The Challenge Of Japan's 26 Alphabets

[Mulboyne]

WesternPeople: Student takes brave step with Japanese exam
WHILE more and more students across the region are taking on French and German as exam subjects every year, one brave Headford student decided to take a step further onto the international stage, in sitting the Honours Leaving Certificate Japanese Exam Paper...and doing exceptionally well! A number of years ago, the Presentation College in Headford became involved in the Modern Language Initiative and, through work with the Department of Education and the Japanese Embassy, began to offer the language to their Transition Year students. One local lad was so taken aback by the language (and its 26 alphabets!) that he found he was hungry for more...

[ttjereth]

You learn something new everyday. I didn't know Japan had even one alphabet!

[james]

now i know why my japanese reading skills are so poor - i haven't studied all the alphabets.

[Buraku]

That article was wrote by an idiot or someone talking the piss, we all know there are 4 in modern use Romaji, Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji...I've been to a few museums in J-land, and the old dialects and old writings are nearly impossible to read. They seem to have writing based on old extinct Chinese characters which makes the writing impossible even for the native Japanese person to read. I'm sure if looked through the old books and scrolls, you can dig up another 1 or 2 alphabets based on extinct Chinese characters, and the writing is very stylized for example Chou Dynasty writings which are no longer in modern usage can be found in old Japanese texts. Heian period and old Nara texts may have had their own unique alphabets. But 26..? That's just bull

[ttjereth]

Just to clarify my comment above, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but discounting the Roman Alphabet, technically (according to all my linguistics courses anyway) Japanaese has 0 alphabets.

It has 2 syllabaries (katakana and hiragana) and a mash-up of logograms, , morphograms, ideograms and pictograms (Kanji), making the "26 alphabets" comment even more wrong than if you (incorrectly?) consider the 3 "native" writing systems as alphabets.


It's a shame there isn't a comment form for that article.

[hundefar]

Just to clarify my comment above, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but discounting the Roman Alphabet, technically (according to all my linguistics courses anyway) Japanaese has 0 alphabets.

It has 2 syllabaries (katakana and hiragana) and a mash-up of logograms, , morphograms, ideograms and pictograms (Kanji), making the "26 alphabets" comment even more wrong than if you (incorrectly?) consider the 3 "native" writing systems as alphabets.


It's a shame there isn't a comment form for that article.

do girls like you?

[American Oyaji]

Japanaese has 0 alphabets.

It has 2 syllabaries (katakana and hiragana) and a mash-up of logograms, , morphograms, ideograms and pictograms (Kanji), making the "26 alphabets" comment even more wrong than if you incorrectly consider the 3 "native" writing systems as alphabets.


It's a shame there isn't a comment form for that article.

Quite right!

[ttjereth]

do girls like you?

Ask your mom and sisters

[hundefar]

Ask your mom

Either you shagged a corpse or you are very old. I hope its the last option.

[Greji]

Either you shagged a corpse or you are very old. I hope its the last option.

Hey, I resemble that remark. Contrary to popular rumors, old folks fuck!

[American Oyaji]

Hey, I resemble that remark. Contrary to popular rumors, old folks fuck!

Sure they do. Just not as vigorously as the young.

[Greji]

Sure they do. Just not as vigorously as the young.

You remember the old saw AO?

"I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was!"

[hundefar]

Hey, I resemble that remark. Contrary to popular rumors, old folks fuck!

They SUCK...they are better at sucking because they have no teeth.

[Greji]

They SUCK...they are better at sucking because they have no teeth.

That's not necessarily true. I got some of the best choppers that money can buy, at least when they get here, that is. I'm using a set of rentals right now!