Talk:Alphabet/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Creation of the Cyrillic alphabet

The theory that the Cyrillic aphabet was created by St. Clement of Ohrid is old and not the most popular. Today, it is considered that the alphabet was invented in Preslav, not in Ohrid. See the article about Cyrillic alphabet for more information.Scheludko (talk) 18:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Lede image

Is there any particular reason the lede image illustrates only one alphabet, the Latin one? Given that this is a general article, maybe it would be nice to use an image (which someone could create from Inkscape or something) showing several widely-used alphabets: Latin and Cyrillic, and perhaps abudigas like Arabic and Devangari; if there's space, we could also include slightly lesser-used alphabets and abudigas such as Hangul, Greek, and Thai (i.e., those that are used only for one major language). rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I am unable to find the alphabet in the articule! Please ABCDEF ... etc to the alphabet, as I keep forgetting the order and this seems like a very logical thing to have on this page! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.145.126.119 (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

şÂmÍȳá kĥÃņ

A previous user has made a reference to this archaeological finding too...Why is it not mentioned in the article?You could add this to the article as a simple possibility that it may be one of the first alphabets in history... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.176.195.225 (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

See Dispilio Tablet. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:56, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested Move

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

– I don't think this topic is the primary topic of the word "alphabet". When most English-speaking sources say "alphabet" they mean "A, B, C, ..".. in other words either the English alphabet, or the Latin alphabet. I would certainly guess most readers who type in "Alphabet" into English Wikipedia's search bar are surprised to find an article with almost no information about the English alphabet. It's possible the term "alphabet" doesn't have a single primary topic, so perhaps making Alphabet a disambiguation page is the way to go. Mlm42 (talk) 17:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Responses

• Support. I agree with the proposition purposed. The alphabet is an ambiguous entity that can refer to multiple topics. the "alphabet" as English speaking cultures knowledge know refers to that 26 characters used to create words of meaning. Originally it may come from the shorting of pronouncing the entire range of characters. I.E. Alpha-Beta. Therefore it should be dis-ambiguous.Jerrydeanrsmith (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. This appears to be the correct primary topic of "alphabet", even though there are articles for English alphabet, Latin alphabet, Greek alphabet, and Cyrillic alphabet. Guessing is not a good indication of change in primary topic. C.f. Language vs. English language; Literature vs. English literature. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that your analogies are relevant. Consider the phrase "The alphabet", as it is used in English. It is not very ambiguous. A linguist might ask "which alphabet?".. but most other English speakers will assume it means the English alphabet. Not true for "language", or even "literature". Mlm42 (talk) 19:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a separate argument for the target of The alphabet, not alphabet, IMO. "Alphabet" may mean one thing while "the alphabet" may mean another. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose It makes sense for Alphabet to be the article about the general concept of an alphabet. I agree that it should be easier for readers of the English Wikipedia to find the article about the English alphabet, and probably a hatnote would be a good idea. I also think that Alphabet (disambiguation) shouldn't list every alphabet, as something like Chinese alphabet isn't ambiguous with the term "alphabet" (i.e., I can't believe any user would expect to reach the article about the Chinese alphabet by typing "alphabet" into the English-language Wikipedia). Theoldsparkle (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

But are you sure this article is the primary topic for the search term "Alphabet"? What evidence is there? Mlm42 (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

In this case I'm working on simple intuition, I suppose. I can understand your presumption that a user might be more likely to be seeking the English alphabet than the generic concept, but without evidence that that is significantly more likely, I'm happy to maintain my position that it makes sense logically for the generic concept to be at Alphabet. Theoldsparkle (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Since leaving my original comment, I added a hatnote and I revised Alphabet (disambiguation) to remove the list of alphabets, replacing it with a link to Category:Alphabetic writing systems (which makes clear that the list that had been on the disambiguation page didn't come anywhere close to listing every alphabet anyway). Theoldsparkle (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article as it stands is about the primary topic of the term alphabet. A hatnote pointing the reader to English alphabet would not be amiss, however. Angr (talk) 19:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence? Mlm42 (talk) 19:09, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Please don't demand others come up with evidence for the current arrangement when you haven't provided any evidence for change. Your proposal is limited to "I don't think", "I would certainly guess", "It's possible" and "perhaps". -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

You're right; don't feel obliged to answer.. I haven't provided evidence for my side either. Mlm42 (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm not convinced that the average reader expects that an article called "Alphabet" will be about the English alphabet alone. We don't expect people to be confused when they find that the article entitled "Word" is about words in general, rather than English words in particular. Are you suggesting that most users are unaware that there are alphabets besides the English one? If so, then the current situation is still preferable, since it helps disabuse them of such notions. garik (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'm reasoning by considering the phrases: "the language", "the word", and "the alphabet". The first two are clearly ambiguous to English speakers.. ("which word"?) But the last one isn't.. you probably wouldn't ask "which alphabet?", in response to "List the letters of the alphabet" (unless you were being particularly pedantic). Mlm42 (talk) 19:34, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

