an arrow in the rib. Nobody would know what you talk about

[@kray8405]

The runic writing system is coming from the orkhon alphabet, which is also pretty cool

[@TrueSchwar]

While they do have a common ancestor, the Runic alphabet of the Germanic languages (I think that's what you mean by runic) predates the earliest examples of Turkic runes, which are found in Mongolia. Despite looking very similar to Germanic runes, Turkic runes are more closely related to Sogdian and Mongolic scripts.

[@johnsmith-ir1ne]

I like your video but two major criticisms: Black text on white background= painful on the eyes. Please consider inverting the colors 😭 Also please boost your voice volume, I can barely hear you unlike all other KZbin videos

[@rhetoric5173]

Calling Arabic an impure Abjad (instead of enhanced) must have been a rather attractive dig employed by hebriac or bible thumping scholars, when it's infact the only one that actually has a 1:1 correspondence with the proto-sinatic script, and the Musnad script (which actually IS the oldest script known). And at 07:11 there's a mistake here, did you mean to say Arabic instead of Japanese while referring tot he tanween? And also Egyptian has been confirmed oldest, 3400 BC writings were found, predating sumerian by centuries. And it is not a logographic system, it's a phonetic, alphabetic and symbolic at the same time. Hieratic existed at the same time hieroglyphs were born, see David SIlverman's lectures on Egypt.

[@witokija]

do you know what an impure abjad is?

[@St.Sogofhedgehogs]

rhythm?