Croatian: Ne razumijem …

Hi guys!

We’re on to Croatian this week, also known as Hrvatski. This is the last Slavic language to be featured in the blog … can you believe it?

REGIONAL HISTORY: The Croats settled in Modern-day Croatia in the 7th century, which at the time was divided into two different regions ruled by dukes: Pannonian Croatia in the north and Dalmatian Croatia in the south. In 925, a ruler named Tomislav united both regions, making Croatia a powerful kingdom, while at the same time battling Venetian forces. About 400 years later, though, Croatia would form a union with the kingdom of Hungary, although Hungary would, in actuality, be in control.

For the next centuries, Croatia was invaded by the Ottoman Empire, which had placed a stronghold on the Balkans. Hungary and Austria were powerless to stop the Turkish onslaught. In 1683, the Treaty of Sremski helped put an end to the Ottoman threat, as the Turks gave back Croatian and Hungarian territories. At the same, the Venetians were still controlling the southern part of the country, brutally.

A major event, both linguistically and history, was a national revival that happened in the mid-1800s. A group of young writers started a “Illyrian movement” that promulgated Croatian identity. Croatian became not just the standard language, but the language of arts (previously it had been Hungarian). Later Croatia joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (aka Yugoslavia) in 1918.

Despite the premise of union among Slavic peoples, the kingdom was in disorder. Problems with Serbian and Croatian desires for autonomy bubbled and continued until WWII. The region became a puppet state of the Germans and Italians, ruled by a ruthless party called the Ustashe, which was responsible for the mass murders hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma. After the Axis powers lost and the Ustashe fled, Croatia became a socialist republic of Yugoslavia. Despite recurring movements to separate, Croatia left Yugoslavia nearly 50 years later and declared independence in 1991.

WRITING SYSTEM: Croatian uses a Latin alphabet, not a Cyrillic one like several of the other Slavic languages.  This is probably due to the fact that Croatia has Catholic roots (Latin) as opposed to an Eastern Orthodox background, which used the liturgical language Old Church Slavonic (with a Cyrillic alphabet). You might have already seen it in the Serbian post:

A a – a as in father
B b
C c
Č č – ch as in church
Ć ć -  similar to a soft ch as in ching (no similarities in English)
D d
Dž dž – dg as in fudge
Đ đ – a “jeh” sound
E e – e as in bet
Ff
Gg
Hh
I i – e as in see
J j
K k
L l
Lj lj – an “lyuh” sound as the “lli” in million
M m
N n
Nj nj – an “ng” sound as in “ny” in canyon
O o – o as in long
P p
R r
S s
Š š – sh as in shock
T t
U u – u as in use
Vv
Zz
Ž ž – su as in pleasure

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I am in love with the way this language sounds! I love the way it rolls off my tongue. I have been saying oprostite (I’m sorry) repeatedly and I believe it’s my favorite word. Croatian sounds exactly like Serbian though, so I’m wondering if this post is a repeat. If so, then the issues of declensions and cases will probably be a factor.

Time now for a REALLY cool video. Enjoy!

SOURCES USED IN THIS POST:
Lonely Planet – History of Croatia
Wikipedia’s Page on Croatia

Korean: 안녕!

Two notes before I do the Korean wrap-up:

1) I’ll try to return to a regular schedule, e.g., focusing on at least two languages a week (roughly) as I did when I first started. Since spring of this year, I have been involved in a number of activities which take up a lot of my free time (and time to study), so I apologize for not updating the blog sooner.

2) No video recap this time. My camera works fine, but for some reason, my computer won’t recognize it. I promise, there will be one next go around!

Now, on to Korean!

SUMMARY: Linguists aren’t really sure how to classify Korean. Is it a language isolate? Is it in the Altaic language family? Is it secretly related to Japanese? What is known is that Korean has quite a few Chinese-based words; some words are still used in Korean print today and are written with Chinese characters (called hanja in Korean).

