Typophile - How goes the "ABC" in your country/language? - Comments

fredo: yup, apparently I got

Roger S. Nelsson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:16:16 -0700

fredo: yup, apparently I got that all wrong (shouldn’t post such things before checking facts :*)
Skolt saami is apparently spoken in parts of Norway, Finland and Russia - but not in Sweden :-D

acnapyx: Russian added. Thanks!

vinceconnare: already had english in, but without the diacritical letters needed for loanwords. I’m pretty sure the kids in english-speaking countries learn that the english alphabet has 26 letters - A to Z ;-)

English: 26 letters (A to Z)

vinceconnare — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:37:04 -0700

English: 26 letters (A to Z) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZéàñ

hummm it’s like Déjà vu all over again. there are many French words in English! éà
Whatever happened to El Niño? ñ

Well, we should add also the

acnapyx — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:59:40 -0700

Well, we should add also the Russian variation of the Cyrillic (close to the basic cyrillic, but with some vowels added):
АБВГДЕЁЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ
абвгдеёжзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя

More info on this Russian Alphabet Wiki.

Roger, I think Skolt is

fredo — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:23:24 -0700

Roger, I think Skolt is mainly spoken in Finland, not Sweden.

Oisín: skolt saami ABC

Roger S. Nelsson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:27:56 -0700

Oisín: skolt saami ABC added. Not sure if its approx 400 users learn it at school as their primary language, though - I suspect they bolt it on to the swedish alphabet somehow.
There are a few more Saami dialects spoken in Norway as well, but they learn the norwegian alphabet and language as their main one...Hmm... Keeping out of the politics of this ;-)

somol: Czech ABC added. I could ask you if the diacritical letters really are considered separate letters, but as both hungarian and slovak do I just assume that eastern european languages generally HAVE extremely long alphabets, and that their “my first ABC” books are really thick ;-)

Thanks, Kentlew, for the

Typical — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:59:22 -0700

Thanks, Kentlew, for the correction about the two ems. I pasted the lines of letters from a file that I use for checking diacritic coverage in fonts.

I should add that this particular romanization method is the IAST.

I for a long time was

guifa — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:29:53 -0700

I for a long time was working on a multilingual version of Hangman for OS X, so I’ve already done quite a bit of the research presented here :) Korean has an interesting facet of having both a different order and a different definition of what is a letter and what is simply a variation of letter between the two Koreas, for instance, and I had to make two separate versions.

One of these days I should go back and finish it or at least get it to a beta release.

«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)

Czech: A, Á, B, C, Č, D,

somol — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:49:11 -0700

Czech:

A, Á, B, C, Č, D, Ď, E, É, Ě, F, G, H, CH, I, Í, J, K, L, M, N, Ň, O, Ó,
P, Q, R, Ř, S, Š, T, Ť, U, Ú, Ů, V, W, X, Y, Ý, Z, Ž

Note the “CH”, which is considered a separate character. Sounds like if
the Spanish read J in Javier.

Since only North Sami

Oisín — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:23:49 -0700

Since only North Sami (Davvisápmi) has been covered in this thread, here’s the Skolt Sami alphabet (which is a bit different), as well (37 letters, A to ´):

Аа [ɑ]
Ââ [ɐ]
Bb [b]
Cc [t͡s]
Čč [t͡ʃ]
Ʒʒ [d͡z]
Ǯǯ [d͡ʒ]
Dd [d]
Đđ [ð]
Ee [e/ɛ]
Ff [f]
Gg [g]
Ǧǧ [ɟ͡ʝ]
Ǥǥ [ɣ]
Hh [h/x]
Ii [i] (or [j] as a semi-vowel)
Jj [ʝ]
Kk [k]
Ǩǩ [c͡ç]
Ll [l]
Mm [m]
Nn [n]
Ŋŋ [ŋ]
Oo [o]
Õõ [ɘ]
Pp [p]
Rr [r]
Ss [s]
Šš [ʃ]
Tt [t]
Uu [u] (or [w] as a semi-vowel)
Vv [v]
Zz [z]
Žž [ʒ]
Åå [ɔ]
Ää [a]
ˊ (softener mark)

The softener mark, typographically identical to a free-standing acute accent (which makes it ugly as hell—what’s wrong with using a simple apostrophe or even an ʻokina as in Hawaiʻian?) and indicates that the syllable in which it’s found is suprasegmentally palatalised, meaning that vowels are slightly fronted and consonants are slightly palatalised.

Manlio Napoli: Croatian ABC

Roger S. Nelsson — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:53:17 -0700

Manlio Napoli: Croatian ABC added. Thanks! :-)

gulfa: You sure got lots of language info ;-)
Hawaiian added, but I would like to get it confirmed by someone FROM Hawaii - although perhaps the situation may be like for e.g. irish: they learn the english alphabet, so their local language is not teached alone as such?

Typical & kentlew: Interesting, but a bit beside what I’m looking for - I want to know how children learn and list the alphabet they learn at school. Transliterations are for grownups ;-)

workandsupper: Welcome! :-)
Er... Do the Philippine alphabet use the spanish alphabet including the ch and ll - or excluding them? ;-)

In Typical’s

kentlew — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:59:39 -0700

In Typical’s transliterated Devanagari alphabet, note that the distinction of capitalization doesn’t actually exist in Devanagari, so the capitals are only used to follow certain romanized conventions.

