My personal goal for this project is to find the similarities and differences between the English alphabet and the written alphabets of 8 other languages from different regions all across the world. For a more specific example, I will look at one word in each language, “hello”, and compare and contrast it with the english hello.
I chose alphabets to compare and contrast for a few different reasons. Alphabets are the first thing someone studies when they take on a new language. Language scripts are codes used to communicate, and they grow and change though time and movement; I find this fascinating. Languages are what I am passionate about. I think that being able to communicate with people in their native language is important and isn’t valued enough in my own local culture. One easy word to learn in most languages is “hello”, and it is a good start to taking notice of another language and it’s alphabet.
What I know about the local equivalent is quite a lot actually! The english alphabet has a long messy history where it has been influenced and tampered with by many people throughout its own time and movement. English is originally from the Germanic branch of languages, much like Dutch, Norwegian, and German. Today however, it bares a closer resemblance to the romance languages due to their influence on English over time, especially French. Being native speakers of english makes international communication easy for Americans. However, there are other languages out there and having an awareness and basic understanding of the differences and similarities of these languages to English is, in my opinion, very important.
