Now that we're back to introducing writing systems of Africa, this one takes us to the southern region of the African continent, intended to represent kiSwahili, Kikongo, Tshiluba, and to a limited extent, Lingala. Invented in 1978, this script appears to be a robotic mess of lines, an alphabet which is organised into syllabic blocks. … Continue reading Writing in Africa – Mandombe
linguistics
Speaking “Indian”–My First Impression of Tamil
So it's been about a couple weeks since I started learning Tamil, and I thought that it would be nice to share my first steps in language learning. My focus here would thus be the sounds and script used in Tamil. Tamil is among the longest-surviving classical languages in the world, with literature dating back … Continue reading Speaking “Indian”–My First Impression of Tamil
Speaking “Indian”- A Reflection on Learning Experience in Hindi
India- A huge country with a massive population, and home to a whole bunch of languages. In fact, India recognises 23 official languages, including Hindi, English, Urdu, Panjabi, Gujarati, Tamil and Malayalam, just to name a few. Yet, some people refer to these diverse group of languages as just Indian, like "Do you speak Indian?" … Continue reading Speaking “Indian”- A Reflection on Learning Experience in Hindi
Writing in Africa – I say N’ko (ߒߞߏ)
Solomana Kante, a Guinean writer and an inventor of a writing system, but most importantly, a man who was determined to change the beliefs that Africans were a cultureless people. The Manding languages lacked an indigenous writing system at that time. And so, after a night of deep meditation, Kante went on to create an … Continue reading Writing in Africa – I say N’ko (ߒߞߏ)
Writing in Africa – The Vai Syllabary (ꕙꔤ)
Our next writing system takes us to the West African country of Liberia and Sierra Leone, in which lie some 120,000 native speakers of this Mande language called Vai. A tonal language of 12 vowels (of which 5 are nasal) and 31 consonants, using a syllabary to represent the sounds of this language surely is … Continue reading Writing in Africa – The Vai Syllabary (ꕙꔤ)
Singaporean Portuguese – A Brief Post on Kristang
While surfing the web looking through various creoles spoken in the world, one of them caught my eye. A creole spoken in Singapore and Malaysia, but not Singlish nor Manglish. Instead, it was a Portuguese creole, spoken by only a handful of people in the Malayan Peninsula. This is Kristang, known as Portugis to the … Continue reading Singaporean Portuguese – A Brief Post on Kristang
Writing in Africa – The Adlam Alphabet
In the late 1980s, two Guinean teenage brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, devised a new alphabet to represent their Fulani language, spoken by about 24 million people in the Sahel Region in Western Africa. Using the first four letters of this new alphabet, they named it Adlam. Producing handwritten copies of books using the Adlam … Continue reading Writing in Africa – The Adlam Alphabet
Writing in Africa – the Nsibidi script
Tucked away in the region of southeast Nigeria lies the birthplace of a writing system used to document the Igbo, Ekoid and Efik languages. This is the Nsibidi script, in which thousands of symbols are found across various items like pottery, wall designs and leaves. A mess of lines, dots, circles and arcs unreadable to … Continue reading Writing in Africa – the Nsibidi script
Writing in Africa
Africa, a continent of thousands of ethnic groups, the most among all continents. Alongside these ethnic groups lie the linguistic diversity, rivaled only by the language diversity of Papua New Guinea. Many of these languages are still vulnerable to endangerment and extinction, and many of these also lack a written form to document their language. … Continue reading Writing in Africa
Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Singlish in Society
Our final part of Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English covers the controversy surrounding this creole of English. In Singapore, you may notice newspaper articles and educational materials are written (or more rather, typed) in grammatically correct English, but the English you hear on the streets tend to be rather ungrammatical (with respect to Standard English). … Continue reading Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Singlish in Society
Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – More Particles
We're finally back after the brief intermission where we talked about one of the most well-known indigenous languages, Inuktitut. Now, we will be discussing the hallmark features of Singlish particles, the use of particles like lah, leh, loh etc. We hear it quite often, they're normally used at the end of sentences, and they can … Continue reading Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – More Particles
Intermission – The Beauty of Nunavut Inuktitut
So last year I did a little segment on learning the lesser known languages and I did cover a bit on Nunavut Inuktitut. And now, here is a post dedicated to the wonders of this poly-synthetic language. Many people have heard of this language because of its alleged diversity of words to mean snow and … Continue reading Intermission – The Beauty of Nunavut Inuktitut
Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – The curious case of “already”
Singlish particles truly define this creole, giving it its identity, making it stand out as much as Bislama and Tok Pisin, both of which are other creoles of English spoken in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea respectively. Singlish particles draw influence mainly from Chinese (and its dialects) and Malay (and one from Tamil). This post … Continue reading Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – The curious case of “already”
Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Verbs
Verbs. You know, those action words that bring life to sentences. Some languages conjugate by number, some by tense, some by aspect, mood, gender... yeah you get the point. Some don't even conjugate it at all. This post brings you verbs in Singlish, and how they differ from Standard English. One of the most prominent … Continue reading Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Verbs
Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Topicalisation
Singlish, or more formally known as Colloquial Singaporean English, is an English creole which closely resembles that of Colloquial Malaysian English, drawing influences from the languages represented by the ethnic groups that make up the speakers' population. It's something I encounter almost every day, and I thought it would be good to make some observations … Continue reading Adventures in Colloquial Singaporean English (Singlish) – Topicalisation
Languages With Consonant Clusters You Didn’t Know Are Possible
In the English language, consonant clusters aren't so much of a rare thing, like we have words like "strengthens", in which "str", "ngth" and "ns" are consonant clusters. In most of the Austronesian languages, however, consonant clusters are all but present. So let's explore the languages which have some of the really insane consonant clusters … Continue reading Languages With Consonant Clusters You Didn’t Know Are Possible
5 of the Most Interesting Writing Systems
Writing has existed for millennia, recording human history, heritage and knowledge over time. Many scripts have been invented, some stayed, some continued to be used, and some have yet to be deciphered. Now let's see some of the most fascinating scripts humans have come up with! 1. Ersu Shaba Ersu Shaba is a script used … Continue reading 5 of the Most Interesting Writing Systems
Interesting Things to Note in Austronesian Languages
At the start of this year I started to have a certain craving to learn some Austronesian Languages. We're not only talking about Malay and Indonesian, but also languages of the Polynesian and Micronesian Islands like Gagana Samoa, Niuean and the like. There were some nice observations I made when studying some of these (I'm … Continue reading Interesting Things to Note in Austronesian Languages
5 Most Unusual Consonants
It's time to cover the most unusual sounds you can make in the languages you speak 🙂 1. Voiceless dental fricative You know the "th" sound you pronounce in "thing", "theta" etc? This is actually a rare consonant you're making there, my friends. English, Modern Standard Arabic, Burmese, Greek and Standard European Spanish are among … Continue reading 5 Most Unusual Consonants
Learning the Lesser-known Languages
I believe some of us have always wanted to learn some cool languages like Nunavut Inuktitut, Nahuatl or Gagana Samoa, but where are the resources? Anyway, this post is about my journey in learning the rather lesser-known languages, where resources may be few and far out of reach (like books which I can't buy anywhere … Continue reading Learning the Lesser-known Languages
The Language Closet 