And, as I’m sure is probably true of some other alphabets, there are certain Devanagari letters which will never appear at the beginning of a word, and so the capital transliterated form is truly only theoretical. At least not in Sanskrit; there might be some Hindi or Pali conventions that I’m not aware of.

Also, Typical has, in his bottom summary, listed both m-underdot and m-overdot (sorry, I don’t know how to enter the glyphs here) — but I believe that those are both just alternatives for transliterating anusvara and are not two different members of the alphabet (and may be exclusive of one another, depending upon the transliteration scheme).

Hello! I am new here. The

workandsupper — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:26:43 -0700

Hello! I am new here. The Philippine alphabet has all the letters in the Spanish alphabet + Ng. Ng comes after Ñ. :D

Bulgarian/Cyrillic

rjordanov — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:12:39 -0700

Bulgarian/Cyrillic Alphabet
АБВГДЕЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЬЮЯ
абвгдежзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъьюя

The below facilitates

Typical — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:28:18 -0700

The below facilitates lossless transliteration of Devanāgarī (Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, etc), following the order of the devanagari alphabet. I believe there are other diacritics used in classical Sanskrit.

a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ṛ, ṝ, ḷ, ḹ, e, ai o, au, ṃ, ḥ
k, kh, g, gh, ṅ
c, ch, j, jh, ñ
ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍḥ, ṇ
t, th, d, dh, n
p, ph, b, bh, m
y, r, l, v
ś, ṣ, s
h

Or, in addition to “regular” letters, āĀḍḌḥḤīĪḷḹḸḶṃṂṁṀṅṄñÑṇṆṛṚṝṜṣṢśŚṭṬūŪ

A more interesting (latin)

guifa — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:26:29 -0700

A more interesting (latin) alphabet: Hawaiian.

A E I O U H K L M N P W ʻ

Yes, that’s what looks like an apostrophe of sorts at the end and yes it’s a letter, called okina.

«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)

How goes the "ABC" in your country/language?

Roger S. Nelsson — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:20:15 -0700

I’m curious to know how you learned the alphabet in school. You know, the selection and order of the letters used to teach children the official alphabet in your country/region - what might be on top of the blackboard in first grade ;-)
NOT looking for ALL characters used/needed in a language (I got that covered), only the basic “A to Z” or whatever you call it.

This to get an overview over what may be considered separate basic letters in your language - it could perhaps be useful for a type specimen/sample directed towards specific languages?

I’ll start with the five languages I know first-hand - and expand with your input (*):

*Bulgarian: 29 letters =>АБВГДЕЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЬЮ
*Croatian: 30 letters (A to Ž) => ABCČĆD Dž ĐEFGHIJKL Lj MN Nj OPRSŠTUVZŽ
*Czech: (42(!) letters => AÁBCČDĎEÉĚFGH CH IÍJKLMNŇOÓPQRŘSŠTŤUÚŮVWXYÝZŽ
Danish: 29 letters (A to Å) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÆØÅ
English: 26 letters (A to Z) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
*Esperanto: 28 letters => ABCĈDEFGĜHĤIJĴKLMNOPRSŜTUŬVZ
*Finnish: 29 letters (A to Ö) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÅÄÖ
*German: 30 letters => abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzäöüß
*Greek: 24 letters (Α to Ω) => ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ
*Hawaiian: 13(!) letters => AEIOUHKLMNPWʻ
*Hungarian: 44(!) letters => aábc cs d dz dzs eéfg gy hiíjkl ly mn ny oóöőpqrs sz t ty uúüűvwxyz zs
*Icelandic: 30 letters (A to Ö) => ABCDÐEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÞÆÖ
*Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge): 18(23) letters => ABCDEFGHILMNOPRSTU (ÁÉÍÓÚ)
*Italian: 22(29) letters (A to Z) => abcdefghijlmnopqrstuvz (àéèìòù î)
Norwegian: 29 letters (A to Å) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÆØÅ
*Polish: 32 letters => AĄBCĆDEĘFGHIJKLŁMNŃOÓPRSŚTUWYZŹŻ
*Portuguese: 26 letters (A to Z) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
*Russian: 33 letters => АБВГДЕЁЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ
Saami (north): 29 letters => AÁBCČDĐEFGHIJKLMNŊOPRSŠTŦUVZŽ
*Saami (skolt): 37 letters => АÂBCČƷǮDĐEFGǦǤHIJKǨLMNŊOÕPRSŠTUVZŽÅÄˊ
*Slovak: 46(!) letters => AÁÄBCČDĎ DZ DŽ EÉFGH CH IÍJKLĹĽMNŇOÓÔPQRŔSŠTŤUÚVWXYÝZŽ
*Spanish: 27(29) letters => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNÑOPQRSTUVWXYZ (Ch Ll)
Swedish: 29 letters (A to Ö) => ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÅÄÖ
*Turkish: 29 letters (A to Z) => ABCÇDEFGĞHIİJKLMNOÖPRSŞTUÜVYZ

Please supply the “ABC” for your country/language :-)
(apologies if this has already been covered - I searched, but found nothing on these forums)