Poll: What is the best looking natlang?

[Testyal]

This thread's similar to the 'best looking natlang' thread, but instead, I'd like you to rate the orthography of the natlangs you choose.

Do you like the elegance of French or Italian, or the harshness of German, or maybe even the vacuum-cleaner-like Dutch. (Seriously, 'woorp' just looks like you have to speak inwards.)

Vote now.

[Thakowsaizmu]

Do you like the elegance of French or Italian, or the harshness of German,

What elegance? What harshness?

[Darkgamma]

Actually, we might even have one of these!

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=749

[rickardspaghetti]

But that one's about scripts, not orthographies.

Imma say Italian, Lakota, Finnish, Czech, Serbo-Croat(in Cyrillic) and Urdu.

[eldin raigmore]

You guys are once again mixing up "orthographies" with "romanizations".

Orthography is the native script of the language; the "natscript" (if it's a natlang) or the "neography" or "conscript" (if it's a conlang).

Romanization is how we write the language using the typical Latin alphabet (maybe plus a few diacritics or plus a few characters). There might instead or also be a "Cyrillicization" and/or an "Arabicization" and/or a "Hangulization". I suppose there could be a "katekanaization" or a "hiraganaization", too or instead. We "romanize" languages because either they don't have an orthography -- a native script -- of their own, or because their own native orthography is obscure enough that it's difficult to type in it on a computer or to print it in a book. A bunch of conlangers or linguists writing in East European languages would "cyrillicize" the language; a bunch of conlangers or linguists writing in Arabic might "arabicize" it; a bunch of folks writing in Korean might "hangulize" it; folks writing in Japanese might "katekanize" it. At the moment I can't think of any other natscript in which natural languages are written when they don't have their own orthography (don't have their own native script), or when they do have their own orthography but it's more obscure than the natscript in which we foreigners write it (for instance book-printers don't have it, or it isn't part of Unicode, or there aren't any computer fonts for it, or whatever).

[rickardspaghetti]

I didn't mix them up. :)

[anacharis]

At the moment I can't think of any other natscript in which natural languages are written when they don't have their own orthography (don't have their own native script), or when they do have their own orthography but it's more obscure than the natscript in which we foreigners write it (for instance book-printers don't have it, or it isn't part of Unicode, or there aren't any computer fonts for it, or whatever).

Devanagari?

[eldin raigmore]

At the moment I can't think of any other natscript in which natural languages are written when they don't have their own orthography (don't have their own native script), or when they do have their own orthography but it's more obscure than the natscript in which we foreigners write it (for instance book-printers don't have it, or it isn't part of Unicode, or there aren't any computer fonts for it, or whatever).

Devanagari?

Maybe; what language(s) without its own orthography has adopted Devanagari? Or, what language whose orthography is more obscure than Devanagari is often written in Devanagarized form?

[eldin raigmore]

I didn't mix them up. :)

I'm sorry, I thought you specifically did; you said "that's about scripts, not orthographies", when there's really not a difference between scripts and orthographies.

How did I misunderstand?

Edit: :
I forgot a non-technical or non-linguistic meaning of "orthography": it means "correct spelling".
If that's what you meant, that's certainly different from "script" or "writing system".
And that seems to be what's covered in that other thread; am I right?

[rickardspaghetti]

There is some difference I believe. If I thought it were no difference I wouldn't have bothered to name the languages I did. I would've just said "Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic". Then I had really missed the point.

Anyway. Let's move on. :)

[anacharis]

Maybe; what language(s) without its own orthography has adopted Devanagari? Or, what language whose orthography is more obscure than Devanagari is often written in Devanagarized form?

Not sure- hence the question mark. I was thinking of some of the languages of the various Adivasi peoples, like Kurukh or Varli, but I don't know anywhere near enough about the languages of India or the history of literacy among any of the language-groups in question to say anything for certain.

[Ceresz]

Actually, we might even have one of these!

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=749

Indeed. And if that thread doesn't cover it, this should.
Oh well. A lot of duplicate threads have been popping up lately. I'll leave it to Aszev and his gang of mods to decide what to do with them.

