Is Serbian the only language with phonetic alphabet?

Question

Listen, guys...
Phonetic alphabet means "one sound - one letter" and "each letter always pronounced the same".
MODERN Serbian language has 30 sounds and Serbian CYRILLIC alphabet has 30 letters, each one assigned to one sound, and which are always pronounced the same. Of course It wasn't always like that, but it is since Vuk Karadzic reformed Serbian language in 19th century. Try "Serbian language" in wikipedia - they have a nice article with basic stuffs...
Croatian language uses LATINICA, also has 30 sounds (the same ones as Serbian), and although some of the signs assigned to those sounds are combination of two letters (dz, lj, nj), when together are also always pronounced the same... so in some kind of way, ok, this language (if you like "Bosnian/Montenegrian/etc." then them, too) is also phonetic.
But Russian, Spanish... come on, people!
I'll check out those I'm not familliar with like Turkish, Arabic, those African and other languages you've mentioned, thanks for them.

Taivo, pleeeeeeeease...!!!
Yes, I believe you have a PhD, but you really MIXED UP some things and you sound really, really silly, almost unbelievable!
There's no "x" in SERBIAN LATINICA and there's no "h" in SERBIAN CIRILICA (word "srpskoxrvatski" doesn't exist).
When it's about duration of sounds, yes you're right - it is important, but then again, although vowels in Serbian can THEORETICALLY be used with 4 accents (short-long-rising-falling), we don't use signs for it 'cause there's almost never a need for that. If there's a confusing situation, like when you say "He wants to give that" - "On to zeli da da" (both "da" for "to" and "give"), you put a simbol (an arch) above the second "da" to make notice it's longer. But there is so few situations like that, that it would be really stupid to do it for every vowel in every word!
You have a good point, but you're always using it wrong: "srpskohrvatski" and "pravopis" have both "A" and "I" of exactly the same duration. Give it up!

Answer 1

Turkish is completely phonetic. I believe Spanish is (though I might be wrong). Most languages whose writing system was recently developed (examples: Tok Pisin, Inuktitut, many African or Aboriginal Australian languages) have phonetic systems.

Answer 2

Serbian Alphabet

Answer 3

You don't know what a phonetic alphabet is. A phonetic alphabet means one symbol per sound and one sound per symbol. What you mean is that it is easier to pronounce Serbian once you know the spelling rules, but their alphabet is NOT "phonetic" and no other language with a long written tradition has a "phonetic" alphabet. All alphabets start out "phonetic", but over time the spelling never keeps up with sound changes. This is true of Serbian just like it is true of English, which was quite "phonetic" 1000 years ago.

EDIT: The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has a problem with distinguishing between [x] and [h]. In a purely "phonetic" alphabet, these two sounds would be distinguished by different letters, but Serbian uses the same letter for both. In addition, long and short vowels are distinctive in Serbian, but there is no attempt in Serbian writing to distinguish between long and short vowels, thus a word like srpskoxrva:tski: is written with a and i and NOT a: and i:. Contrast this with pravopi:s where the short a is written with exactly the same letter as the long a:. Also bio where the short i is written with exactly the same letter as long i:. So Serbian violates the one sound one symbol, one symbol one sound rule.

EDIT: Sorry Kamichak. Length is a difference in sound. And ANY difference in sound, whether quality or quantity, REQUIRES a difference in symbol in order to be phonetic. The point of a phonetic system is to mark ALL differences in pronunciation. So if an orthography fails to distinguish between two DIFFERENT sounds, then it cannot be called a phonetic system. In Timbisha, for example, length is indicated by writing the vowel twice, so that that 'ke' has a short 'e' and 'heewi' has a long 'ee'. You can't do that in Serbian even though the language requires a distinction in pronunciation. I cannot say "biio" for bio, but the writing system has no way to tell me not to. Sorry, Kamichak, but you need to actually study phonetics in order to talk intelligently about it.

Answer 4

I don't know for sure... Serbian is COMPLETELY phonetic, which means one sound for one symbol, but this is only the case with cyrillic alphabet, because if you write in latin letters you use two symbols for letters nj, lj, dž etc ... but it is very close to that.

that's why Croatian is not.

Russian is not either, since they have one symbol for two sounds like je, ja jo -(Я), also in Spanish you have some letters like g or c that are not always pronounced the same (cerca, and claro)

this is not really an answer to your question since I did not mention any language which is phonetic, just corrected other answers which are wrong.

@ Taivo -- maybe you do have a phd in lingustics but you do not know anything about serbian language and alphabet

edit:

sorry Taivo wrong again...
h and x are the same letter only h in latin is exactly the same as x in cyrillic. there is no x in latin and there is no h in cyrillic.

and the lenght has nothing to do with pronunciation. It is The SAME sound, only longer or shorter. we have 4 types of accents which cover every possible way of pronouncing one letter.
and a is always a (like in car) you can NEVER pronounce it in any other way.

and please clarify what you mean by h and x sound?

edit
sorry to hear that you have to study anything so you could call your self "inteligent"!!!!!!! I will not argue any more since this is not a chat room. but still, you are wrong no matter what you have studied.

edit
@:) I think you are serbian. Sorry if I'm wrong.so because of my bad english I'll write this in our language

izvini na miniranju tvog pitanja, i upadanju u raspravu sa covekom. Ne znam kako da mu objasnim da nije u pravu a kako se raspravljati sa covekom koji tvrdi da se pravo na inteligentan razgovor stice studiranjem.

nisam lingvista vec muzicar te stoga mogu da naglasim da se ton ili zvuk razlikuje po visini (frekvenciji) boji i jacini izmedju ostalog. duzina tona ne utice nikako na njegovu boju, odnosno nacin na koji se proizvodi. to sam htela da objasnim ali ne znam kako bih na engleskom.

izvini jos jednom na miniranju.

Answer 5

OMG no!. Russian, Sanskrit, Hindi and it's 244 dialects, Bengali, Urdu all have phonetic alphabets. There are a bunch out there that have phonetic alphabets. I just can't think of any thing else right now. Except for Prakrit which is a totally dead language anyway. It was the precursor to Sanskrit.

Answer 6

there are a lot of phonetic languages
Bosnian,serbian,croatian,spanish,turkish
but probably the easiest is serbian
for me!!!

zdravo živo ljudi!!!


There is a rule
piši kao što govoriš i čitaj kako je napisano
-on english:write how you say and read how it is written
Vuk Karadžić said that




good luck!!!

Answer 7

Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish. I am sure there are many others. Its only english that is completely non - phonetic!

Answer 8

Korean is the only Asian language I know of that is phonetic, not pictures.

Answer 9

Wat abot Hrvatski ??

How about Croatian :-)