Writing System
In the Nauruan written language, 17 letters were originally used:
- The five vowels: a, e, i, o, u
- Twelve consonants: b, d, g, j, k, m, n, p, q, r, t, w
The letters c, f, h, l, s, v, x, y and z were not included. With the growing influence of foreign languages (most of all German, Tok Pisin and Kiribati) more letters were incorporated into the Nauruan alphabet. In addition, phonetic differences of a few vowels arose, so that umlauts and other similar sounding sounds were indicated with a tilde.
Read more about this topic: Nauruan Language
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or system:
“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm’s way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)