But we're not talking about the phrase The alphabet, which inherently implies that the user is referring to a specific alphabet. We're talking about the word Alphabet. Theoldsparkle (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alphabet

The term "Alphabet" refers to a group of symbols which represent a phonetic tone. The written character is assigned to an agreed upon noise/sound that most humans can reproduce using their vocal cords. If the symbols are further grouped together the produce syllables. These short units of sound are used to create words. Words are used to create meaning out of chaos. For example the word "noun" in English is used to describe the concept of persons,places,things,or ideas. A collection of words in a certain syntax is called language. Language describes the world in such a way that we as society can better understand what has happen in the past, is happening in the present, and will happen in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerrydeanrsmith (talk • contribs) 06:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Letter names

I just edited the paragraph on letter names. The Arabic letter names are (mostly?) based on the Phoenician names, so I put it in the category with Hebrew, Greek, etc. But even Greek has some letter names that don't derive from Phoenician, so I added the quibble "to varying degrees". The whole section, however, seems a bit OR-ish. If someone has a source lying around, please expand! In the meantime, I will see what I can find. Lesgles (talk) 19:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

first alphabet is Greek?

Can someone clarify how the first 'true' alphabet is Greek that derived from another alphabet, the Phoenician? 68.84.158.248 (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The Phoenician is not a "true" alphabet under this definition. I'll try to make it clearer. Victor Yus (talk) 15:35, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the definition of "true"? Because this dubious theory implies that the original Phoenician is "fake".210.19.13.229 (talk) 06:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I get the feeling that it comes from statements like this self contradictory gem "Vowelless alphabets, which are not true alphabets, are called abjads". It's an inkhorn attempt to hijack a perfectly good English word and give it a contrary meaning. Kiore (talk) 07:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It's the meaning that it's been given for centuries, other than by those who have made a point of distinguishing alphabets that meet the more narrow definition of the term from abjads ever since Peter Daniels began using the latter term. Largoplazo (talk) 14:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Múra-Pirahã language and Rotokas syllabaries

Rotokas is mentioned as an alphabet, but then the copy says, "Syllabaries typically contain 50 to 400 glyphs (though the Múra-Pirahã language of Brazil would require only 24 if it did not denote tone, and Rotokas would require only 30), and the glyphs of logographic systems typically number from the many hundreds into the thousands."

No mention of tone is given in Rotokas_language and Rotokas_alphabet makes it clear Rotokas has an alphabet, and Múra-Pirahã_language does not indicate anything like a syllabary.

It's not clear, but my guess is that the intended meaning of this sentence is, "If a syllabary were devised for Múra-Pirahã, only 24 symbols would be needed as long as tone is ignored, and for Rotokas, which does not have tone distinction, only 30 symbols would be needed."

There are no citations given. Can someone with more knowledge about this provide citations and clarify the above sentence? --BenjaminBarrett12 (talk) 14:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Only evolved Once

Would it be fair to say the alphabet only evolved once in human history, would that be a notable statement? And that diffusion took care of the rest?--Inayity (talk) 21:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

"Diffusion" can have a specific meaning (cultural diffusion) that may not be appropriate, but yes, AFAWK, the alphabet evolved once (seemingly in Egypt) and spread from there. It has not been demonstrated that all subsequent alphabets actually descend from that original alphabet, though. Georgian and Armenian, for example, were certainly at least inspired by existing alphabets, but it's not clear that they were a natural development rather than artificial alphabets. Brahmi continues to be disputed, but few outside India think it was an independent invention. Hangul may be an entirely artificial script, or a mostly artificial script based on elements of an existing alphabet, but either way it was not a new invention of the concept. Etc. — kwami (talk) 02:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Why does Jared Diamond explicitly state it started in the Fertile Cres 1500 BC? Strange for him to make such a mistake. All these years I believed him. He does claim inspired is a form of non-Direct diffusion. Diffusion meaning not a total independent genesis.--Inayity (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Egypt is in the Fertile Crescent. We don't know it was specifically Egypt (though that is likely), and the recent discoveries made there (assuming they're all they're cracked up to be) may have been made after whatever you read of Diamond. What did he say that was incorrect? — kwami (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I will check, but he certainly did not give the impression he was speaking about Egypt. See Guns Germs and Steel(search alphabet.). I could be wrong but i have issue with Diamonds geographic terms which seem to flip flop around. He says Western Fertile crescent by 1500 BC. So I might be getting confused because he sometimes specifies Egypt then at other times he uses Compass locations (Western Fertile Crescent). --Inayity (talk) 12:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Alphabet (computer science)

