Does anyone know what language this is?

[cescaxo]

Hello.. I stumbled upon this note and I was wondering what it says..

I have no idea what language it is, I think it may be arabic.. not sure


[tinypic.com...]

[lucy24]

Why on earth would it be Arabic? It's clearly written in devanagari or some close relative thereof, and there's no hint that the script is being used to render a non-Indic language.

I'd start by finding someone who reads Hindi, since that's the likeliest guess. If it isn't that, they'll be able to tell you what language it is in.

:: idly wondering why the jpg is rotated 90° counterclockwise in the tinypic link, while if I download and open directly, it's correctly aligned ::

Now go tell your friends that it's rude to write notes in languages the recipient doesn't know ;)

Edit: I could swear the last two lines say (in Roman) "L-" something and "R-" something. What the bleep?

[cescaxo]

I found this note in a packaged box that was sent from India. I do not know anyone that can read any middle eastern languages..

Thanks though

[piatkow]

Doesn't look like Arabic to me and if its from India then there is definitely no reason why it should be.

I am no expert and usually see non European scripts in type rather than manuscript but like Lucy would go for Hindi as the first guess. Knowing that "code-switching" isn't unusual among educated Indians could the L and R mean left and right or am I reading too much into it?

Somebody from the sub continent should be able to identify the script for you even if they can't translate.

[lucy24]

There are certainly plenty of people hereabouts who read Hindi.

:: insert boilerplate about negative consequences of privileging one national language above all others, rather as if everyone in Switzerland were expected to do their business in German ::

You just need to alert them to "Psst! It isn't an unknown language to you, just to us." :)

Doesn't look like Arabic to me and if its from India then there is definitely no reason why it should be.

If it came from India but used Arabic script, I would assume it's in Urdu. But it isn't, so there's no need to consider the possibility.

[topr8]

>>I found this note in a packaged box that was sent from India. I do not know anyone that can read any middle eastern languages..

just an aside ... india isn't in the middle east.

[lucy24]

I think the rest of us were sitting on our hands w/r/t this particular turn of phrase-- if only to avoid asking what, exactly, "middle eastern languages" means. Best guess: Semitic languages (today mainly Arabic and Hebrew), with an outside option on Iranian.

[incrediBILL]

Install Hindu on your computer, then run it through your scanner's OCR and upload the results to Google translator ;)

I'm only half joking:
[androidcentral.com...]

Google Translate adds Hindi and Thai handwriting input, camera input for four more languages

If you have a modern android phone on tablet, give that a try.

If you have an Apple phone or tablet, that's nice.