update

okay, ignore the Korean part in our Around The World blog, I'm pretty sure that's Japanese. I didn't notice it when I got the picture. Sorry for the confusion. I'll help later. Bye.

--Kenzie

The alphabets of the many different languages part 2

Hey, everyone! Okay, so, in the last post, I showed you guys the alphabets for...okay, whatever, I'm not gonna tell you, you can just check it out yourself.

For this second part of the blog, I'm going to start off by showing you the French alphabet:

Just like ours. Except for the pronunciation...which, reminds me, I left off something with our German alphabet: when you see a word or name that starts off with 'J' it is not pronounced 'J', it is 'yuh'. Same thing goes for Norse and Swedish, and such.

With that note, we'll be going onto our next alphabet. Let's talk about the Norse alphabet:

Okay, technically, it is an alphabet. This, readers, is a written language referred to as "runes". Back in the old days of Scandinavia (meaning from when they first had a written language to some part past the viking age) this was what they used. 

Believe me, one day, you might see a rune in a book, or see it somewhere else (with me as writer, it's a guarantee). Or you and a friend can learn it, and talk to each other via notes in case you don't want your snoopy siblings to read your letters or even your diary!

See, this stuff is useful!

Alright, I should teach you guys the actual Nordic alphabet - the ones they use in the modern day.

As a piece of advice, roll the "r" a bit. Not like how you roll it in Spanish, exactly, but, still kind of roll it. Danish is basically the same thing.

Next up would be Icelandic, just to spice things up a little:

I can't exactly tell you what that weird symbol is that's by the Z...I'll get back to you all on that one, at some point in the future.

Okay, so the next part of this post will be:

Arabic! Yeah, it's a bit complicated (okay, for some people, it might be a bit of an understatement, no?). As for advice for remembering some of the letters, when isolated, the 'b' looks kind  of like a sort of necklace. And for t and th, well, am I the only one seeing happy faces here? And s, or shin, looks like a kitty face :3, while the other s looks like a leash of some sort. Q also looks a bit like a happy face when in final, and the medial of 'h' looks like a fly to me...

I could be totally wrong with how they look to you all, but, I'm saying how I can interpret them into memory, as a way to help you guys and help try and simplify it a bit, perhaps?

Let's move onto our next alphabet of:

Greek. Yep, we may remember somewhat learning about the alphabet from grade school. We, at the very least, remember omega, alpha, beta, gamma, zeta, delta, because of fraternities and sororities and pack names for wolves (the alpha/beta wolves), possibly epsilon because of "epsilon delta", and we should ALL remember pi - because it's in algebra. And we use the lowercase writing of "pi" as the symbol for 3.14!

To remember the others, it's easier to associate them with things. 

Like, take Kappa for instance. Kappa, for Greek, would represent K. Well, in Japanese folklore, there's a creature called a Kappa. It's a seadwelling creature, that looks like a cross between a turtle and a duck (or, as according to wikipedia, a gigantic salamander -- it all depends on the artwork you see, to be honest).So, when you try to remember what the letter was called, whenever you're writing something, just think: "Okay, so a water-dwelling Japanese monster....it's either like at turtle-duck hybrid or a giant salamander..." you might remember Kappa. As for chi, which would represent X, just remember all those martial-art related movies you love; chi plays the biggest part in those movies.

As for Mu and Nu -- think of a mu-mu and nu-nu, whatever a nu-nu is...I think it's some sort of name for a grandparent, but, I could be totally off.

Okay, moving on!

This would be the Hungarian alphabet. I don't believe it's as complicated as some languages, but, memorizing it might take time for some people. Especially with D, Dz, and Dzs, and trying to remember the pronunciation of the vowels with different markings over their letters. As soon as I find out more about those, I will explain - and if any of you know, please tell me, because I'm wanting to learn about those markings in particular.

Okay, the last thing we will learn about today is:

Korean. Yeah, I had to - it's a language worth learning about, even if it takes a long time to figure out. This one...well, I don't know much about it, myself, but, I'm learning (like I said -- this is a freaking freshman working this blog, I don't know every language). If any of you readers who speak Korean can give me advice on this, please comment on either my profile or this post, so I can share the knowledge with others.

