Persian and Arabic may both use the Arabic script, but their written forms are quite different from each other. In this post I’m going to try and talk about the big differences so that people can both learn to distinguish them from each other and learn some cool facts.
The New Letters
Arabic is kind of weird in that it doesn’t have the sounds “p” or “g”, meaning its alphabet naturally doesn’t have any letters corresponding to those sounds. Persian, however, has both, so the letters پ pe and گ gâf were created to represent p and g respectively. There are also 2 other new letters, ژ zhe and چ che, representing the sounds “zh” (like the “si” in “vision”) and “ch”.
Different Pronunciation
For its lack of sounds as common as “p” and “g”, Arabic also has a lot of pretty weird sounds: some of which include the “th”s in “thick” and “this” (which you may think are perfectly normal because of English but are actually quite rare worldwide) and a set of weird throaty “emphatic consonants”. Naturally these weird sounds have their own letters: the two “th”s are written as ث and ذ and there are lots of emphatic letters which I don’t feel like going over now. But Persian has neither the “th”s nor emphatics. The logical solution would be to get rid of these letters entirely, but no, Persian decided to write the these weird sounds in Arabic loanwords but just pronounce them with their closest Persian counterparts. Thus ث and ذ are pronounced as “s” and “z”, and emphatics are pronounced as non-emphatic: س and ص are both “s”, ز ض ظ are all “z”, ت ط are both “t”, and ه ح are both “h”. Also, the infamous ع ‘ayn which any Arabic learner will complain to you about is simply pronounced as a glottal stop in Persian. One more thing to note: the letter و, named “waw” and pronounced as “w” in Arabic, is now “vâv” and pronounced as “v”.
Differing Letter Forms
Arabic has grammatical gender, and with that there is the very common suffix -a to mark feminine gender, written with a form of the letter tā’ called tā’ marbūṭa ”tied tā’”, which looks like ة (the letter ه hā’ “h” with 2 dots). Persian has no have grammatical gender and thus has no need for tā’ marbūṭa. In Arabic loanwords which have tā marbūṭa, it is either loaned in as a final -ه e (اسطوره osture vs أسطورة usṭūra “myth”) or -at (دولت dowlat vs دولة dawla “state”).
There are 2 word-final forms of letters that are very similar looking to each other in Arabic: ي, final yā’ “y”, and ى, actually a form of ا alifcalledalif maqṣūra which is pronounced as long ā. Persian, however, doesn’t actually dot its yā’ (or rather “ye”), making the two identical. The thing is, alif maqsure is VERY rare in Persian, only really commonly occuring in some proper names such as عیسی ‘isâ “Jesus” or مرتضی mortezâ “Morteza”.
Arabic’s letter for k, ك kāf, looks kind of like the letter ل lām “l” with a doodad inside of it in the isolated and final forms, but looks like this: كـ elsewhere. In Persian, it has the isolated and final forms ک کـ, giving it a much more consistent aesthetic across the board. The letter for g, گ gâf, also naturally follows this convention.
So Arabic has this thing called hamza that represents the glottal stop (a pause, like the sound in “uh-oh” represented by the hyphen). It can go on top of the letters yā’ andwāw ی و and give you ئ ؤ, representing a glottal stop proceeded or followed by the vowel sounds “i” and “u” (سئل su’ila “he was asked”, سؤال su’āl “question”), or it can go either on top of OR below alif ا. The only letter with a hamza that can occur at the beginning of a word is alif, which gives it the burden of representing all 3 short vowels. A hamza on top means an “a” or “u” (أول ‘awwal “first”, أسطورة ‘usṭūra “myth”) and a hamza on the bottom means it’s an “i” (إستقلال ‘istiqlāl“independence”). Hamza can also come at the end of a word not attached to anything, such as سوداء sawdā’ “black (feminine)”.
So I spent all that time explaining how hamza works in Arabic to deliver this shocking news: the hamza is actually not very in Persian. The only real place you see it is in the middle of words on ئ and ؤ: otherwise it’s either optional or actually discouraged by the Persian Language Academy.
Vowels
Now this is where the most drastic differences come in. Note I’ll mainly be talking about Modern Iranian Persian, which is an important detail because the vowels can vary pretty heavily across dialects.
