I just realized, having watched two M*A*S*H episodes fairly close together, that the same word is used in each, and both conversations involved a prisoner. The word sounds remarkably like "polio". Does that mean prisoner?

I did not try to look this up on-line because of my experience trying to look up the sounds of Japanese words: all I got were sites offering Japanese characters.

I looked at an English-Korean-English dictionary online, and the result for prisoner included 포로 (polo. Seems close.

Korean has one of the best orthographies in Asia IMHO.

In the whole world, as far as that goes.

what makes it so?

It's pretty much one to one in its correspondence of symbol to sound and the characters themselves were designed rather than just happening and they bear at least some correspondence to what is going on in the mouth when the sound is spoken. I'm sure Nuncle Z can explicate in greater detail, complete with examples.

devanagari is 'pretty much one to one in its correspondence of symbol to sound' but this idea is fascinating. a symbol that is somehow related to the mechanics of producing the sound it represents? truly interesting.

Devanagari, and other Brahmi-based scripts come close, though there are little ad hoc kludges and some inconsistencies. Another script which tried to tie the manner and place of articulation in which the phone shape was the conscript Tengwar by JRR Tolkien (link). Hangul was designed by a royal committee of scholars solely for use with the Korean language. Devanagari evolved from Brahmi script and was adapted to different languages with different phonoligcal inventories (like most writing systems in the world).

like the way that pronouncing the name of the most famous building in all india the way it is spelled would give you away as a non-native speaker?

zmjezhd, i forgot to ask if you could expand on faldage's comment about the korean characters having something to do with what goes on in mouth when making them?

could [you] expand on faldage's comment about the korean characters having something to do with what goes on in mouth when making them?

Here's a better explanation than I can do: link. Basically, different parts of the composite glyphs map to manner and place of articulation (link) and other features such as aspiration. Besides Tengwar and hangul, there are some other featural alphabets (link), such as Shavian and Visible Speech.

that is really interesting. what happens as the language that the script represents changes? redesign?

what happens as the language that the script represents changes? redesign?

I suppose that as words change in pronunciation, their "spelling" will change. (Something which did not happen in English after Chaucer's time basically.) If the phonology of the language changes, i suppose new characters could be designed. Not sure how the folks at the Unicode consortium will feel about that.

And, by the way, how do you pronounce ताज महल? I've always said /taʤ məhəl/. Do you say it with a /z/ instead of a /ʤ/? (And, now that I think about it, my त is more alveolar than purely dental.)

my comment was not so much about the 'consonants' as the vowels. although hindi in devnagri is closer to that 1 sound per syllable thing than say english written in roman is, a stricter representation of the sound of the महल would be महेल or possibly महैल. Firangi tend to overcorrect and say it as if it were ताज माहाल. I was watching an old movie the other day and a native speaker used that pronunciation when speaking Hindi which REALLY surprised me because normally even when speaking English native speakers say it as described above.

that should be 1 sound per symbol not per syllable. tried editing but it was going to mangle the devnagri

ot so much about the 'consonants' as the vowels

Hmm. So are you talking about the pronunciation in Persian (Farsi), Urdu, or Hindi? The Wikipedia article on Mumtaz Mahal (née Arjumand Banu Begum) gives /mumtɑːz mɛhɛl/ (link) as a pronunciation. (I really must learn the Perso-Arabic alphabet someday, so I can look things up in Persian or Urdu.) I actually hear most anglophones say it as ताज महाल. (By the way, I have always liked the term Firang for European, via Perisan and Arabic from Latin Francus 'Frank'.)

its not very politically correct to admit this in today's India but I love the Persian influence on Hindi. When I listen to spoken Persian I enjoy being teased by the fragments that I recognise.

the term Firang for European Firang meaning foreigner?
Thanks for the response to my OP.

Firang meaning foreigner?

In Arabic, I think the meaning was 'European' as in the crusaders. In Persian, it seems to have been extended to mean non-Persians. You may be familiar with another spelling ferengi.

And, in re OP, yw.