Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1916-05-19
ODD NEWSPAPERS

Newspapers From Distant Lands Oddities
of the Foreign Press
The Chamberlain Medicine Company,
Des Moines. Iowa, manufacturers of
Cough Remedy, adver.
tise not only in this country but in
forign lands. A copy of each issue of
every newspaper containing their ad.
ia sent to the Office of the
Medicine Company as
proof of the insertion Of the adver-
tisement. The Star is in receipt Of a
bundle of them and some of the papers
bear names of places, which require
one to recall forgotten geography or
refer to the atlas to locate. Some of
them are particularly curious as they
are published in the vernacular or
native languages which might be liken-
ed to the carefully written notes Of
shorthand writer.
Here are the we'll known Chinese
arranged in vertical lines
reading from top to bottom, the lines
arranged from right to left.
The Burmese language, as printed is
principally of q combination
of circles. Some one wittily suggested
that for this reason circulars would be
properly printed in this language.
Cingalese, the language of Ceylon, is
also curvilinear. Jsvsnese and Siamese
are composed largely of vertical lines
connected by loops at either top or
bottom but rarely at both. These
languages bear some resemblance to
the vertical writing now prscticed in
our public schools.
The four hundred million people of
India have nearly fifty different dia-
lects or vernaculars. The Chamberlain
Medicine Company advertises in ten of
the principal ones as follows: Bengali,
Gujurathi, Hindi, Kanarese, Ma
layalam, Marsthi, Sindhi. Tamil
TeleRu and Urdu. The Sindhi and
Urdu are written from right to left in
the Hebrew fashion. The Urdu is q
sort Of script and is so chaotic in
shape that it is impossible to reduce it
to the movable type form. Papers
printed in the Urdu language are
therefore first written out by hand and
q plate made by the lithograph process
The "Oudh Akhbar," a sixteen page
daily published at Lucknow in this
language, claims circulation Of about
5000. 1t is said that in order to handle
this circulation it requires an office
force of about 200. Fortunately for
the managers, the wages paid to natives
are only few cents day.
The Chamberlain Medicine Company
advertise in newspapers printed in
thirty-two languages. Besides the
vernaculars and the we'll known
European languages. French, Spanish
Portuguese, Dutch, German, etc., the
list embraces number of languages
which until comparatively recent times
posed no alphabet but for which the
Roman alphabet has been adopted.
Among these are the native Hawaiian,
Samoan, Tsgalog philippine Islands).
Ksttir, Zalu and Basuto, of South
Africa. There is also modern form
of the Malay language using Roman
characters, known as komsnized
Malay. This is used in Java and the
East Indies.
1t is difficult to conceive how the
readers of some of the papers manage
to handle them. Imagine man on q
crowded street car trying to read q
paper whose pages are thirty.eigh,
inches long and twenty-nine inches
wide. This is the size of the "Hitadabi,'
q Bengali weekly published in Cal
cutta, India. Some Of the English
dai!ies published in South Africa, art
almost as unwedly, the pages of OF.
measuring twenty seven and one hall
inches in length and twenty FIVE inches
in width.
/. To an American newspaper man it i,
interesting to note the manner ir
which the colonial English newspaper
are made up. They still cling to th,
methods which we're practiced in thi,
country fifty years ago, the advertise
ments being upon the first few pages
followed generally by the heavy editor
ials, then few meager cable and tele-
graphic items, afterwards the loca
news. The local news consists prin-
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