I'd like to work a link to "Alphabet (computer science)" into this article. I'm thinking that's best done by a new section on formal languages. The current "Alphabet" article is very linguistic-centric and no (or very little) mention is made of formalized alphabets as used in mathematics and computer science. This is what the "Alphabet (computer science)" article does. An alternative would be to merge the later into the former but I think there's value to keeping them separate. Another alternative would simply be to be a "See also" hatenote at the top of the article. I do not think merely adding a link in the "See also" section is sufficient. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Origin of Brahmi : new paper

i am pleased to announce the publication of my fifth research paper in a peer-reviewed journal

this deals with the origin of Brahmi . this is a logical and self-explanatory paper and is written using a multi-disciplinary approach. it is written in such a way that anybody can cross-verify the conclusions.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-Final-Final-Final

sujay rao mandavilli — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.72.239.115 (talk) 09:40, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)

Please find my collection of papers on literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

Before mature phase of Indus valley civilization (before 2600 BC)

- There are some potters marks but none qualify as full writing

Indus valley civilization (2600 BC to 1900 BC)

1. The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis (very logical and self explanatory paper)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Script-Final-Version-Final-Final

2. The reintroduction of the lost manuscript hypothesis (the case for this thesis has obviously become much stronger in the recent past)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Reintroducing-Lost-Manuscript-Hypothesis

Post-Harappan India (1600 BC to 600 BC)

1. Literacy in post-Harappan india (obviously literacy in post-Harappan India existed in certain pockets & were limited to very small sections of society- alphabetic scripts were brought from West Asia and the Indus script also continued – this a very logical and self-explanatory paper and anyone can cross-verify the conclusions)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-and-origin-of-Brahmi

Sujay Rao Mandavilli

182.72.239.115 (talk) 09:04, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The term is too widely used

Not every wiriting system where a symbol represents a sound is an alphabet.In fact the term Alphabet should be used only for the writing systems that evolved from the Greek and Latin Alphabet. This is arrogant and insulting. The Hangul and Chinese writing systems have a distinct history. Hangul and Chinese writing aren't alphabets. Livepaul (talk) 14:08, 3 July 2013 (UTC)LivePaul

Hangul is. Claiming that only Europeans have alphabets is the kind of ethnocentric arrogance that we abandoned in the 19th century. — kwami (talk) 18:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Why is this a C-class religion article?

Can someone please explain why the article is listed as a C-class religion article? It is not a member of the Religion category, and doesn't even have any information involving any religious pieces of writing that use the alphabet. Please help explain why the page is listed as such, or get the article removed from the category. Bladeavuari (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

unordered alphabets

The article says "Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of their letters", "Alphabets often come to be associated with a standard ordering of their letters", and "Some alphabets today, such as the Hanuno'o script, are learned one letter at a time, in no particular order". Hanuno'o is the only example given of an alphabet in no standard order. The Hanuno'o article doesn't name any other alphabets that are like it ("such as") in this regard. Is Hanuno'o in fact the only exception? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 22:59, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Wondering About People's Real Intelligence--Whether They Need and Deserve a Better Alphabetic System

I am trying to show people the most advanced alphabet as well as phonetic system in the world. I wonder if anyone is really intelligent enough to want "true" advancement in the world of linguistics. This system can show advances which no other alphabetic and phonetic system is able to do, including "sounds-imitations" (vocalized as well as unvocalized), true spelling to pronunciation which can NEVER be mistaken, falsetto vowels as well as drawled vowels (in more than one tone of voice), British English compared to various American English forms, and a myriad other things which are not conveyed today with ANY system used on Earth. Of course, I was "speedily deleted" by someone who "may" appear not to understand when something is better than what we have today. I, therefore, wonder about "some" people's real intelligence when it comes to something better as well as more advanced than anything we have today. The page which was speedily deleted was from here.

See WP:NOT#OR. Original material cannot be published here. Wikiversity exists for this purpose. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Aramaic came before Hebrew?

It says in this article that "The Aramaic gave rise to Hebrew." - how accurate, if at all, is this? 86.11.229.4 (talk) 03:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

It's talking alphabets not languages. Check out Paleo-Hebrew alphabet which was the "original" Hebrew alphabet. At some later time they adopted a variation of the Aramaic alphabet. Kiore (talk) 07:45, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Yiddish

Where would be a good place in this article to note that, while its writing system is based on the Hebrew abjad, the Yiddish alphabet is a true alphabet?

Are there other Hebrew-based writing systems that have similarly repurposed the Hebrew consonants to cover all their vowels? Ladino? —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Northwest Africa?

The History section on "Northwest African and Middle eastern" alphabets is mainly about Egypt and the immediate surroundings.

That is northeast Africa, not northwest.--23.119.204.117 (talk) 13:10, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

thanks. Fixed it although you could have.Doug Weller (talk) 13:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Trouble archiving links on the article

Hello. I am finding myself repeatedly archiving links on this page. This usually happens when the archive doesn't recognize the archive to be good.

This could be because the link is either a redirect, or I am unknowingly archiving a dead link. Please check the following links to see if it's redirecting, or in anyway bad, and fix them, if possible.

• http://www.uca.edu.ar/esp/sec-ffilosofia/esp/docs-institutos/s-cehao/boletin/damqatum3_eng2007.pdf

In any event this will be the only notification in regards to these links, and I will discontinue my attempts to archive these pages.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 17:36, 13 July 2015 (UTC)