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Semi-syllabary
A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The main group of semi-syllabic writing are the Paleohispanic scripts of ancient Spain, a group of semi-syllabaries that transform redundant plosive consonants of the Phoenician alphabet into syllabograms. Out of confusion, the term is sometimes applied to a different alphabetic typology known as abugida, alphasyllabary or neosyllabary, but for the purposes of this article it will be restricted to scripts where some characters are alphabetic and others are syllabic. Iberian semi-syllabaries The Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries are a family of scripts developed in the Iberian Peninsula at least from the 5th century BCE – possibly from the 7th century. Some researchers conclude that their origin lies solely with the Phoenician alphabet, while others believe the Greek alphabet also had a role. Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries are typologically unusual because their syllabic and alphab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southwestern Script
The Southwest Script, also known as Southwestern Script, Tartessian, South Lusitanian, and Conii script, is a Paleohispanic script used to write an unknown language typically identified as Tartessian. Southwest inscriptions have been found primarily in the southwestern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, mostly in the south of Portugal (specifically in the Algarve and southern Alentejo), but also in Spain (in southern Extremadura and western Andalusia). Name of the script The name of this script is controversial. The more neutral term is "southwestern," as it refers solely to the geographic location. Some ethnolinguistic names given to this script include: * Tartessian, as it is considered to be the script of the language spoken in Tartessos. However, this is deemed unlikely by some scholars, as only four of the hundred known inscriptions have been found within Tartessos area of influence. * South Lusitanian, because almost all of the southwest inscriptions have been discover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleohispanic Scripts
The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian Peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the dominant script. They derive from the Phoenician alphabet, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, which is a direct adaptation of the Greek alphabet. Some researchers believe that the Greek alphabet may also have played a role in the origin of the other Paleohispanic scripts. Most of these scripts are notable for being semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic. Paleohispanic scripts are known to have been used from the 5th century BCE—possibly as early as the 7th century, according to some researchers—until the end of the 1st century BCE or the beginning of the 1st century CE. They were the primary scripts used to write the Paleohispanic languages. Scripts The Paleohispanic scripts are classified into three major groups: southern, northern, and Greco-Iberian, with differences in both the shapes of the glyphs and their values. Inscri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iberian Language
The Iberian language is the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Ancient Greece, Greek and ancient Rome, Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre-Migration Era (before about AD 375). An ancient Iberians, Iberian culture can be identified as existing between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, at least. Iberian, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque language, Basque, was extinct language, extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD. It had been replaced gradually by Latin, following the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian language is unclassified language, unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been suggested, especially the Basque language, based largely on the observed similarities between the numeral system, numerical systems of the two. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tartessian Language
Tartessian is an extinct Paleo-Hispanic languages, Paleo-Hispanic language found in the Southwest Paleohispanic script, Southwestern inscriptions of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly located in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), and the southwest of Spain (south of Extremadura and western Andalusia). There are 95 such inscriptions; the longest has 82 readable signs. Around one third of them were found in Early Iron Age necropolises or other Iron Age burial sites associated with rich complex burials. It is usual to date them to the 7th century BC and to consider the southwestern script to be the most ancient Paleohispanic scripts, Paleo-Hispanic script, with characters most closely resembling specific Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter forms found in inscriptions dated to ''c.'' 825 BC. Five of the inscriptions occur on ''stele, stelae'' that have been interpreted as Late Bronze Age carved warrior gear from the Urnfield culture. Name Most researchers use the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abugida
An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, similar to a diacritical mark. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, Abjad#Impure abjads, partial, or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of the script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel. Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term ) and David Diringer (using the term ''semisyllabary''), then in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term ''pseudo-alphabet''). The Ethiopian Semitic langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprising most of the region, as well as the tiny adjuncts of Andorra, Gibraltar, and, pursuant to the traditional definition of the Pyrenees as the peninsula's northeastern boundary, a small part of France. With an area of approximately , and a population of roughly 53 million, it is the second-largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula. Etymology The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the River Ebro (Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin). The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny the Elder, Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of the peninsula" Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols to words, morphemes, or other semantic units. The first letters were invented in Ancient Egypt to serve as an aid in writing Egyptian hieroglyphs; these are referred to as Egyptian uniliteral signs by lexicographers. This system was used until the 5th century AD, and fundamentally differed by adding pronunciation hints to existing hieroglyphs that had previously carried no pronunciation information. Later on, these phonemic symbols also became used to transcribe foreign words. The first fully phonemic script was the Proto-Sinaitic script, also descending from Egyptian hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols
Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols (; TPS: ㄉㄞˊ ㆣ丨ˋ ㄏㆲ 丨ㆬ ㄏㄨˊ ㄏㄜ˫) constitute a system of Phonetic transcription, phonetic notation for the transcription of Taiwanese languages, especially Taiwanese Hokkien. The system was designed by Professor Chu Chao-hsiang, a member of the National Languages Committee in Taiwan, in 1946. The system is derived from Bopomofo, Mandarin Phonetic Symbols by creating additional symbols for the sounds that do not appear in Mandarin phonology. It is one of the phonetic notation systems officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education, Republic of China, Ministry of Education. Symbols There are 49 symbols used in standard Taiwanese Hokkien. Of these 49 symbols, 26 are from the original Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, while 23 are additional, created for Taiwanese languages. * The symbols in blue do not exist in Mandarin phonology. * Four voiceless consonants ㄅ, ㄉ, ㄍ, ㄏ may be written in small form to represent the unr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in the northeast. Its spread is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas. Many varieties of Mandarin, such as Southwestern Mandarin, those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the Beijing dialect (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Because Mandarin originated in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by more than 70 percent of the population of Taiwan. It is spoken by a significant portion of those Taiwanese people who are descended from Hoklo immigrants of Minnan region, southern Fujian. It is one of the national languages of Taiwan. Taiwanese is generally similar to Hokkien spoken in Amoy dialect, Amoy, Quanzhou dialect, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou dialect, Zhangzhou, as well as dialectal forms used in Southeast Asia, such as Singaporean Hokkien, Penang Hokkien, Philippine Hokkien, Medan Hokkien, and Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. It is mutually intelligible with the Amoy and Zhangzhou varieties at the mouth of the Jiulong River in mainland China, and with Philippine Hokkien to the south in the Philippines, spoken altogether by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hakka Dialects In Taiwan
Taiwanese Hakka is a language group consisting of Hakka dialects spoken in Taiwan, and mainly used by people of Hakka ancestry. Taiwanese Hakka is divided into five main dialects: Sixian, Hailu, Dabu, Raoping, and Zhao'an. The most widely spoken of the five Hakka dialects in Taiwan are Sixian and Hailu. The former, possessing 6 tones, originates from Meizhou, Guangdong, and is mainly spoken in Miaoli, Pingtung and Kaohsiung, while the latter, possessing 7 tones, originates from Haifeng and Lufeng, Guangdong, and is concentrated around Hsinchu. Taiwanese Hakka is also officially listed as one of the national languages of Taiwan. In addition to the five main dialects, there are the northern Xihai dialect and the patchily-distributed Yongding, Fengshun, Wuping, Wuhua, and Jiexi dialects. Geographic distribution In 2014, 4.2 million Taiwanese self-identified as Hakka, accounting for 18% of the population. The Hakka Affairs Council has designated 70 townships and distric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varieties Of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin, Wu Chinese, Wu, Min Chinese, Min, Xiang Chinese, Xiang, Gan Chinese, Gan, Jin Chinese, Jin, Hakka Chinese, Hakka and Yue Chinese, Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese. Chinese varieties have the greatest differences in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
