Writing
Yaghnobi was a scriptless language until 1990s, but according to Andreyev some of the Yaghnobi mullahs used the Arabic alphabet for writing the Yaghnobi language before 1928, mainly when they needed to hide some information from the Tajiks. Nowadays the language is transcribed by scholars using a modified Latin alphabet, with the following symbols:
a (á), ā (ā́), b, č, d, e (é), f, g, ɣ, h, ḥ, i (í), ī (ī́), ǰ, k, q, l, m (m̃), n (ñ), o (ó), p, r, s, š, t, u (ú), ū (ū́), ʏ (ʏ́), v, w (u̯), x, x°, y, z, ž, ع
In recent times Sayfiddīn Mīrzozoda from the Tajik Academy of Sciences uses a modified Tajik alphabet for writing Yaghnobi. This alphabet is quite unsuitable for Yaghnobi—it does not distinguish short and long vowels, the difference v/w or does not mark stress etc. Yaghnobi alphabet follows with Latin equivalents given in parenthesis:
А а (a) Б б (b) В в (v) Ԝ ԝ (w) Г г (g) Ғ ғ (ɣ) Д д (d) Е е (e/ye) Ё ё (yo) Ж ж (ž) З з (z) И и (i, ī) Ӣ ӣ (ī) й (y) К к (k) Қ қ (q) Л л (l) М м (m) Н н (n) О о (o) П п (p) Р р (r) С с (s) Т т (t) У у (u, ū, ʏ) Ӯ ӯ (ū, ʏ) Ф ф (f) Х х (x) Хԝ хԝ (x°) Ҳ ҳ (h, ḥ) Ч ч (č) Ҷ ҷ (ǰ) Ш ш (š) Ъ ъ (ع) Э э (e) Ю ю (yu, yū, yʏ) Я я (ya)
Read more about this topic: Yaghnobi Language
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist—nothing shields him from the world’s gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix himself up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“England has the most sordid literary scene I’ve ever seen. They all meet in the same pub. This guy’s writing a foreword for this person. They all have to give radio programs, they have to do all this just in order to scrape by. They’re all scratching each other’s backs.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)