Languages Identification Guide

Languages Identification Guide

R. S. Gilyarevsky
V. S. Grivnin

Nauka

No one can easily find his bearings in the staggering linguistic variety of the contemporary world unless he has a special linguistic education. However, the mounting spate of books, magazines and newspapers published in all languages of the world demands that librarians, bibliographers, newsmen, editors, book sellers and all others concerned with printed matter in different languages should be able to identify the language of a printed work without being familiar with this language. It is this need that the present book is intended to meet. The identification of an unknown ...

Contents

Preface / 5

The Languages of the Nations of the Soviet Union / 9
The Languages of the Nations of Other Countries / 85
The Languages of the Nations of Europe / 87
The Languages of the Nations of Asia and Oceania / 133
The Languages of the Nations of Africa / 221
The Languages of the Nations of America / 247
International Artificial Languages / 265
Indices and Tables / 273
Types of Scripts and Languages Using Them / 275
Ancient Systems of Script / 290
Additional Letters / 297
Additional Letters of the Russian Script Languages / 297
Languages Whose Alphabets Contain Additional Letters of the Russian Script / 299
Additional Letters of the Latin Script Languages / 301
Languages Whose Alphabets Contain Additional Letters of the Latin Script / 305
Characteristic Letter Combinations and Auxiliary Words of Some Languages / 307
Languages with Some Characteristic Letter Combinations and Auxiliary Words / 318
Types of the Gothic Script / 322
Types of the Latin Script / 323
Development of the Letters of the Latin Script / 326
Dbvelopment of the Letters of the Greek Script / 327
The Alphabets of Kanarese and Telugu / 328
The Alphabets of Syriac / 329
Figures of Some Eastern Languages / 330
Geographic Distribution of Languages / 331
Genealogical Classification of Languages / 338
Alphabetic Index of Languages / 345

PREFACE

No one can easily find his bearings in the staggering linguistic variety of the contemporary world unless he has a special linguistic education. However, the mounting spate of books, magazines and newspapers published in all languages of the world demands that librarians, bibliographers, newsmen, editors, book sellers and all others concerned with printed matter in different languages should be able to identify the language of a printed work without being familiar with this language. It is this need that the present book is intended to meet. The identification of an unknown foreign language by some external signs is based on the fact that nearly each language has in writing some graphic characteristics distinguishing it from all other or kindred languages. Some alphabets are used only in one language, while others in several languages each of which may, however, contain special letters, diacritic signs or auxiliary words not to be found in any other languages.

The present guide comprises more than two hundred languages in which nearly all of the world's printed matter is published. The number includes those ancient languages which played an important role in the development of national cultures and the lettering of which became basic to some modern alphabets.

Structurally, the guide consists of three parts: “The Languages of the Nations of the Soviet Union”, “The Languages of the Nations of Other Countries” and “International Artificial Languages”. In the second part the languages are grouped into the following sections: “The Languages of the Nations of Europe”, “The Languages of the Nations of Asia and Oceania”, “The Languages of the Nations of Africa” and “The Languages of the Nations of America”. This grouping is conventional, of course, since some languages are widespread in several parts of the world: thus, English is used widely in Europe and also in America and Australia. Inside each section, the languages are classified by the script used (Russian, Latin, Arabic, Devanagary, etc.). Within each script the languages are distributed by their distinctive graphic characteristics.

A text sample is given for each language to represent the most characteristic peculiarities of its printed form. For the languages using several alphabets all of them are given if they are all used widely enough. Otherwise only the most widespread alphabet is given while all the others are mentioned in the explanatory notes.

The alphabets of all languages using letter-sound scripts are given in the guide. All additional letters and diacritic signs of each language and partly its phonetic inventory are indicated. The only exception is made for the better known West-European languages (such as French or German) in which these letters and signs are not, traditionally, included into the alphabet. In the alphabets given for each language and their comparison with the alphabets of the languages of similar scripts, no indication is made of letters which are not characteristic of the orthography of the language described and occur very rarely in borrowed words. All deviations in the Russian script languages are indicated as compared with the alphabet of the Russian language, the same in the Latin- script languages as compared with the alphabet of Latin, and those in the Arabic-script languages as compared with the alphabet of Arabic.

