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From: apoorva@mind.UUCP (Apoorva Muralidhara)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computers and human languages (was Re: What is a byte)
Message-ID: <1180@mind.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mind.1180
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 09:08:45 EDT
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Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
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In-reply-to: corelib@husc4.HARVARD.EDU's message of 24 Aug 87 02:28:37 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.40.2 of Thu Mar 19 1987 on mind (berkeley-unix)


Mark Towfigh writes:


*Unlike Arabic, Modern Persian is written with no accents.  Accents are
*only used in children's books and occasionally in print with a foreign
*word.  This would perhaps be analogous to similar occurences in English.

While I don't know Persian, I do know some Arabic.  Please explain
what you mean by "accents" when referring to Arabic.  From the
sentences quoted, it seems that you are referring to the signs in
vocalized text:  the vowels fathah, dammah, kasrah, their nunated
forms, and the no-vowel sign sukun.  They are, as far as I know, only
used in the Quran (because errors in vocalization might lead to
blasphemy), children's books, and books which teach Arabic to
non-native-speakers.  So I'm not sure what you mean by "unlike Arabic."

*Since the Persian alphabet has only 32 letters, moreover, that would
*leave at least 20 spaces for the 6-odd accents which are so
*infrequently used.

Arabic has 28 letters, or 29 if you count hamzah.  Well, okay, it has
31 if you count ta'-marbutah and alif maqsurah (I hope I haven't
forgotten anything), and 7 signs:  the three vowels, their nunated
versions, and sukun.  And Arabic doesn't have capital letters either.

Just in case Arabic ever becomes that popular . . .

				--Apoorva

[Now if you want an even neater-looking script, how about Kannada?
 A lot more letters though . . .]