Talk:Letter (alphabet)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Elisarennie, JasminePflepsen. Peer reviewers: Catearmi, Zoe1117, Jem8953, JasminePflepsen, Rorschaq.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

How should alphabets/articles be listed?

When I started this article I intended for the alphabet listings to be a directory of articles rather than lists of symbols. Accordingly, it may be more proper to list the letters of alphabets as such:

Arabic alphabet: Alif (ﺍ), Beth (ﺏ), Taw (ﺕ), Ṯāʼ (ﺙ), Gimel (ﺝ), Heth (ﺡ), ḫāʼ (ﺥ), Dalet (ﺩ), ḏāl (ﺫ), Resh (ﺭ), Zayin (ﺯ), Shin (ﺱ), Shin (ﺵ), Tsade (ﺹ), ḍād (ﺽ), Teth (ﻁ), ẓāʼ (ﻅ), Ayin (ﻉ), ġayn (ﻍ), Pe (ﻑ), Qoph (ﻕ), Kaph (ﻙ), Lamedh (ﻝ), Mem (ﻡ), Nun (ﻥ), He (هـ), Waw (ﻭ), Yodh (ﻱ)

Also problematic is that letters may have many symbols - it may be better to show one symbol paranthetically than invite countless symbols into the mix. But this is just my opinion. What is the consensus? Should the alphabet listings primarily show article names or letter symbols?

Poggio 21:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Yes, I thought about that when I added arabic letters... and I concluded that I prefer the symbols. But, if the consensus is reached that the article name should be incuded here - fine by me. Therefore, I vote neutral :-) --Dijxtra 11:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Another issue I notice with the "Latin alphabet" listing - the listing in the article appears to be specifically the variant of the Latin alphabet used in English. It is neither a maximal set of Latin characters (which would include many additional letters) nor a minimal set (which would NOT include late additions/modified forms such as J, G, U or W.) It would be better to choose one approach or the other instead of identifying the English variation as 'the Latin alphabet' when it is actually one of many expanded derivatives. I would guess the other alphabets listed may have similar problems as all of them can be used to write diverse languages. Arker (talk) 04:54, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Graphemes

Would like to hear discussion on why letters are graphemes. The tricky word here is "are." From my understanding of graphemes, letters are a subset of graphemes (since graphemes include punctuation, etc). It is therefore misleading to simply state letters ARE graphemes (as one edit stated). To those unfamiliar with the technical term, grapheme, this may incorrectly imply that graphemes are synonymous with letters. Poggio 22:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Letters ARE graphemes in the same way dogs ARE animals.St jimmy 14:32, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

And like bugs are insects. Said: Rursus ☻ 06:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Images

There are hundreds if not thousands of images of letters to choose from on commons [1] Which ones would be the best to show here? -- Astrokey44|talk 14:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking two pictures would be good that show letters from two seperate alphabets. I really like the one with beads that you just added! Andromeda321 15:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the Cyrillic image showing capital, lowercase, and italics, but I'd like to see a version of such an image that also included the handwritten (script) form. Some letters look very, very differnt between the print and written forms. --EncycloPetey 10:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Greek derivations?

Is the word "letter" only used for Greek and derived alphabets? What about alphabets (sound-based scripts) such as the Arabic alphabet, the Hangul and kana? 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 11:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Since clarified. -- Beland (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

will Wikipedia run out of letters

Every page has lost of letters, will Wikipedia ever run out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Im in ur hows riting teh internets (talk • contribs) 22:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can use the same letter several times... 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 13:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

... don't belong to here:

Hebrew and arabic writing systems. They're not alphabets – they're abjads. I think this article is oldish and needs updating. Said: Rursus ☻ 06:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Or, as an option, the article is renamed to Letter (writing), in order to prepare for a general enhancement, to contain the main classes of writing systems:

• "Logographies" - complex generic syllabary modification systems, in increasing horrificity order: Chinese (not too horrific!), Hieroglyphs, Cuneiform, Crow Congress Footprints;
• Syllabaries - full syllable letter sets vowel modifiers only, Korean, Hieratic, Cherokee, Ethiopian,
• Abjads - don't contain vowels, Arabic, Hebreew, Arameic, ndmnthrwrtngsstms...
• Alphabeths - contain vowels as independent letters, Greek and descendants.