The explanatory notes indicate the graphic peculiarities and distinctive characteristics of each language, the region where it is used, the number of people using it as well as its place in the genealogical classification of languages. The concluding section of the book contains summary tables of scripts, alphabets and figure notations; for the sake of convenience the languages are indexed in the alphabetic order and schemes showing their genealogical classification and geographic distribution are appended at the end of the book.

The following procedure is recommended:
(a) Open the table “Types of Scripts and Languages Using Them” (p. 277) and establish by comparison the script of the sample you want to identify.
(b) If only one language proves to use this script, refer to the Alphabetic Index of Languages (p. 348) to find on what page this language is sampled in the guide.

(c) Compare the sample to be identified with the sample in the guide. Pay attention to the additional letters mentioned in the explanatory note, i. e., the letters which distinguish the language from other languages using the same script. Check your text for other distinctive characteristics or typical peculiarities.

(d) If several languages prove to use the same script (e. g., Russian, Latin or Arabic), pay attention to the characteristic letters (such as letters with diacritic subscripts or superscripts) and using the table “Additional Letters” (p. 299, 303), establish in what language(s) these letters occur.
(e) If the above graphic peculiarities of the text to be identified are insufficient, use the table “Characteristic Letter Combinations and Auxiliary Words of Some Languages" (p. 309).

(f) If you know where the text under study is published, use also the table “Geographic Distribution of Languages” (p. 334).
(g) Use the same operation as indicated in (c).

It should be borne in mind that some characteristics indicated in the guide occur rather rarely and therefore it is recommended to scan considerable passages of the text to be identified. It will be recalled that the text to be identified may contain foreign words (especially proper names) or even whole sentences. If old printed works are identified, it should be kept in mind that the guide reflects mostly contemporary printed matter (the texts are taken mainly from works published between 1950 and 1962).

Approximate solutions are only possible in some rare cases when the languages to be identified have no sufficiently clear external distinctive characteristics. In this case only a specialist can determine accurately which of the likely languages is used in the sample to be identified.

The Languages of The Nations of The Soviet Union

Abazin / 20
Abkhasian / 18—19
Adighe / 21
Altaic (Oirot) / 55
Armenian / 78—79
Avar / 26
Azerbaijani / 47
Balkar / 58
Bashkir / 49
Buryat / 64
Byelorussian / 13
Chechen / 24
Chukcha (Luoravetlan) / 70
Chuvash / 46
Dargwa / 27
Dungan / 69
Eskimo / 73
Estonian / 77
Even (Lamtit) / 67
Evenki (Tungus) / 66
Finnish (Soinian) / 76
Gagauzi /56
Georgian (Kartvellian) / 80—81
Ingush / 25
Kabardian (Circassian) / 22—23
Kalmyck / 65
Karachai / 57
Kara-Kalpak / 51
Kazakh / 53
Khakass / 63
Khanty (Ostyak) / 32—35
Kirghiz / 54
Komi (Permian) / 37
Komi (Zvrvan) / 36
Koryak (Nymylan) / 71
Kumyk /50
Kurdish / 15
Lak / 30'
Lettish / 75
Lesghin / 28
Lithuanian / 74
Mansi (Vogul) / 31
Mari (Cheremiss) / 39—40
Moldavian 14
Mordvin-Erzya / 41
Mordvin-Moksha / 42
Nanai (Gold) / 68
Nenets (Samoyed. Yurak) / 43
Nivkh (Gilyakj / 72
Nogai / 52
Ossetic / 17
Russian / 11
Selkup (Ostyak, Samoyed) / 44
Tabassaran / 29
Tajik / 16
Tatar / 48
Touvinian (Soyot, Uryankhai) / 62
Turkmen / 46
Udmurt (Votyak) / 38
Uiguri / 60
Ukrainian / 12
Uzbek / 59
Yakut (Sakha) / 61
Yiddish / 82—83

R. S. Gilyarevsky
V. S. Grivnin

Languages Identification Guide

Nauka

Nauka Publishing
Languages Identification Guide
R. S. Gilyarevsky
V. S. Grivnin

"Nauka” Publishing House
Languages
Identification Guide

"Nauka” Publishing House
Central Department of Oriental Literature
Moscow 1970

4-03
P 47

Translated from the Russian
by Lev Navrozov

Editor
Prof. G. P. Serdyuchenko
7-1-5
237-70