[eldin raigmore]

Not sure- hence the question mark. I was thinking of some of the languages of the various Adivasi peoples, like Kurukh or Varli, but I don't know anywhere near enough about the languages of India or the history of literacy among any of the language-groups in question to say anything for certain.

Thanks.
The Ethnologue links you provided would seem to indicate that your guess is probably correct.
So would http://www.omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gujarati.htm is used to write more than one language.

The Cree writing system is used to write more than one variety of Cree; I don't know whether they count as different languages, and even if they do, FAIK maybe the writing system is native to all of them.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/bengali.htm is used to write several languages.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/buhid.htm is used to write Tagalog as well as Buhid.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/burmese.htm is used to write Karen and Mon as well as Burmese.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm is used to write several languages.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/kannada.htm is used to write Konkani as well as Kannada.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/lao.htm is used to write several languages.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tibetan.htm is used to write more than one language.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/georgian2.htm is used to write a bunch of languages.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tifinagh.htm is used to write more than one Berber language; but FAIK it should be considered native to all of them.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/syriac.htm is used to write Aramaic and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as well as Syriac.

It looks like the biggest ones (in terms of how many languages to which they are non-native are written in them) are Latin and Cyrillic, though.

[Valoski]

I do like Dutch spelling. Finnish is something I love anyway though.

[Yagia1]

I do like Dutch spelling.

Hear, hear! To underline Valoski's argument (or to scare off all others) just read this:

Ik ben de blauwbilgorgel
Mijn moeder was een porgel
Mijn vader was een porulan
Daar komen vreemde kinderen van
Raban, raban, raban!

A poem which obeys all grammatical and syntacical laws in the Dutch language but with a meaning that is utterly nonsensical. There are three more verses which I leave out here (hardcore fans: google 'Blauwbilgorgel'; nice Dutch soundbite included)
(By Cees Buddingh, quite famous Dutch experimental poet, written in the midst of WWII while recovering from tuberculosis)

[Xing]

Actually, we might even have one of these!

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=749

Indeed. And if that thread doesn't cover it, this should.
Oh well. A lot of duplicate threads have been popping up lately. I'll leave it to Aszev and his gang of mods to decide what to do with them.

The first thread seems to be more about the beauty of the characters/letters/glyphs, etc.

The other thread seems to be about orthography in general, but according to the thread-strater it should focus on the functionality rather than the aesthetics of the

This thread seems to be more about the beauty of the orthographies (as I understand it, apart from the look of the letters/characters etc. in themselves).

(But since these topics are closely related, perhaps one could merge some of the threads to "the big thread on orthography and writing", or something.

[Ceresz]

(But since these topics are closely related, perhaps one could merge some of the threads to "the big thread on orthography and writing", or something.

Yeah, that was pretty much my point, but I guess I should have mentioned it :P.

[Xing]

I think it difficult to judge the beauty of orthographies from an "objective" or "outside" point of view. (If by "orthography" is meant how the glyphs are strung together, rather than the appearance of the glyphs themselves.) Feelings about various ways of spelling words depends very much on the context, what one is used to, the history of the language.

[Ear of the Sphinx]

I didn't mix them up. :)

I'm sorry, I thought you specifically did; you said "that's about scripts, not orthographies", when there's really not a difference between scripts and orthographies.

There is.


That thread is about what script do languages use.

This thread is about how do languages use they scripts.


If a language uses pretty writing in totally illogical manner, it has nice script but ugly orthography.

If a language uses creepy letters in a clever way, it has ugly script but nice orthography.

[eldin raigmore]

I think it difficult to judge the beauty of orthographies from an "objective" or "outside" point of view. (If by "orthography" is meant how the glyphs are strung together, rather than the appearance of the glyphs themselves.) Feelings about various ways of spelling words depends very much on the context, what one is used to, the history of the language.

No it's not.
My view is objective; everyone else's is subjective.

(I don't really mean that.)