Questions tagged [alphabets]
A set of letters that represent phonemes, used to write one or more languages.
89
questions
1
vote
1
answer
240
views
Is "alpha-" and "-bet", in the word "alphabet", related to the first two letters "A" (alpha) and "B" (beta)? [closed]
I was reading the book The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick.
Towards the beginning (third paragraph) of chapter three, titled Two Wordbooks, the author writes -
The alphabet, ...
5
votes
1
answer
253
views
What subdiscipline of linguistics studies the relationship between writing and pronunciation?
Most European languages use some variation of the Latin alphabet. However, while most of them seem to broadly agree on what sounds most of the individual letters represent (with some minor differences,...
- 153
16
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Why isn't there a letter for /b/ sound in Greek alphabet while they have the sound?
In Greek the letter B sounds /v/; for example we have Vanadium which is Βανάδιο in Greek which in turn is transliterated as Vanάdio in English.
But what about when we have a /b/ sound? For example, we ...
- 542
18
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Why did the consonant clusters /ks/ and /ps/ merit their own designated letters in Ancient Greek?
Ancient Greek had many consonant clusters, like /pn/ in pneuma, /bd/ in bdellion, and /pt/ in pteron. But for some reason, /ks/ (ξ) and /ps/ (ψ) received special real estate in the 24-letter Greek ...
- 193
-2
votes
2
answers
287
views
Can a new alphabet be created and added to the English language? [closed]
Does the English language, or any other language for that matter provide the flexibility to add or remove new alphabets?
- 6,935
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How did it happen that K was introduced to Latin alphabet in place of C and C started to mark /t͡s/ or /s/ in many languages?
I know that K has been derived from Greek kappa and C from gamma.
But how did it happen that people started to use K in place of C? From what I know there were already C and G in the Latin alphabet ...
- 156
1
vote
2
answers
130
views
How many people of the world does the "switch language" icon cover?
I've noticed this icon popping up in a few places, to mean "languages":
I'm curious how many languages of the world this icon covers. Of course it would cover English, and indeed any ...
- 324
0
votes
2
answers
223
views
There are roughly 46 speech sounds in the English language, however only 26 letters. Why?
There are roughly 44-46 speech sounds in the English language. However, we just have 26 letters which denote some of those 44-46 sounds. Why is that? Why we don't represent each of those 44-46 sounds ...
- 82.1k
3
votes
1
answer
303
views
Why does the NATO Spelling alphabet contain words with more than two syllables
I always wondered why the NATO Spelling Alphabet has words with three syllables in it. I know it was extensively researched, so there must be a reason, but it seems odd to me.
One syllable seems ...
- 1
4
votes
3
answers
697
views
Where does the letter <j> come from to some Cyrillic alphabets?
Most South-West languages of Slavic language family, like Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, include the Latin letter in their alphabets, which has not been a part of Cyrillic writing system they're ...
- 29.8k
10
votes
4
answers
951
views
Is there a collective term for the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets?
I was just wondering if such a term exists, since they are very similar to each other, and all of them derive from the Greek alphabet, so I thought perhaps there might be a collective term for the ...
- 6,935
1
vote
0
answers
101
views
What letters are used in different European languages for naming things by letters? [closed]
What letters are used in different European languages for naming things by letters? In Finnish, all 29 letters (also Å, Ä, Ö) are used in naming. But in Czech, letters with diacritics (e.g. Á, Š, Ů) ...
- 191
-4
votes
3
answers
346
views
Why are the names of the letters different across languages using the Latin script?
I have noticed that the Spanish alphabet has the 26 letters + the consonant ñ, which is pronounced like the "ny" in "canyón". But out of the remaining 26 letters, I have noticed ...
- 6,935
1
vote
3
answers
259
views
Is left-to-right scripting better than right-to-left?
I'm Iranian and here, Arabic script is what is used. many litterateurs believe that this script is not good for the Persian language and many of them think that it should be changed.
one of the ...
- 970
2
votes
0
answers
75
views
Are there any more optimal tactile alphabets than Braille?
Sorry if this is the wrong stackexchange to ask this.
Consider how QWERTY was the first keyboard layout, but isn't nearly optimal (e.g. Dvorak is much better and used overwhelmingly by top speed-...
- 121
5
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Is there some relationship between the modern u and μ?
I study Mathematics and Statistics and one of the most common symbols we tend to write is μ which obviously is the lower case 'Mu'. It is one of the easiest symbols to learn when first encountered ...
- 29.8k
-1
votes
2
answers
76
views
What is the linguistical terminology for (and if) letters of a given alphabet have(ing) their inherent meaning?
Letters or phonemes.
Letters, like runes according to this article:
https://sonsofvikings.com/apps/fireamp/blogs/history/viking-runes-guide-runic-alphabet-meanings-nordic-celtic-letters
At least that'...