Arabic has six vowels: a i u ā ī ū, with the ones with the line on top simply being longer versions of the first 3. Iranian Persian has… well, also 6 vowels, but they’re a e o â i u (a being the “a” in “cat”). In Arabic, due to how the vowel system words, there’s a pretty clean division of how vowels are written: short vowels are optionally indicated through diacritics, long vowels are indicated through consonant placeholders. As you can see, Persian doesn’t really have short and long vowels in the same way Arabic does, but we’re going to shoehorn the vowels into these now-arbitrary categories to make things simpler to understand.
Short vowels: a e o Long vowels: â i u
The short vowels are indicated with diacritics:
اَ اِ اُ
While the long vowels are indicated through ا (glottal stop), ی “y”, and و “v”. The two diphthongs, ey and ow, are indicated through ی and و too. So this matches up pretty cleanly with the Arabic system, actually; In Arabic, those diacritics represent “a”, “i”, and “u”. This makes reading Arabic loanwords in Persian quite easy, because you can just read the short vowels as “a e o” and the long vowels as “â i u”. For example:
Arabic حُروف ḥurūf “letters” Persian حُروف horuf “letters”
Persian writes vowels initially by just throwing the vowel diacritics on top of ا alef, very similar to Arabic and its stuff with Hamza:
The vowels â i u are simply represented by آ (alef with a tilde-like diacritic), ای (alef + ye), and او (alef + vâv) respectively, which is quite close to what Arabic does with ā ī ū (but Arabic is cool and adds hamzas).
Word-final vowels are where things get a bit different though. In Arabic, short vowels are just indicated with diacritics at the end of words and the long vowels… let’s just say Arabic has a bit of a complex relationship with word-final long vowels. In Persian, though, all vowels must be indicated word-finally somehow. And here’s how it happens:
1. The most common short vowel at the end of a word is “e”, indicated by ه. Next up is “o”, indicated by و, and finally the very rare “a”, indicated also by ه.
2. Long vowels are indicated with ا، ی، و just like they are in the middle of words.
Like I said though, I’m talking about Iranian Persian. Afghan Persian actually has 2 more vowels: ē ō, longer versions of “e” and “o”. These are also indicated with ی and و. In Iranian Persian these two vowels have merged with i and u, resulting in the words شیر shēr “lion” and شیر shir “milk” both being pronounced “shir”.
Calligraphy
This section is mainly for fun, but what the hell. A lot of Arabic calligraphy gradually drifted towards a style called naskh, which is also how Arabic is displayed in basically every modern computer font.
Iran, however, developed a distinctive style called nastaliq. Besides being used very commonly for Persian poetry, this is also the standard way of writing Urdu! For example, here’s an Urdu newspaper.
Well, that’s about all I have to say! I may have forgotten some stuff, but to me this seems like a pretty comprehensive list as I read over it. I hope you learned some stuff!
A moment of silence for whichever graphic designer’s labor was pitched into the void in creating the writing system used by the natives in Kong: Skull Island
Not having watched and not intending to watch said film, could I ask for examples?
(possibly spoilery so watch out? for those who care? for some reason?)
Well, the film as a whole was a total joke, too serious for its own good, basically cobbled together out of sequel setups, eye-rolling Apocalypse Now references, and shots of Tom Hiddleston’s physique-hugging t-shirt glued together with copious CGI monster saliva.
The depiction of the natives (called “Iwi”) was laughable and unabashedly orientalist. Imagine an ethnic group so inscrutable and mysterious… that they literally never fucking talk at all. lol. How convenient for the budgeting department. They also appear to regard a random white guy who crashed on their island as their leader, even thoughthey were the ones who saved him. They’re phenotypically southeast Asian and are said to be enlightened™ in some manner and have this somewhat Buddhist-monk-like aesthetic going on, even though they’re in the south Pacific. Their material culture doesn’t make a ton of sense - they’re capable of building a massive, plot-convenient wall with moving parts, but live in huts and cook over open fires. They’re introduced in a scene set in a ruined temple or palace - it’s not really clear to me why it would be ruined, given that they maintain an elaborate shrine to Kong inside the wrecked hulk of an American ship (which somehow got miles inland from the sea over rough terrain). And the natives are only on-screen for maybe 30 minutes, and then they’re never mentioned again once the protagonists have used them for their purpose.
