Re: Easy and Interesting Languages -- Website

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
>
> > Compared with this, alphabet is relatively
> anecdotical.
>
> I think you mean "incidental".
Incidental, indeed.

And I respectfully
> disagree - learning
> to read and write French, German, Spanish, etc. is
> made vastly easier
> for someone otherwise literate only in English by
> the fact that they
> share the same alphabet.  Sure, there are extra
> squiggly bits here and
> there, but it's fundamentally the same, whereas
> Russian is a whole
> nother matter.  There are all sorts of new, subtle
> distinctions between
> letters to learn, especially in cursive (which we
> were required to use
> at all times in class; I don't know what the actual
> patterns of use for
> cursive vs. print are like in Russia) - who would
> have thought that a
> lowercase T would look it should be a lowercase M,
> or that a lowercase M
> would look like it should be a lowercase U, etc?  I
> don't think
> it's incidental at all.  Unless, of course, your
> goal is strictly
> oral proficiency and you don't care about reading
> and writing.
>
True, when it comes to cursives, Russian is terrible.
If you have a word with a lot of l, i, sh, shch and
some more inside, you always wonder where does a
letter begin and where does it end (perhaps the word
"lishnyj" for ex ? I have to check the exact
spelling). But usually Russian people write very
carefully - the word 'nekulturnyj' is strongly
offending to describe people who don't behave
politely, and writing nicely belongs to politeness. I
must confess that sometimes it's easier for me to read
Russian handwriting than my own handwriting in French
! (especially, I use to write a small "t" as if it was
a capital "V"). So nice that people invented
keyboards...

Also strange to see a "d" written like a "g" in
Russian (although another less exotic form is possible
too). It takes a little time to understand that
"gebywka" is "devushka". But this is all finally  not
so terrible. It's much more difficult to me for ex to
guess where the hell should I put the stress when
meeting a word for the first time; and if you stress
the wrong syllable, you might as well speak Bantu or
Inuit, you'll get understood just the same.

Talking about "anecdots", I don't know the exact
meaning of the word in English, but in French, it
justs means a short unimportant story you might tell
when chattering with friends. It doesn't have to be
funny at all - might even be tragic. But if you say to
Russian people "Ja vam rasskazhu anekdot" (I'll tell
you an anecdot), they will all expect eagerly the end,
in order to burst of laughing. "Anekdot" HAS to be
funny in Russian. Better to know it before.



=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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