Said: Rursus ☻ 07:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Eeeh, forget that (for its inaccuracy)! What I mean is that the article needs fact coordination with Writing system, so that [[Letter (whthck)]] discusses letters evolution and role, while [[Writing system]] discusses the letter system, derivation methods (diacritics, etc.), usage of special letter a.s.o.. Said: Rursus ☻ 07:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The most common letters

What is the most common letters of the alphabets? I mean the most used letters in Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinesse alphabets? Does anybody know about this? Wax69 (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Since each writing system can be used to write more than one language, and indeed many languages are written with more than one writing system, the question is technically unanswerable. However it is possible to answer for a language/writing system pairing, and this is important in cypher-breaking. For normal written English the frequency table I remember starts with ETAONRISH. Other languages have different frequencies. See Frequency_analysis_(cryptanalysis) Arker (talk) 04:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Letter sentences?

Why are the sentences in the article? They are not defined (not like a definition is really needed to understand it) and seem to have no importance to the article. It looks as though someone was just having fun? Should they be deleated or what? βeARer oF liGHt (talk) 06:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and its intro, "Here are some 26 alphabet sentences" probably should'nt have "some" in it. βeARer oF liGHt (talk) 06:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

song lodi

song lodi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.224.155.84 (talk) 06:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC) Comment Added

This coment shall be deleted.--66.131.190.6 (talk) 18:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)_

Letter-Words

How come there is no article about the usage of single-letters as words, such as A and I. I'd like to see how other languages use the alphabet to create words from a single letter. --Moopstick (talk) 00:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The article does cover single-letter words in English. There would be too many to cover all the languages of the world, but Wiktionary has comprehensive lists for each letter. See, e.g. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a -- Beland (talk) 18:17, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Reply Image

To Astrokeyy44. I like the image wiht the greek letter on the vase.--66.131.190.6 (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)_

Latin vs. English

Latin Is the same as english right.--66.131.190.6 (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC)_

The article was a bit misleading, so I fixed it. The Latin alphabet used to write the Latin language has a different set of letters than the current English alphabet. However, the English alphabet is the same as the ISO basic Latin alphabet for historical reasons. "Latin" is used to refer to a variety of national alphabets that use Latin script. -- Beland (talk) 18:28, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Origin of Letter

The origin of the word 'letter' is tamil word 'எழுத்து' Ezhutthu which means the written alphabets or any other symbol. In tamil grammatical book Tolkāppiyam , the first part is Ezhuttadikaram. This book has been dated variously between 8000 BCE and 10th CE. Just try to know these basis. The verb form of that word is 'எழுது' Ezhuthu which means 'to write'. This is origin of all the word literature, literary, etc., Can you allow this to add into this article ? --Inbamkumar86 (talk) 09:50, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

ezhutthu + ar -> elutthu + ar -> elett(h)er -> lett(h)er.

Actually, tamil word 'எழுத்து' has a root இலு (இழு) 'ilu' which means pull.

mid-12c., 'graphic symbol, written character,' from O.Fr. lettre, from L. littera (also litera) "letter of the alphabet," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Gk. diphthera "tablet," with change of d- to l- as in lachrymose. In this sense it replaced O.E. bocstæf, lit. "book staff" (cf. Ger. Buchstabe "letter, character," from O.H.G. buohstab, from P.Gmc. *bok-staba-m). The pl. litteræ in Latin meant "epistle, written documents, literature," a sense first attested early 13c. in M.E., replacing O.E. ærendgewrit, lit. "errand-writing." School letter in sports, first awarded by U. of Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg.

