Re: From The Ashes...

On Wed, 9 Jan 2002 20:10:04 +0100 Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> writes:
> Complex?! What do you make of Devanagari then?! :))) The Arabic
> script is far
> from complex, in fact rather easy, as long as you don't try to read
> handwritings (especially Eastern) which are much more indistinctive
-

Ah hah!  This reminds me!
I'm working during my winter break at an immigration lawyer's office, and
i like searching through clients' files to find out how their names are
*really* supposed to be pronounced in their native language.  Of course,
this only works with languages i know (at least a little bit), like
Arabic, but looking at samples of other languages that i don't know is
cool too.
And i found out an interesting fact about those Indian languages that
hang off of horizontal bars, like Devanagari.
When little kids learn the Latin alphabet, they use guide-lines to help
them align the letters properly, and rest the bottoms of each letter
against the top of the line.
In Devanagari-esque alphabets on the other hand, it seems that they use
the dotted guide line to align the bar that connects the tops of the
letters!  It was so cool when i saw this on someone's filled-out form!

Unfortunately, none of the other people working there seemed very
interested :P .
And they never know what i'm talking about when i pronounce the name
_Ali_ as /'3&li:/ .  :b


-Stephen (Steg)
 "if you want to annoy the darfler
  call him 'marc' when his hair is red (when his hair is red!)"
     ~ not exactly that sweater song