Korea saw a lot of growth between the 900s-1500s, in the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. Along with the spread of Buddhism, printing and advances in academia and astronomy Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, was invented in the 1400s. The Korean language itself has remained relatively unchanged, in spite of constant invasions from Chinese and Japanese. One of the most notable invasions took place in the early 1900s, when Japan controlled Korea and banned all things related to Korean culture. Korean is spoken today by almost 80 million people.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS: At first I had trouble figuring out what Korean reminded me of. After listening to different sources, it almost (and this is really, really stretching it) reminds me of Japanese. One reason why is because, like Japanese, it’s not a tonal language. Also, words (when transliterated from Hanguel) can be a little long, like some Japanese words I’ve seen before. I noticed a lot of “-en”, “-yo” and “euw” sounds, though, which seem to paint the language.

As for Hanguel itself, it is NOT hard at all to learn. Each block represents a syllable and while some can be just vowels with the (ㅇ) being used as a placeholder, many are consonant and vowel combos which represent one sound.

For example, 한 (han) is made up of ㅎ (h) + ㅏ (a) + ㄴ(n) and are just arranged in a block, which is kind of cool. Honestly, a person can master this alphabet in a week, it is very logical.

Spoken Hanguel is just as logical. Take for example the words for sidewalk (people-road) and street (car-road):

인도 / endo: sidewalk (literally “people road”)
차도 / chado: street (literally “car road”)

Korean is SOV, but there seems to be more emphasis on using the verb. However, I’m guessing that suffixes seem play a huge role in this language. One thing that seems to be common is that -yo is added to the end of verbs to make sentences more polite. Suffixes like these seem to go hand in hand with the fact that Korean uses honorific grammar to a large degree.

I still don’t know if I should learn Korean. It’s not as intimidating to me as I thought before, but rather appealing. It seems easier to learn than Chinese and Japanese. Who knows.

One thing I do know is that Korean pop (K-POP) is AWESOME! If I do decide to ever move to Korea, I am guaranteed really good tunes. Oh my god, what have I been missing? I really have to thank my friend in living there for giving me the heads up about this! The band below is called Big Bang and are tearing up the charts there.

EVALUATION:

Intelligibility: 3
Complexity: 4
Resonance: 3
Continuation: 3

SOURCES USED IN THIS POST:

Korean Class 101 on YouTube
Learn Korean and Speak Korean
Omniglot

COMING UP: Croatian

Armenian: Ց’տեսություն!

I’m a little bit late (more so than usual) with this post, but I have a good reason.

Armenian was kind of confusing! And not in the “I can’t understand a lick of this, it makes no sense to me” kind of way, but rather, it was really difficult for me to get a full picture of the language. I spent some time this week to discuss the language with my colleague Sara, who is fluent in (Eastern) Armenian and it helped. But I’m not sure the excitement I had before is still there.

SUMMARY: Armenian has major Persian roots, stretching back to the days of the Armenian kingdom in the first millennium AD. Classical Armenian borrowed a lot from Old Persian, Greek and other languages at the time. In 405 AD, St. Mesrop Mashtots invented an alphabet, which to this day, is practically the one used for Modern Armenian. The modern variant is divided between two main dialects: Western and Eastern, with the later being spoken more widely in modern-day Armenia. This is attributed to the history of the country being divided by Ottoman and Russian powers, as Western and Eastern Armenian reflect these influences, respectively. The language is Indo-European and comprises its own branch — and rightly so.

FINAL IMPRESSION: I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what this language sounded like. At first I thought it sounded like Arabic and then I dismissed it because Armenian apparently has very few Arabic influences. And then I wondered about how Greek it sounded as that language was cited as being a major relative. It’s not at all Greek to me, pun intended. Maybe part of the problem was trying to categorize Armenian in the first place, instead of recognizing it as a language of its own, a tongue that has bits and pieces of others but is so distinctive it really can’t be compared.

Some of the words, as my colleague alluded, are polysyllabic. Eastern Armenian, the dialect I focused on the most, has a quite a few noun cases, but some of them are the same and genitive (possessive) case seems to be the most complicated. Verbs don’t seem to be as difficult either, as there are -a and -e verbs, as the word endings for conjugating them look like this:

A VERBS:
Me/I – am
You Singular – as
He/She/It – a
We – ank
You Plural – ak
They – an

E VERBS:
Me/I – em
You Singular – es
He/She/It – i
We – enk
You Plural – ek
They – en

I don’t know about you, but Armenian definitely shows its Indo-European roots here; it kind of reminds me of Spanish.