They’re depicted as wearing elaborate face and body paint - all of them, all the time - that clearly incorporates some kind of writing system. During the closing credits, the writing system reappears, along with what might be a blockier version of the same writing system (the natives’ art has a blocky style). I can’t find any pictures of the writing system, but it looked kind of cool and fun, like it was very much designed so you’d know right away that “These are ~ancient~ and ~mysterious~ symbols”. Which is fine. They looked kind of like a mash-up of hiragana and Seal Script, if I can recall what they looked like. And the writing system appeared a lot on the natives’ body paint, and in the background, and in the credits, so whoever designed it must have put in a fair amount of effort.
But yeah…just a total throwaway, garbage movie, with a group of “mysterious natives” whose entire purpose is to provide a little bit of backstory. I mean it was kind of a fun movie…some of the monsters were cool? But that’s two hours of my life I’m never getting back.
What is the language called in English and the language itself? In English, the language is called Javanese. In Javanese, it is called basa Jawa: [bɔsɔ dʒɔwɔ].
Where is the language spoken? Javanese is spoken primarily on the island of Java in Indonesia; home to approximately 145 million people, it is the world’s most populous island. Most speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian.
How many people speak the language? 82 million people are native speakers of Javanese, making it the largest language without an official status where it is spoken.
Which language family does it belong to? What are some of its relative languages? Javanese is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, however, it is distinct from its relatives. It is most closely related to languages spoken nearby such as Sudanese, Madurese and Balinese.
What writing system does the language use? Javanese is traditionally written in the Javanese script, known natively as askara Jawa,variant of the Kawi script which dates back to around the 8th century, itself a descendant of the Brahmi script. Thus, the script shares similarities with others of Southeast Asia. In the 19th century, Dutch colonisers began to replace the native Javanese script with the Latin script. Javanese now uses the Latin script for practical purposes such as displaying the language digitally.
What kind of grammatical features does the language have?
Like other Austronesian languages, Javanese is an agglutinative language.
The word order is typically SVO but the archaic VSO word order is sometimes still used.
Verbs are not inflected for person/number but there are verb affixes which express the status of the subject or object of a sentence.
There are no grammatical tenses; Javanese uses auxiliary words to express time.
Registers are used to distinguish between formal, neutral and informal speech, all relative to the status of who is speaking to who.
What do you personally find interesting about the language? I’ve been reading a lot about Austronesian languages recently and have been drawn to Javanese (as well as Balinese) because I find the script so beautiful!
If this is your first time encountering shorthand then you’re in for a treat. What’s shorthand? Shorthand is a technique for writing very quickly.
At its basics you’re writing sounds not spelling and combining simple lines to make full words.
Get it? You’re optimizing for speed of writing not density or accuracy. So it’s hard to read and takes up more space but you can write down notes fast. How fast? Here’s someone writing at 120 words per minute.
The world record is 250 wpm, but even with a little practice you can get a lot faster than cursive or print.
I’ve seen a few people ask if Jonathan is writing assuming Dracula can’t read his notes. I don’t know the answer to that, but I can share exactly that happening with Superman and Lex Luthor.
Naturally a reporter like Kent would use shorthand to quickly transcribe notes in the field.
This is the sort of think Mina is practicing specifically because it’s the language used in business. You can read a great article on the expectations of men’s and women’s writing of the era here:
I think Braille should be intricately incorporated into public life and art and we should all share a sense of deep pride and solidarity in its essence. Braille is a part of our world heritage.
The old master scribe settled onto his reed mat and looked at the boy sitting in front of him. ‘Why have you come here?’ he asked. 'I have come to learn how to be a scribe like my father was,’ the boy said.
The old man smiled, 'If you want to be a scribe, you must first learn about the scripts used to record the language of the Egyptian people. Then, you will learn to read and write these scripts.’ He paused, then closed his eyes. A minute passed. Then he began to speak in a low voice. 'I will start at the beginning.’
'A long, long time ago, Thoth, the great god of writing and knowledge brought the gift of Medu Netjer ('God’s words’) to the land. For hundreds of years this sacred script has been used to record the words and deeds of the pharaohs and the gods and goddesses.’
