2007-11-19 02:35:26 · 5 answers · asked by kathyfaye03 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
none - look at chinese, japanese, korean writing
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2007-11-19 02:40:42 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Before I answer, one or two things to clear up.
Chinese is not an alphabet, it is a script. An alphabet is a specific kind of script, where letters represent phonemes (a specific isolated sound) rather than a combination of sounds, ideas and syllables (like Chinese). All alphabets, except Korean, are related. For instance, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet (beth), correspond to the second letter of the Greek Alphabet (beta), which correspond to the second letter of the Roman alphabet (the letter "b"), all orginally representing the same or similar sound. Arabic, Cyrillic, and the alphabets of India and Thailand are also distantly related, even though they look very different today. All these related alphabets have many letters in common, but over time they shifted values and expanded, to suit the need of the particular language. "b" is quite universally used, but maybe a user of one these alphabets can tell us otherwise. Languages like Spanish and Greek have combined and/or swapped the "b" and "v" sounds, but the origin is quite clear. The precursor of the letter "a" is found in other alphabets like Hebrew "alef", but there, allthough it is still the first letter, it represents a different sound. The Hebrew and Arabic alphabets do not have letters that represent vowels.
There is one sound, that is used in all of the world's languages, whether they are written with an alphabet or not. It is the "t" sound. There are no languages without it, and all languages that use alphabets, will have a letter for it.
2007-11-19 10:55:46 · answer #2 · answered by kwaaikat 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are certain letters that do appear in multiple alphabets with nearly the same pronouciation. The letter "A" is probably the most universal. It is pronounced as in "father" in most languages, and written the same in Latin (our alphabet), Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages), and Greek. Additionally, there is an "alef" character in both Arabic and Hebrew that, although written differently, represent the "A" sound. I'm sure there are others as well.
2007-11-19 10:57:56 · answer #3 · answered by Joel 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
None as far as I know, strictly speaking. This is taken on the definition of a letter being the symbol and not the sound of the letter.
2007-11-19 10:40:43 · answer #4 · answered by Pirate AM™ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the letter A
2007-11-19 23:12:51 · answer #5 · answered by tom g 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