When you think about it, this makes sense, due to the way the brain works. I would never have thought to try it though.
14 Comments
??? ????? ?????
hmm, looks like wordpress doesn’t do Hebrew fonts in replies well. Odd, I’ve seen wordpress blogs with those letters in entries…
?p??pu? ?u??s????u? ???? ‘?u??s????u?
????????
Oh well, I gave it a try…
Ελληνικα? It’s Greek to me.
(Gotta use HTML coding… ampersand, number sign, the character code, and a semicolon. Real PITA.)
Greek? PITA? I see what you did there. 😉
(/me hides head in shame)
I tried to keep it secret, honest! 😉
Hebrew for bread is “pat”, similar to “pita”
(Especially since Hebrew writing has no vowels. That sounds odd, but it happens to work OK when a language, such as Hebrew or Arabic, has consonantal roots; i.e. words have similar meanings depending on three consonants of the word in Hebrew and many other Semetic languages.)
I have no idea how to spell “pat” or anything else Hebrew in HTML btw, I suppose it’s possible, what does it use, unicode?
Hmm, according to the great wiki, the similarity is a coincidence:
Yes, it’s Unicode. And it doesn’t really surprise me about only-consonant words being readable, most English words are recognizable without vowels too.
True, but all words in Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semetic languages are totally recognizable without vowels, and without much of a chance of confusing the word. Even without context helping out, or guessing needed.
Like I said, this is because of the tri-consonental root – the very meaning of words is closely related to their spelling in consonants. (This possibly is why Semetic languages were the first with a phonetic alphabet – it is just as natural a fit as ideograms for such languages; since after all, the spelling of the word is related to the meaning just as much as a series of pictures would be.)
??? ????? ?????
hmm, looks like wordpress doesn’t do Hebrew fonts in replies well. Odd, I’ve seen wordpress blogs with those letters in entries…
?p??pu? ?u??s????u? ???? ‘?u??s????u?
????????
Oh well, I gave it a try…
Ελληνικα? It’s Greek to me.
(Gotta use HTML coding… ampersand, number sign, the character code, and a semicolon. Real PITA.)
Greek? PITA? I see what you did there. 😉
(/me hides head in shame)
I tried to keep it secret, honest! 😉
Hebrew for bread is “pat”, similar to “pita”
(Especially since Hebrew writing has no vowels. That sounds odd, but it happens to work OK when a language, such as Hebrew or Arabic, has consonantal roots; i.e. words have similar meanings depending on three consonants of the word in Hebrew and many other Semetic languages.)
I have no idea how to spell “pat” or anything else Hebrew in HTML btw, I suppose it’s possible, what does it use, unicode?
Hmm, according to the great wiki, the similarity is a coincidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pita#Etymology
Yes, it’s Unicode. And it doesn’t really surprise me about only-consonant words being readable, most English words are recognizable without vowels too.
True, but all words in Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semetic languages are totally recognizable without vowels, and without much of a chance of confusing the word. Even without context helping out, or guessing needed.
Like I said, this is because of the tri-consonental root – the very meaning of words is closely related to their spelling in consonants. (This possibly is why Semetic languages were the first with a phonetic alphabet – it is just as natural a fit as ideograms for such languages; since after all, the spelling of the word is related to the meaning just as much as a series of pictures would be.)