Armenian, however, does not have grammatical gender like its Romance cousins. The definite article is also tacked on the end of nouns.

My colleague mentioned that the hardest part about Armenian is the pronunciation. There are a lot of consonant clusters that could throw English speakers for a loop (try saying Shnorhakalutyun, which means “thank you”). She also said that when she lived in Armenia she noticed many other dialects beyond the main Eastern and Western one. Hmm.

All in all, I’m really impressed by how it sounds and flows, but my head is still in the clouds about this one.

EVALUATION:

Intelligibility: 2
Complexity: 3
Resonance: 3
Continuation: 2

Don’t be sad, though. I still plan on listening to Armenian music! (Thank you to Patricia Constantinian-Voskeridjian for the clip!)

COMING UP: Korean

Don’t Take it Personal: Icelandic (Íslenska)

[This is the fourth in a series of posts called "Don't Take it Personal." I will be writing letters to languages that have not been selected in this project, giving reasons for why I decided to "move on." These will appear between regular posts, adding a more "comedic" spin to the blog.]

7/13/2009:

Oh, Icelandic. I hope you can forgive me, for I think I may have made a grave mistake.

When we first met, I dismissed you as an unpronounceable language with ever-expanding words, like your cousin, German. I had only known of you through Sigur Rós, an Icelandic band who I had come to love, but could never understand. It was foolish of me to not look more closely.

This brief encounter merely scratched the surface. Your vitality is impressive and almost incomparable to the other Indo-European languages, as you have remained relatively unchanged from the 1300s. Your alphabet, contrary to popular belief, is quite similar to English’s, with the exception of letters such as ð, þ and æ which are quite simple for an American like me to pronounce; you also have very few dialects. What also attracts me is your Old Norse tradition, perhaps more prominent than in the other Scandinavian languages, which allow your speakers to read texts that are more than centuries old.

I remember listening to Ágætis byrjun, hearing you through the sounds of Jónsi Birgisson’s chilling, yet sweeping voice. I remember how it soothed my spirit, flooding me with wonder. The reason for why we could not connect remains unclear.

Granted, there are some things about you that concern me. You tend to be a bit more inflectional, as you have several more noun cases than English, along with grammatical gender. I also could not find an online translator in Icelandic. And then there is the issue of practicality, because not very many people speak Icelandic (and many Icelanders speak English rather well). But your similarity to (and my early love of) Norwegian makes me wonder whether things could work out after all.

Upon further reflection, I realize that I may have been hasty in my inferences. Please give me time to think about things. I ask for your forgiveness for judging you; I may have missed out on an open, and very brilliant, book.

… Þú ættir að vita betur.

With love,
Keith

Portuguese: Adeus!

Ok. I have to say, without any doubts, I had such an incredible time with Portuguese! I’m so pained to leave it behind! I’m also happy to report I was pleasantly surprised, as I predicted I would listen to a few videos, dismiss it and move on, like I had with Spanish. How wrong I was, and gladly so.

SUMMARY: Like Spanish, Portuguese gets its roots from Vulgar Latin, a colloquial form of Latin spoken in the Roman Empire. The language was absorbed by the people living in the Iberian peninsula and mixed with the local vernacular. After a while, an early form of Portuguese known as Galician-Portuguese appeared and was used throughout the area, specifically for lyric poetry (Galician-Portuguese is also the mother of Galician, which is still spoken in northern Portugal).

In the 13th century, Castillian, or European Spanish, had spread all over modern-day Spain. King Alfonso X of Spain made everyone use it for official use. Around the same time, King Denis of Portugal declared Galician-Portuguese to be the official language of the kingdom. Later, Galician-Portuguese split into two when Galicia and Portugal divided into separate kingdoms. Galician took it’s own route with influence from Castillian, while Portuguese went its separate ways.

Also, my friend Rui, who is Portuguese, was able to provide more detail about some of the vowels. O is apparently the most common one, but the others can have different sounds:

Aa – a as in father; also a as in lantern
Ee – e as in bet; also e as in ego, e as in mere
Oo – o as in okay; o as in do, o as in optical
Uu – oo as in moo; aspirated after words that begin with Q and follow an a or o (e.g., ‘quanto’ sounds like the qu in quantity)

FINAL IMPRESSIONS: First, before I go into my own inferences, I think it’s best to mention the major differences between Portuguese and Spanish, a lot of them being phonological. Let’s do it by list:

-Portuguese has more vowel sounds than Spanish. Spanish has five basic sounds that always sound the same, while Portuguese vowels can vary. Portuguese also has nasal vowels.