late 14c., from L. lit(t)eratura "learning, writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from lit(t)era "letter." Originally "book learning" (it replaced O.E. boccræft), the meaning "literary production or work" is first attested 1779 in Johnson's "Lives of the English Poets" (he didn't include this definition in his dictionary, however); that of "body of writings from a period or people" is first recorded 1812. --Inbamkumar86 (talk) 10:50, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Copyediting

I am going to copy-edit this page, and fix any grammatical errors (such as spelling, punctuation, etc.) JasminePflepsen (talk) 23:20, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Edits via WikiEDU for HES Intro to Linguistics

Hello- overall I think you've made some good edits here, but you may want to go over it again as I caught one or two small grammatical mistakes. The other major comment I have is that while there are certainly a good deal of hyperlinks within the article, it seems to be lacking in actual citations, so perhaps you could beef that up a bit! --Catearmi (talk) 13:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Evaluation (for HSS intro to linguistics)

This article is missing citations and sources for various sections of the article. The "History" section skipped over large chunks of time. There is some irrelevant information in the "A classical definition" section. There is also no section on letter-words. There is no definition of abjads in the article. Most of the information that is there is good, but is lacking citations. JasminePflepsen (talk) 13:07, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Sources

These are the sources I plan to use to edit this article. Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to Language. 10th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2014. Print. Harris, Roy. "Writing as Representation." Origin of Writing. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1986. 76-121. Print. Moorhouse, A. C. Writing and the Alphabet. London: Cobbett, 1946. Print. Ogg, Oscar. The 26 Letters. N.p.: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1971. Print. JasminePflepsen (talk) 13:53, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Additional Thoughts

The article looks great! Very informative. As an additional piece of information you might thinking about what popular/common languages use what alphabets. Also, if you are going to include pictures you could put a picture of the IPA in your article (for clarification). The only other big piece is that I notice that you use a picture of the ASL alphabet... maybe talk about that a little bit in your article as well? Great job though. Zoe1117 (talk) 19:41, 29 July 2017 (UTC) Zoe1117

PeerReview Suggestions

I like the article. The additional citation is needed per wiki rules. Outside of that, good job. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rorschaq (talk • contribs) 23:13, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Lowercase

"Only two Roman letters, a and g, have more than one standard lowercase form." AFAIK r, s and z have at least two (mostly standard) lowercase forms (though in z's case the "standard" state is currently debatable), and if we add italics to the mix (which is also standard lowercase) there are even more multi-form letters.139.47.7.19 (talk) 23:43, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Edit suggestions

I am thinking about adding a use section, about how letters are used. Summary of I what I propose to include: Not only are they used to write words, but they are also used in constructing sequences, abbreviations, to create unique identifiers, and to describe shapes. There are derivatives of letters that have become symbols with various uses. Applications include the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, astronomy, biology, computer science, engineering, transport, and commerce. (each of which I would expand with a few sentences). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:17, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Ampersand

In the table of alphabets, the Latin alphabet ends with an ampersand (&). Does this mean something, or is this an oversight or minor vandalism? - Jkgree (talk) 20:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Take a read of Ampersand to find out the story. I do not believe this is vandalism. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:02, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: SSC199 Hon

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 November 2022 and 16 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JCLemke (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Fadude.

— Assignment last updated by Fadude (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This entry is based on a false premise

The welsh alphabet is comprised of letters, as are all alphabets - OK.

The welsh letter "d (D)" is different to the welsh letter "dd (Dd)" - NOT OK. Fails the definition right at the start. They are NOT digraphs; they are separate and distinct letters.

BTW this makes it difficult for programs to tell the difference between two adjacent "d" in a word and one "dd". There is no gramatical rule to apply! Strictly a different ISO character should be used but most people type welsh on an english keyboard.

Would anyone like to comment ? Precious47140 (talk) 23:01, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

There are simply two different levels of analysis one can work with here. There's no contradiction. Remsense诉 23:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Unicode does not have a digraph for DD or dd that I can find. It does have LL and LL for middle Welsh:

• U+1EFA Ỻ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL
• U+1EFB ỻ LATIN SMALL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL

Modern translation and textual analysis software is very good at determine context. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)