6
votes
3
answers
959
views
What is the origin of letters corresponding to consonant clusters?
The Greek alphabet has ψ (psi) and ξ (ksi) , both letters correspond to a bi-consonantal sequence. Latin has X, Cyrillic alphabet has Щ which in some languages corresponds to ʃt͡ʃ, etc.
Normally, an ...
- 189
3
votes
1
answer
438
views
Why does lower case "a" look so different from capital "A"?
Despite my best efforts, I can not find the answer specifically for "a" online. For the rest of the letters of the Latin alphabet, I can see the connection between the different forms (...
- 64.1k
1
vote
2
answers
455
views
Why do the Hebrew characters look so different from Greek, Latin, even Phoenician?
Why do the Hebrew characters look so different?
See, for example: chart of letters
If I look at Greek, Phoenician, etc. I can still see similarities (maybe with rotations or flipping of characters) ...
- 5,065
34
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Why isn’t the letter “G” immediately after “C” in the alphabet?
I have absolutely no formal linguistics background, but I enjoy learning about it a lot. I’ve seen multiple times before how the alphabet mutated from Roman times to our own:
The letter “J” was a ...
- 602
1
vote
2
answers
242
views
Arabic word for door from root d-l-t or d-l-th
I know that the Hebrew letter 'daleth' originates from the word for 'door', indeed the Modern Hebrew word for door is 'dalet'.
Is there an Arabic word for door from this same root - d-l-t or d-l-th? ...
4
votes
1
answer
725
views
Where did the Greek consonant cluster "ps" come from
Where did the Greek consonant cluster "ps" come from? I tried finding resources to track down this fun-sounding consonant cluster but came with no information. I was thinking about a voicing ...
- 1,449
2
votes
2
answers
231
views
What's the name of the principle that derives the sound of a symbol from the name of the thing that that the symbol depicts?
What do we call it when the Initial sound of a word, eg. beth vel sim. "house", is assigned to a symbol of that word, eg. the floorplan of a house(?), to use the sign as the unique ...
- 64.1k
0
votes
0
answers
82
views
Is the Latin alphabet the most widely known in the world?
Note: By "Latin alphabet," I'm referring to the 26 letters (A-Z) that English uses. Sorry if this is the wrong term (I don't want to call it the "English alphabet" since it's used ...
- 109
8
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Why do some alphabets have special final forms for some letters?
Some alphabets, e.g. the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets, have different forms for some letters when they appear at the end of the word.
E.g. in Greek, the letter sigma (σ) appears as a ς when ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
186
views
Why are E and É both part of the Hungarian and Icelandic alphabets but the English and French alphabets only have E?
The letters "E" and "É" occur in English, French, Hungarian, Icelandic, and other languages. However, the Hungarian and Icelandic alphabets include both "E" and "É&...
- 6,935
0
votes
1
answer
274
views
Middle English: y or ȝ
Lately I've been looking up the Middle English of many Modern English words via Wiktionary. It was my understanding that by this point in the history of English ȝ was in heavy use. Yet these ...
- 113
0
votes
0
answers
199
views
Were there pictographic glyph variants of letters, like multiocular O (ꙮ) for the word 'many-eyed' etc. in Cyrillic, in any other alphabets?
Were there pictographic glyphs of letters that were used in some special words in any other alphabets and languages?
Like multiocular O (ꙮ) in word 'many-eyed', double monocular O (Ꙭ) for the plural ...
- 111
-6
votes
1
answer
195
views
Evolution of the latin capital and small letters [closed]
So, let us divide the letters into four categories.
Ii Kk Ll Vv Ww Xx Zz are all made of straight lines.
Cc Oo Ss are all made of curves.
Bb Dd Gg Jj Pp Qq Rr Uu are made of both straight lines and ...
13
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Why are J, U, W considered part of the basic Latin Alphabet?
J, U, W are included in ISO basic Latin alphabet which consists of 26 letters. However,
The classic Latin has only 23 letters, and J was only used as a variant of I as σ do to ς.
J, U were not ...
- 293
4
votes
4
answers
295
views
Generic name for Hànzì/Kanji/Hanja/Chữ nôm/Sawndip?
So I was thinking about how to talk about these characters in a culturally-neutral way. Chinese seems to be used, but it implies a particular way of writing characters (not to mention it makes it ...
- 239
3
votes
1
answer
355
views
Was there an evolution of the Greek alphabet in the Middle East?
I recently visited Jordan and noticed that many mosaic are commented
with included text. The text seems mostly ancient Greek alphabet, but
it also contains non Greek characters such as C, obviously
...
