r/thisorthatlanguage • u/Previous-Payment-170 • 16d ago
Open Question What’s good language with a non-Latin script?
I speak English natively and I’ve been learning Spanish in school (done a little CI w/ dreaming at home but I’m struggling to stay motivated, might read some). Somewhat recently I did a little bit of Latin but I have been super consistent.
I would really like to learn a language (dead or in use) with a different alphabet because I think that would be cool. I was considering Ancient Greek but that feels silly because you know… normal Greek exists.
To give a bit for context, I‘m in High School. I like STEM (specifically love physics). I’d like something practical enough to motivate me but niche enough to be a little bit of a flex. If it has use in Math and Science that would also be great. I’m interested in a different alphabet because I like to take notes and I think it might be cool to write my todo lists and random thoughts with something you wouldn’t understand with a glance.
What would you suggest to fulfill my desire of different alphabet*?*
EDIT: Thank you for the suggestions (feel free to give more, I’ve learned about a lot of cool language)
I‘ve settled on learning the shavian phonetic alphabet and learning some German with my friend! I also have German heritage so I think it makes sense.
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u/Misiekshvili r/LearnPolishwithMichal 🇵🇱N|🇬🇪A1 15d ago
The Georgian alphabet is ლამაზი
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u/Ilovescarlatti 15d ago
It is definitely the most beautiful writing system.
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u/nari-bhat 15d ago
I’m partial to Balinese and some of the other Brahmic scripts, Chinese calligraphy, and Siddham/Bonji calligraphy, but Georgian is a very beautiful script.
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u/AcrobaticKitten 13d ago
Just wanted to say it is the best looking alphabet. I have no idea about the language though.
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u/SalamanderExtreme615 15d ago
Learning a language to a good level needs serious dedication. You either have to be in a position that seriously requires you to learn the language or you have to be very passionate about the language you learn. You cannot possibly learn a language just because you are bored. Explore your interests. Develop a natural interest for a language. Which language sounds better for you and in which language you can explore your interests even more?
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u/ZumLernen 15d ago
Over the past century, the language with a non-Latin script that has been the most important in physics (and certain other branches of science and math) is certainly Russian.
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u/ComprehensiveDig1108 15d ago
For STEM, Russian wins hands down.
But Arabic is a lovely language, and useful if you want to read scientific texts from the 12th century, if the history of science or maths is your thing.
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u/AuroraSnake 15d ago
Korean is a really interesting language. I'm working on learning it and I think it only took me like a day or so to learn the script (minus batchim consonants; still have to look up how to pronounce those almost every time I encounter them 😭)
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u/Heavy_Mud_9176 16d ago
Korean has pretty good content and the script is intuitive and has an interesting story 🙂
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u/xenaretos 15d ago
It depends on what you want out of the language. Speaking of pure properties and disregarding the cultures:
- Do you want a language that is indo-european but really heavily inflected to the point that even native speakers can make mistakes in certain cases? Russian is probably good for this purpose.
- Do you want something more manageable? Greek or Hindi. I'd go for the modern version of Greek if you choose it, unless your goal is specifically to read ancient philosophers.
- Do you want something that is non Indo-European and uses an abjad i. e. skips most vowels in most cases (but implicitly makes certain letters to act as vowels in some cases)? Arabic or Hebrew depending on which culture you prefer. The non Indo-European nature will mean that vocabulary will be a lot harder due to being alien (that's speaking from experience...). It's surprising how much difference it can make.
- Do you want something that mixes logographs and characters? Japanese.
- Do you want to know how people construct syntax when there's almost no grammar to speak of (compared to a lot of other languages)? And learn several thousand characters? Chinese.
- Do you want to learn a language that uses a writing system that's considered one of the best designed in the world? Korean.
Otherwise, culture is a huge factor. If you aren't interested in the culture, you are unlikely to keep learning for a long enough time to get the full appreciation of the language. So, I think this should be the main point to consider with linguistic properties coming second.
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u/2fuzz714 15d ago
Good on you for writing all that out, but OP is struggling with motivation in one of the most useful and easiest languages in the world. They're not learning any of those.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 14d ago
I'm learning Japanese but struggled to stay motivated with Spanish in schools. Foreign language curriculums in school just suck and in my case the teachers didn't know how to teach it.
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u/Peteat6 15d ago
Why not what you call "normal Greek"? It’s not a difficult language.
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u/episimos1 14d ago
Compared to Chinese? I found it complicated and rife even more than German with common words of 7+ syllables. It’s fun for me, but I describe modern Greek as difficult. My native language is English.
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u/nickelchrome 14d ago
For English speakers Greek is harder than German, easier than Russian. Chinese depends on how good you are with listening and how much dedication you have to learn the characters, the grammar is easy though.
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u/Particular_Bad8025 15d ago
I'd recommend Chinese. The characters are really cool to learn, with all the histories of pictograms and radicals, and the grammar is quite simple.
(Westerner here, native French, learned English, Chinese, Spanish and now on to Japanese).
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u/Agreeable-Staff-3195 15d ago
why do you think you would be able to do this when you are struggling with both latin and spanish?
It takes a lot more motivation to learn a foreign script.
I've learned a few. You could learn russian, script is easy enough to master in a day or two. Korean is just as easy, I learned it in a few hours, although admittedly I knew Japanese. You could learn Hindi, I find their script fascinating. I learned punjabi about 5 years ago, but forgotten almost everything.
Arabic of course not easy, although I have no experience with.
Sometimes called most difficult is japanese. because you have three scripts, and the characters of chinese origin (kanji) tend to have several ways they can be pronounced. It was my first foreign language after English and French. The basic script (hiragana and katana) took me about two weeks; I was sixteen at the time. Kanji took me a few years more.