Alright, so, that is all we have for today. More will be added as we go on, so, til next time!

--Kenzie

The alphabets of many different langauges part 1

Hello my lovely readers, it's time for our first post, we will be discussing the many different alphabets and writing styles around the world (for the most part).

Now, first off, we all know the English Alphabet, that's not too hard. It's just a simple twenty-six letters, that most people can understand.

Now, let's go look at something perhaps a bit more complicated. With Japanese writing, things are a bit more complicated writings - mostly, because there are three freaking ways to write. There's Hiragana, Katakana, and then there's Kanji, which, really, isn't exactly an alphabet, but it's still a way of writing.

Examples of Hiragana and Katakana is shown down here:

(this picture's also on a website called blog.asiahotels.com, should be easy to find - if you see a page with this picture and "Nihongo for Dummies" you've found it!)

One of the best practices, in my opinion, of learning how to write in these styles, is trying to write your own name. For example, my full name is "MacKenzie". So, if I were to write it in Hiragana I would take out the Ma, the Ke, the n, and, while it doesn't show it on here, add "Ji". So, my name would be turned from "MacKenzie" to "Makenji".

It's one of the best practices there is.

Now, that we have that, let's look at Russian. I'll show you Chinese/Mandarin in a little while - I'm saving it for later, for the reason that it will give you a headache trying to read, if you're anything like me. Too many symbols...

Okay, ready to see the Russian alphabet? Here you go:

Brain hurting from this? Yeah, Russian is definitely a bit of a complicated language, but, with some determination, it's easy to learn!

For memorization practices, kind of think of this: for A, K, T, and M are the same as in English. If it helps for some of  you, make acronyms for them or try to find a way to make words out of them. Memorize P because of Pie, because, in my opinion, it kind of does look like the Pie symbol. Z is 3, so, just rhyme it. Z 3, Z 3, etc. O basically looks like a 0, so, that might be a good way to remember it. As for others, you'll have to come up with them yourself, because you know how you memorize stuff better than anyone.

Okay, now, let's look at German, because it is slightly easier:

See, not too bad is it? It's pretty similar to English, except for the ones with umlouts over them, as well as a couple others at the bottom. They have different pronunciations than others. Such as the ones with umlouts over them. Instead of "A" being "A" or "Ah" it would be something like "Ae" or "ae".  And that B looking letter that's next to the little umlout is "esse" which, is pronounced like "essay".

For the last letterings of this part, let's look at Mandarin, which, is the one that's going to make your brain hurt a little;

Okay this is one of the more easier ways to show you the alphabet. I'm pretty sure there might be some other letterings, but, this is just a basic run-through here.

Some of you might think it's a little bit similar to Japanese. That's because Japan adopted it's writing style from China, but, they added some differences, so, they're not the same thing.

Well, that covers about this section of this series of alphabets. Next time, I'll try and cover some more, such as maybe French or Italian or Spanish.

If any of you have any suggestions to make for future posts, want to share your knowledge with me, or want to request to see something next post for a written language, leave a comment on my Google+ page or just wherever. 

I'll see you guys next time. So, till we meet again, peace out!

--Kenzie 

About this blog

Hello all.

Alright, so the purpose of this blog is learning about different cultures, all over the world, as you can obviously tell from the blog's name.

In this blog, you will be seeing posts that contain history (meaning, not the history you really get to learn in class, but, the history that you have to learn for yourself), and things like mythology, ritual dances, arts, music, festivals, and even how different holidays are celebrated in different countries, and also some languages. Unfortunately, my linguistic skills are somewhat limited (my defense being it takes a while to really learn different languages, and me only being in high school, so, cut me some slack, guys!), but, as I learn more and more, then I will teach you guys what I know (or attempt to).
For the moment, some of my knowledge of different cultures will be mostly those of the countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. African and Middle-eastern countries will be added, but, I myself am currently still learning about those locations.

Now, this isn't just going to be some boring old blog, where I just write down a bunch of stuff, and say "And that's that." I'll also be adding videos, and pictures, and just whatever else seems to be interesting and enjoyable to you readers.

The first of our many lessons will hopefully be posted sometime this week, so, I hope o se you all again then!

---Kenzie