-Spanish has more Arabic/Moorish words.

-Days of the week. Spanish uses the Roman system (like us), while Portuguese uses a different cardinal-number like style except for Saturday and Sunday (for example, Tuesday: Martes in Spanish, terça-feira in Portuguese.

-Latin words translated to Spanish have diphthongs (two consecutive vowels in a word), while Portuguese ones don’t. Take for example the Latin word for time, or “tempus.” In Spanish, it’s tiempo, while in Portuguese, it’s just tempo.

-Some words are just plain different. This is probably the most obvious. While there are a lot of cognates (help = ayuda (Spanish)/ajuda (Portuguese), some just aren’t the same (I = yo (Spanish)/eu (Portuguese). Also, there are a quite a few “false cognates.”

And then there are many more phonetic differences (the aspirated “j” in Spanish vs. the voiced “j” in Portuguese, the “dzu” and “zu” sound in Portuguese for words with de/di and “ch” sound in Portuguese for words with te/ti), but I won’t go on.

Oh! And then there’s the issue of Brazilian Portuguese vs. European Portuguese. The major differences I noticed was that European Portuguese seemed to have syllables “squished” together when spoken or not pronounced at all. It kinda sounded a bit more formal. Also, it seems the “r” sounds like an “h” in European Portuguese, while in its Brazilian counterpart, it’s more of a “er” sound. Brazlian Portuguese is said to be easier to learn and I preferred it; it sounded a bit more rhythmic and easier to catch on to.

(It is said people from Portugal can understand Brazilian Portuguese with no problem, but not vice-versa. This could be due to the “squished” sounds of the European variant and because people in Portugal are exposed to a lot of Brazilian TV and music.)

As for grammar, this is where Portuguese and Spanish seem to match each other. Both have -ar, -er and -ir verbs with similar conjugation patterns and both are SVO, although this really doesn’t matter because verbs are inflected a lot. Because of this, the subject can often be dropped in sentences because the verb already explains what it is by default (one can say Não estou com medo, which means “I mean not afraid” without the “Eu,” which means “I”).

Even with the similarities, overall I really enjoyed it, much more so than Spanish. I was swept off my feet, but will Portuguese carry me into the sunset? Stay tuned.

Because I couldn’t do an video recap, I just embedded one of my favorite songs to dance around to – “Music is My Boyfriend” from Cansei de Ser Sexy (and also because I LOVE the part when the lead singer sings in Portuguese the last third of the song).

EVALUATION:

Intelligibility: 4
Complexity: 3
Resonance: 5
Continuation: 5

SOURCES USED IN THIS POST:

Learning Portuguese
Orbislingua
Wikipedia (Differences between Spanish/Portuguese, Galician-Portuguese, Spanish language)

COMING UP: Armenian

Don’t Take It Personal: Italian (Italiano)

[This is the third in a series of posts called "Don't Take it Personal." I will be writing letters to languages that have not been selected in this project, giving reasons for why I decided to "move on." These will appear between regular posts, adding a more "comedic" spin to the blog.]

6/16/2009:

Dear Italian,

We don’t know each other very well. In fact, you might not remember me at all. But I wanted to write this because I had to unearth the feelings you left with me, as I finally found the right words.

I was only acquainted with you for a very short time when I was quite the youngster. I learned your masculine and feminine definite articles il and la and several other words from you. At a glance, you reminded me of Spanish.

Following our first meeting, I dismissed you as arrogant, exaggerated and flamboyant. Your double consonants were annoying and so many of your features were so heavily similar to the other Vulgar Latin descendants so I wasn’t initially impressed. But later, as I learned about art history, I got to know your intellectual and refined side. I learned about your Tuscan roots and how you, in a sense, became the language of the arts during the Renaissance and beyond.

But still, I imagined a future for us and I could only picture myself with a stale glass of wine, sipping with disappointment.

