Scripts, religion, and ideology
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[1] College of Staten Island
College of Staten Island
Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Word: Journal of the International Linguistic Association, ISSN-e 2373-5112, ISSN 0043-7956, Vol. 65, Nº 3, 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Language and Religion), págs. 179-184
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Religion often determines the choice of alphabets. So do other ideological factors that have impact on religious ones—such as nationalism and Marxism. Opposition to the influence of religion led Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to switch the spelling of Turkish and Judeo-Spanish from Arabic and Hebrew letters to Latin characters. Nationalism led Romania to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to Latin characters. Marxist regimes did not switch alphabets and writing systems but altered them. Thus, many Chinese characters were simplified by Chairman Mao. And in the Soviet Union, Yiddish words of Hebrew origin were spelled phonetically rather than traditionally, and final forms of letters were eliminated. In each of these and other cases discussed in this article, belief or identity was reflected in the writing systems of these various languages.
