(no subject)

[lethargic_man]

BBC News today includes an article on an ancient Bactrian treasure horde thought to have been lost during the various wars in Afghanistan, but discovered unharmed.

By chance, I encountered this the day after being startled to discover an inscription by the Indian emperor Ashoka (third century BCE) in Greek and Aramaic—the latter written in an alphabet ancestral to the modern Hebrew one:

כתב אשורית by (or at least for) an Indian emperor, who'da thunk it?

The sad news is that this inscription, formerly located in the Kabul Museum, has now disappeared.

In other, related, news, I'm giving thought to teaching myself the Arabic alphabet (also descended from above Aramaic alphabet, though very different today): it's very frustrating seeing Arabic and not being able to read it without transliteration for the purposes of cognate-hunting...

Comments

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

The first one looks like Greek, the second one more like Aramaic letters as we use it in Hebrew. I just want to check if I understood it.
The Iranians adopted Arabic letters but they changed it for their pronounciation. I actually had a small book for Persian. They explain the letters at the start and substitute them with Latin letters that we can read it. The problem with Persian is that not all words are pronounced the way they written. It is not just the problem with the non-written vowels. Arabic is easier to read if you know the letters. I heard they write the vowels which the Persian only ad in Children's books like the Israelis do with Hebrew.
Many Iranians cannot read. My mum has troubles as well. But she has an excuse. She did not grow up in Iran and never went to school there. In school they learn most of the time reading which the most difficult thing to learn.