Please do not be offended. There are still many things about you many should and will adore. Your alphabet is perhaps more phonetic-based and easier to understand than the other Romance languages and you are the only one who pronounces every sound, as it seems to carry the rhythm of Rome. You are perhaps the most original of them all, but still, I can’t pretend. I’m sorry I can’t.

Oh, Italiano, I am so sorry for this. As so many say in other tongues, it’s not you, it’s me. I can say, “Una sola lingua non è mai abbastanza” but will it ever be enough? I don’t know.

Until we see each other again, ciao.

Keith

Xhosa: Hamba kakuhle!

Well, that was interesting.

Xhosa, in all respects, is just as cool as its name. And perhaps more tangled than some of the other languages I’ve seen. While I was able to master a few of the “clicks” that the language is known for, it almost felt like I was only touching the surface of something really specialized.

SUMMARY: Xhosa is a Bantu language that has been spoken in South Africa for thousands of years. It is closely related to Zulu, the most spoken African language in the country, although Xhosa is more widespread. The language was affected in part by the settlements of the Dutch and English, who forced the native Xhosa people to resettle in some parts of the country. An alphabet was developed in the mid-1800s and books were first printed in Xhosa from that point onward. The language is tonal, agglutinative and has 18 distinct “clicking” sounds.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS: Agh, the clicks, the clicks! I was not able to pronounce the other 15 sounds (the click consonants + vowels) and I’m still impressed by how native speakers say them so effortlessly. But there were some other things that I didn’t fancy as I’ll talk about below in my video.

EVALUATION:

Intelligibility: 2
Complexity: 1
Resonance: 2
Continuation: 2

COMING NEXT: Portuguese

Don’t Take It Personal: Dear German (Deutsch)

[This is the second in a series of posts called "Don't Take it Personal." I will be writing letters to languages that have not been selected in this project, giving reasons for why I decided to "move on." These will appear between regular posts, adding a more "comedic" spin to the blog.]

5/28/2009:

Dear German,

It’s been forever. I always wondered what you were up to since we last saw each other.

I know we didn’t end things on such amicable terms. I remember how bored I was with Japanese in high school. I was talking with some friends and I remember seeing your slightly goofy, yet secure smile across the room. When we first met, I was immediately drawn to your Umlauts and sharp s (ß). We shared an instant, if not rapid, connection when I learned you were related to English. Although your accent sounded funny, I had always thought it was adorable. I was intrigued.

But then I learned about your agglutinative side. I found out how you liked to form long compound words, sometimes in ways that seemed unnecessary. My love of your definite articles was eclipsed by my hate of your three genders. Even worse, I was lost in your conjugation in the worst possible way. How could a cousin of English, my first love, be so familiar and confounding at the same time?

I grew cold and distant. I despised hearing your voice and grew sick of all your words, which reminded me of overstuffed English . I wondered how anyone could admire you, as you seemed to say nothing but “achs” and “unds.” It drove me insane, so I left and I never came back.

I am forever searching for my life and my love and I’m glad you got to be part of both. However, my feelings for you have gone. While this is awkward for me, this letter has been something I’ve yearned to share with you for a long time. I’m happy I can move on.

Please be well. Or, as you would say, Tschüß.

Keith

Tschüß

Chinese: 你好。

I’ll give you several guesses about our next language. It’s Sino-Tibetan, spoken by nearly 1/5 of the world, has the oldest modern writing system and uses 56,000 characters.

Hmm … what could it be? Duh, CHINESE!

I think anyone would be intimidated by this powerhouse. Like Hindi, I was worried that I wouldn’t accurately summarize not only the most widely spoken tongue on the globe but the history behind it. But here goes. I also decided to focus on the Mandarin dialect, because this is the officially used (and most widely spoken) variety in China.

REGIONAL HISTORY: China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations, dating back to prehistoric times where fossils of the first humans can be found. The earliest dynasties, Xia and Shang were thought to be mythical until archaeologists dug up some evidence in the 19th century. The Zhou eventually took control and established their dynasty, although much of the China’s first millennium would be in a state of warfare. It would be around this time that teachings from a philosopher named Confucius would become widespread.

In 221 BC, the Qin Dynasty began, as the first of a series of emperors would rule until 1912. The Qin Dynasty was short lived, immediately followed by the Han Dynasty, which would last until the 3rd century AD. China gained territory but rule would be brutal during both dynasties. The Han dynasty also saw the arrival of Buddhism.