- 29.8k
1
vote
7
answers
10k
views
Is English the only language (except classical Latin, Cyrillic, symbol languages and auxiliary languages) that has no diacritic symbols/accents?
What I mean by no diacritics.
Czech has: ř, ů, á, š ...
Spanish has: Ñ, á ...
German: ä, ö, ü...
Italian: è, ò, ...
...
At least in Europe, I am not aware of a language that ...
- 17.7k
0
votes
1
answer
482
views
What part of speech is a letter?
I wanted to know what part of speech a letter might be or I wanted to see if I understand letters. Do people ask this question in this place? Or am I in the place where people would ask this?
I asked ...
- 82.1k
0
votes
0
answers
93
views
Evolution of Greek San from Phoenician Tṣadē
It is generally agreed that the Greek letter San developed from the Phoenician Tṣadē, but I'm not sure I see the graphical similarity. The Phoenician form does bear some resemblance to the Greek form ...
- 109
4
votes
3
answers
391
views
Why do we make a distinction between letters and punctuation marks?
In English, for example, the word "don't" is made up of 4 letters ("d", "o", "n" and "t"), and one punctuation mark ("'").
However, there seems to me to be no reason for this distinction. Without any ...
- 303
4
votes
1
answer
180
views
Why did Χ and Ψ have such different sounds in early Eastern and Western Greek?
Why did Χ and Ψ have such different sounds in early Eastern and Western Greek? Which sounds are older? If the Western, why were both Ξ and Χ created to denote [ks] (note that they both appear in the ...
- 82.1k
0
votes
1
answer
155
views
Will we ever decipher the Wadi el-Ḥol and Serabit el-Khadim inscriptions? [closed]
In his book Letter perfect: the marvelous history of our alphabet from A to Z, David Sacks says that we'll probably never decipher the Wadi el-Ḥol inscriptions (and he was probably implying the same ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
0
answers
81
views
Is there a reconstruction of the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet that's consistent with meaningful translations of all known Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions?
Including those from Wadi el-Ḥol, Serabit el-Khadim, Lahun, and Bir en-Naṣb. I know that we can't yet prove that any reconstruction is accurate, but is there one that is at least consistent with ...
- 109
1
vote
0
answers
111
views
Extract strings of a certain language from a dataframe in python
I have a pandas DataFrame that contains a column with sentences from different languages (6 languages). The DataFrame also contains a column which states which language the corresponding sentence ...
- 111
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
(Why) did the Thai script convert Sanskrit द /d/ to /th/ and then introduce its own character for /d/?
The first section of the Thai alphabet/abugida seems to follow Sanskrit pretty closely, with just a couple of additions.
I believe that Sanskrit had the consonant /d/, which is represented by द in ...
- 7,281
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
Where do I get a list of all/many alphabets as strings or JSON or CSV data?
I have this manually typed in for "English:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
I'm trying to find a nice, authoritative source for "all" or "many" other alphabets. For example, ...
- 82.1k
4
votes
1
answer
246
views
Estimating the number of words in a language before invention of alphabet
Here is my question from the title:
Given a (natural) language with its writing system based on an
alphabet, are there any theories giving (quantitative) estimates on
the number of words the ...
- 64.1k
11
votes
6
answers
755
views
Do multi-dimensional writing systems exist?
I am not sure whether linguistics board is the right place to ask this question, but since I couldn't find any better place here is the question:
Most (all?) of the writing systems are using the ...
- 1,449
7
votes
1
answer
519
views
What sounds do the graphemes ⟨ś⟩ and ⟨ź⟩ represent in Montenegrin?
As of 2009 the Montenegrin alphabet was adopted in Montenegro. It consists of the same alphabet as used in Serbia, with the addition of two graphemes.
The graphemes ⟨ś⟩/⟨с́⟩ and ⟨ź⟩/⟨з́⟩ are said ...
- 64.1k
1
vote
0
answers
256
views
Does an alphabet with the uniform letter frequency distribution exist?
A language employs some kind of alphabet for writing. One could naïvely expect that each letter bears the same amount of entropy. But in reality that is not the case. For example in English each ...
- 111
11
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why is Greek alphabet left-to-right?
The Greek alphabet and all of its child systems such as Roman, Cyrillic, and Gothic are conventionally left-to-right writting systems. But why is that, considering it comes from the Phoenician ...
- 159
5
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Density of information/semantic of Chinese and Korean language versus european languages
Some years ago I had read an interesting article about how much information chinese people could put in one tweet of 140 characters. But I cannot find again this article.
I'm interested in having ...
- 652
12
votes
5
answers
3k
views
Are there any "simple" languages?
In all the languages I know, at least one of the following aspects is complex/difficult:
Alphabet: Complex meaning a large alphabet like in Chinese.
Pronunciation: Complex meaning that, for example, ...
- 165