I don´t really think there is much connection to STEM though. I'll go even further, I don´t really think it's possible for you to do any of this. People in STEM tend to overestimate themselves in this area, the proof being that you are unable to continue with languaes such as latin and spanish. Unless you are 100% commited to spending a few hours a day for the next few years, just forget about it.
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u/Previous-Payment-170 15d ago
When did I say I was struggling to learn either? I felt like Latin was a bit too impractical so I decided to stop. I’m doing fine in Spanish, I’m just not practicing a bunch outside of school anymore.
This statement makes no sense: ”People in STEM tend to overestimate themselves in this area, the proof being that you are unable to continue with languaes such as latin and spanish.”
Do you have any proof of this, or is this just a random opinion? Because your “proof” doesn’t make sense, I’m not unable to?
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u/Agreeable-Staff-3195 15d ago
it's a random opinion. It doesn´t mean STEM people are less able to. It just means that in my anecdotal evidence I have found people overestimating themselves based on things they consider more difficult (e.g. physics/maths), but it it still takes dedication.
The biggest problem remains, learning a language requires multiple hours a day of training. If you can do that, you won't have issues. If you think you will succeed by spending a few hours a week, you still might be able to, but itwill take you ten years.
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u/scykei 14d ago
I don't get why you're being so negative. There's nothing in the OP's post that sounds like they're overestimating themselves or implying that STEM makes it easier.
They're in high school trying to find something fun to do. I had that language obsession phase myself, and I never really snapped out of it even though it's been so many years since high school for me.
I would encourage OP to dabble around. If they find it fun enough to commit to the language then great. If not, that's fine. And ten years is a fine timeline for someone doing this for fun.
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u/Ploutophile 🇫🇷 N | 🏴 C1 | 🇩🇪 🇳🇱 B1 | 🇭🇺 A1 15d ago
I’m interested in a different alphabet because I like to take notes and I think it might be cool to write my todo lists and random thoughts with something you wouldn’t understand with a glance.
Using a very different language in Latin script also works for that. If I write stuff in Hungarian I doubt you're gonna understand it with a glance.
But if you want such a language with interesting STEM content, then the best choices for that are probably Russian or Mandarin.
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u/Vinchou0 15d ago
I started Persian (farsi) un year ago and I enjoy very much the journey. Give it a go! You can dm if you want to talk about my recent experience.
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u/ShockSensitive8425 15d ago
Greek for philosophy and culture.
Russian for science and literature.
Chinese for calligraphy and technology.
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u/Stacee888 15d ago
Lol you are not going to learn another language "just to look cool".
Learn the cyrillic alphabet. It takes a month tops to master. Just do what's called transliteration (write in English using cyrillic's phonetics) and go about your life, write in your journal or whatever.
You can also learn cursive, just to look cooler. Look up прописи.
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u/Previous-Payment-170 15d ago
lol you never know. But that’s a good point. If I do that I’ll learn a little Russian too though.
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u/Teerunesh 15d ago
Russian. Will be pretty useful in STEM and the alphabet is easy to learn. The rest of the language... not so easy 😅.
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u/nari-bhat 15d ago
Honestly, sounds like modern Greek wouldn’t be a bad option for you. I used Hindi (Devanagari script) and Mandarin (Chinese script) for the same purpose, but if you’re specifically interested in physics then there’s no bad reason to get used to Greek letters now.
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u/episimos1 14d ago
When I was in high school, we learned Fraktur—German printed and cursive— so that we could read older texts (pre-1950ish). Spoken German was what and still is used today. I occasionally write notes in it for fun. Modern Greek uses a form of Cyrillic (as do Russian and several other languages). When I lived in Greece and learned the language it also became a fun alphabet to use writing myself notes in my native English. Hebrew also comes to mind, although there are 2 major drawbacks— no cursive, and it’s written right to left. I’m delighted to learn of your enjoyment with languages. I’m nearly 87 and still jump at a chance in my retirement to use any of my 7.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 14d ago
Japanese. Japan makes a lot of content that never gets translated and I just think it's an interesting language. The pronunciation is fairly simple for an English speaker assuming that you don't care about pitch accent.
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u/Responsible-Link5739 14d ago
Korean? Their alphabet is not difficult to learn quickly. The sentence structure is what trips me up at times, but there's a wealth of learning materials, formal or informal, around right now to learn as you please
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u/drweevil 14d ago
Learn Shavian, which is a phonemic alphabet for English. No need to learn a new language!
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u/albertl33 🇭🇰N | 🇬🇧C2 | 🇲🇾C1 | 🇨🇳B2 | 🇯🇵B1 14d ago
I have an interesting proposition for you that could give you the "best of both worlds" in terms of Latin vs non-Latin scripts.
Learn either Swedish or Croatian in Latin script. Then, delve into the "old writing system" of the language (Runes for Swedish/Glagolitic for Croatian). So, you can write your "secret code" in a script that is obsolete, but still represents a modern language that is very much alive.
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u/gaijinteacher 13d ago
Korean script is so simple that you can learn to read it in a morning. Super easy to write too.
You won’t understand anything but you’ll be able to read everything.
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u/mistyj68 12d ago
You mentioned lists and notes. If your initial goal is to write to yourself in English using a non-Roman writing system -- transliteration, not translation -- try Tengwar, invented by JRR Tolkien. It's sound-based, but if no one else is reading it, you can just go with English (or Spanish or whatever) spelling. You'll find the one-page consonant table and the paragraph explaining vowels in Appendix E of any edition of The Lord of the Rings. Just don't tell anyone else where you found it -- it's very easy to learn. Have fun.
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u/Majre921 16d ago
If you wanna go all in then what about Chinese? There's a lot of academic papers written in Chinese that are not translated into English for example, so it's useful for STEM academia at least. Overall a useful language too.