After this, China would diverge into a warlike state until the Sui and later Tang and Song Dynasties. The Tang period saw China’s only female ruler, Wu Zetian, and further expansion. The Song Dynasty brought art, culture and study of classical texts, which reformed China’s feudal system. The Song dynasty lasted until 1271, when it was overthrown by Mongol warlords. They would rule for about 100 years until the Ming dynasty began. But the losses would be great: Mongol conquest wiped out nearly half of China’s population. During the Ming dynasty, much of the Great Wall of China was built and the capital was relocated to Beijing.

The Qing Dynasy, China’s last, began in the 17th century, although gravely as 25 million died after capture of the Ming Dynasty by the Manchu people. During this period, China expanded to its current-day size and saw interaction with Europeans. This period also saw conflict with Japan during the First Sino-Japanese war, as China fought and later lost control of Korea and Taiwan. The very last emperor, a six-year old name Puyi, and his adopted mother, Empress Dowager Longyu, abdicated power in 1912, as China went to the nationalists and became a republic.

China’s history after this would be dominated by political turmoil and a tug of war between nationalists, communists and warlords. The Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII would bring strife as 20 million Chinese died and China would engage in another civil war shortly after. In 1949, the People’s Republic of China, a communist state, was established by Mao Zedong as the Nationalists would be forced to resign to Taiwan. Mao would try to implement several social programs, most notably the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which would ultimately fail. After his death, China loosed up on its restrictions economically, which would lead to huge growth in the 1990s. Although still Communist, the government has eased, allowing more freedoms and personal liberties as it has tried to reestablish China as a modern superpower.

WRITING SYSTEM: Do you remember the archaeological evidence I mentioned earlier? It turns out that animal bones, also known as “oracle bones” were used as a form of communication, as the cracks were used to determine fortunes and writing inscriptions were added them.

Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet. It mostly uses characters called Hànzi, which developed from pictographs. Hànzi are read vertically from right to left. These characters are formed by 12 types of strokes and a character can have up to 64 strokes.

For about 1,700 years, China used these characters until the 1920s when characters were modified to match Mandarin, the main dialect spoken in China. As noted, there are about 56,000 of them, but many of them are archaic and a user only needs to know 3,000 to read most things, like newspapers and magazines.

There are two types used: traditional and simplified, with the later appearing in the 1950s. Most people in China use simplified while many in overseas communities use traditional. According to a friend who is studying Chinese, the difference is quite monumental. While traditional characters have a distinct history and meaning, simplified characters are merely cursive forms of those, or in his terms, “chicken scratch.”

Since the 20th century, Chinese also use Pinyin, or Mandarin written with Roman characters.

That’s about it for the writing system. Spoken Chinese is tonal, like many languages in Asia. It uses five tones: neutral, low falling-rising, high falling, high rising and high.

Spoken Chinese also differs radically because there are so many varieties that are essentially different languages. Also, Chinese is mistakenly referred to as monosyllabic, despite the fact that quite a few words have more than two syllables.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Well, I did have the privilege of looking at Chinese way back in my teens, but I was so overwhelmed or turned off that I put my interest to rest. I wonder if the same thing will happen again. Tonal languages are very hard for me to grasp, even though I can determine words in speech. The hardest thing beyond that would likely be learning thousands of characters. And then there’s the curiosity about other varieties of Chinese.

Eh, we’ll see. But I thought this was really cute!

SOURCES USED IN THIS POST:

Lonely Planet
Omniglot
Wikipedia (China, Chinese Language)

Serbian: Doviđenja!

We are now finished with Serbian. This is the first post with a video recap (yay!), so I highly encourage you to check that out and leave comments.

SUMMARY: Serbian is a South Slavic language spoken by 12 million people in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Balkans. Serbian is derived from Old Church Slavonic (like Slovenian and Bulgarian) and carries influences from Russian, German, Bosnian and Turkish. It was reformed in the 1800s by linguists Vuk Karadzic and Ljudevit Gaj. The language is currently written in Cyrillic and a Latin alphabet.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS:

Check out the video below to see my thoughts:

EVALUATION:

Intelligibility: 4
Complexity: 3
Resonance: 3
Continuation: 3

COMING UP: Chinese