Similarity Between Bengali Alphabet and Japanese Kana

in #language7 years ago (edited)

Bengali abugida (consonants are independent letters, vowels are diacritics [consonant modifiers]) VS Japanese syllabary (each consonant-vowel combination stands for a separate syllable).

Below is a Bengali alphabet sample for the consonant /k/, with red vowel modifiers (slashes are used for phonetic spelling in IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet):

Bengali Alphabet


[ko, ka, ki etc.: The consonant ক (kô) along with the diacritic form of the vowels অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও and ঔ; CC--BY-SA Nirvik12]

Bengali (BrE /bɛŋˈɡɔli/, AmE /bɛnˈgɑli/) consonant letters can even be combined, as in this example of ndrô, a ligature consisting of: ন in grey, দ in blue and র in red N + D + R:

[Bengali conjunct consonant ndr,CC--BY-SA Mutichou.png]

more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_alphabet

Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh /ˌbæŋɡləˈdɛʃ/and nearby parts of eastern India:


[CC--BY MapMaster]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Bangladesh

Japanese Kana System

The Bengali (roughly syllabic) writing system resembles the much simpler Japanese kana syllabaries. Katakana is a blocky system often used for foreign words and hiragana is a more elegant system used for Japanese words and inflections, where each symbol stands for a full syllable.

In hiragana, for example, it is impossible to write "k" alone. "k" is always combined with the following vowel to form a different symbol: か ka, き ki, く /kɯ/, け ke, こ ko

Kana diacritics (consonant modifiers)are much simpler than the ones used in Bengali, either a quotation-like mark or a small degree-like circle (in the h b p* column):

[CC—BY-SA Byron Mayfield]

More information on kana:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system


How fascinating it is to contemplate the many different ways that humans manage to write down the sounds of their languages!

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