Writing

Greek Writing 

The Greek language is written by using the Greek alphabet as script.

It has 24 letters, all letters have a capital and a small writing form, the Sigma letter has also a 3^rd writing form for called “ending Sigma” and it is only used when the word ends with the sigma letter. The Greek alphabet has been use since the 8th century b.c. and is based on old Phoenician alphabet which is based on Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

Greek Alphabet :

Phoenician alphabet :       

Prior to the Greek alphabet the Greek language was written in Linear B but this method of writing was lost after the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization.

Sample Linear B Writing:     

The pronunciation of the Greek letters has changed a lot over the years, during the Byzantine era the introduction of multiple Diacritics ( sign which when written above or below a letter indicates a difference in pronunciation) was made to Greek writing for poly tonic spelling that helped the pronunciation of words.   This lasted until 1982 when monotonic orthography was adopted.

Poly-tonic and Monotonic Writing :     

 The number of Diacritics was reduced to two, one to mark the stressed syllable in polysyllabic words and one to indicate that the vowel is not part of the digraph . A digraph is a pair of letters used write a sound or a combination of sounds that doesn't correspond to letters in sequence for example “NT” is pronounced “D”.

Filimon
  

Kannada Writing

Kannada language spoken in south of India .Across the world around 44 million speak Kannada language. It is predominantly spoken in state of Karnataka in India .Kannada language is know to exists much before 3 BC.

Kannada is written using Kannada script. It has 49 letters and is composed of 14 vowels and 25 consonants.There are no upper case and lowercase letters rather vowels has short and long pronunciation version of letter. 

Vowels:

ಅ

ಆ

ಇ

ಈ

ಉ

ಊ

ಋ

ೠ

ಎ

ಏ

ಐ

ಒ

ಓ

ಔ

ಅಂ

ಅಃ

a

ā

i

ī

Ou

oū

ru

rū

ye

Yē

ai

o

ō

au

aom

ahā

Consonants:

ಕ (ka)	ಖ (kha)	ಗ (ga)	ಘ (gha)	ಙ (nga)
ಚ (cha)	ಛ (chha)	ಜ (ja)	ಝ (jha)	ಞ (ña)
ಟ (ṭa)	ಠ (ṭha)	ಡ (ḍa)	ಢ (ḍha)	ಣ (ṇa)
ತ(ta)	ಥ (ṭha)	ದ (ḍa)	ಧ (dha)	ನ (na)
ಪ(pa)	ಫ (pha)	ಬ (pha)	ಭ (bha)	ಮ (ma)
ಯ(ya)	ರ (ra)	ಲ (la)	ವ (va)	ಶ (śa)	ಷ(sa)	ಸ(sa)	ಹ(ha)	ಳ(la)

Diacritics can appear above, below, before or after the consonants.alphabets which has combination of vowels and consonants are written with extra strokes above or next to or  top or below the letters.

Below is the sample writing of Kannada with few diacritics where my friend Emilio from Spain writing "Hello, I am Emilio" :)

Bindya 

Flying Kites

Kite flying on clean Monday

In Greece it is tradition on the Monday after carnival to fly a kite. This Monday is called clean Monday because it is the day fasting starts for the Orthodox Christians, that will last for 40 days until Easter.

The flying of the kite represents the freedom of the human soul and that it belongs into the sky, so every Clean Monday if the weather is good people out and fly kites.

Filimon

Kite Festival in India

Flying kite is a fun sport played across India. Different state of India associate with different festival and time , of which most popular is flying kites during festival of Uttarayana ( Makara Sankranthi).  This day marks transition of the sun into Capricorn zodiac sign  (Makar = Capricorn, Sankranti = transition) and thus ending winter season and begins the arrival of the spring in India.

On this occasion people gather around terrace or roof tops with friends and families to fly the kites.The skies can be seen filled with the colorful and different shapes of  beautiful kites soaring high. Major kite festivals are organized across country at Rajasthan, Delhi and Gujarath

The main competition is to battle nearby kite-flyers to cut their strings and bring down their kites.For this the kites are attached to a spool of manja, special kite-string coated with a mixture of glue and glass to be as sharp as possible for cutting strings of rival kites. Kite cutting contest are organized where participants try cutting each others kite strings.

People also enjoy friendly pass time just flying their kites up in sky .


Bindya

Flying kites are for summer

In Spain we don't have any particular holiday or event for flying kites. But they are usually seen in summer months. When people gather at the beach, they enjoy playing tennis, sand castles and flying kites. When you are tired, you can tie it to the beach umbrella or chair, and it keeps flying.

Some years ago in some beaches, a man sold small planes made of light white cork that were very nice.

Emilio