'If the script was sacred, what did scribes use for writing letters?’ the boy asked.
The old master scribe continued .'Some years later, another script was developed so that everyday information could be written down quickly and easily. It was used by scribes working in the temples and palaces who need to keep records and write letters.’ He paused.
'The signs for the new script were based on those of the sacred script. However, they were drawn with fewer lines and decoration. That made it easier and faster to write the signs.’
The old master scribe picked up a reed pen and carefully drew the hieroglyphic sign on a piece of limestone. Next to it, with a quick sweep of his hand, he drew the same sign in hieratic .
He showed it to the boy. 'Do you see the difference?’ he asked. The boy studied the signs and nodded his head.
'Today, in the reign of Wehemibra (Nekau II), we do not use the hieratic script that much anymore. Our common script is sekh shat, ('writing for documents’). The signs are based on hieratic signs, but they are even simpler. This makes them faster and easier to write.’
The old master scribe paused and wiped his brow. 'As a scribe you are given the power and knowledge of writing. First, you must learn the common script of the land so you can perform everyday tasks. After that, if you are lucky and talented, you will also learn the sacred script. Those who learn the sacred script will learn the secrets of the gods and the mysteries of the land.’
The vast majority (around 80%) of Chinese characters are made up of a radical (the general meaning) and a phonetic.
Radical 女 nǚ (woman) and phonetic 馬 mǎ (horse) = 媽 mā, mother (your mum sounds like a horse).
But a small minority are pictograms, that is to say a picture of the thing they represent.
Pictograms are the earliest characters, thousands of years old, but many are still used every day.
If you look at the oracle bone script for rat, tiger and elephant you’ll see they are clearly pictures of the animal they signify.
But if you look at the modern versions, you’ll notice something odd, they’re all rotated 90 degrees onto their sides.
Why? Why are all these characters written with the animals balancing on their tails?
Well, it’s for a straight-forward, practical reason.
For a couple thousand years before paper was invented writing materials were limited. We had silk (expensive), bronze (expensive and impractical), and oracle bones (religious use only).
And one more…
That was cheap, plentiful, durable, and easy to erase and rewrite characters. The wonder that is…
Bamboo!
It was cut into strips, and tied into books. Long thin strips of bamboo contributed to the Chinese custom of writing vertically, from top to bottom (and right to left).
But it also meant that it’s much easier to write some characters length-ways so that they easily fit onto the strip.
So that’s it, mystery solved. That’s why a lot of Chinese picture characters are written at a right angle.
P.S. also FU Wattpad for effing up the emoji uses and dropkicking your pm off a cliff and cursing the entire universe with the update from last year no one likes watching 2-3 unskippable ads after every chapter in a fanfiction and I used to be able to download my entire library for FREE when I joined can the old Wattpad come to the phone RN??? I don’t why I cried but I think it’s cuz I remembered for the first time since I hated you that I used to love you will the real slim watty please stand up
A Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in the classical Greek of the country’s Greek rulers. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, and transported to England in 1802. Once in Europe, it contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyphic writing, through the work of the British scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion. Comparative translation of the stone assisted in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing. The text on the stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the repeal of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples.
The World’s Writing Systems is a website presenting one symbol from each of the 292 currently-known writing systems in the world, which you can sort in various ways, such as by name, time period, region, or Unicode support (whether you can view it on a computer without needing to use clunky workarounds). From the project description:
Unicode 11.0 (June 2018) covers exactly 146 writing systems. That’s an important milestone for worldwide communication and typography. But what about the missing scripts? How many of them are still out there? What do they look like?
This web site presents one glyph for each of the world’s writing systems. It is the first step of the Missing Scripts Project, a long-term initiative that aims to identify writing systems which are not yet encoded in the Unicode standard. As of today, there are still 146 scripts not yet encoded in Unicode.
They also have a cool-looking poster to bring attention to how many writing systems exist and which of them aren’t encoded yet.
Thissilkscreen poster presents one glyph for each of the 292 known writing systems of the world, together with their names, regions, and timeframes. A four colour code indicates living / historical scripts and Unicode encoded / not yet encoded scripts.
on a piece of limestone. Next to it, with a quick sweep of his hand, he drew the same sign in hieratic 
.
