Invention of the Alphabet
Dennis
http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/alphabet/index.html
although it's still a bit ragged. I made use of recent
remarks made here. I would appreciate any comments!
Dennis
Peter T. Daniels
You seem not to have ever read anything I've written, or you couldn't
include the spurious commonplace "The Greek language cannot be
represented nearly as well without vowels as the Semitic languages can,
so it may have been done out of necessity." If that were true, how would
it be possible for Persian (and many other Iranian languages) to be
written with varieties of Aramaic scripts?
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Dennis
True. It's also true that many shorthand systems leave out
vowels.
However, I question how well, and whether, one could write
Greek, or English, without vowels if also one did not write
word divisions, as was the custom at first.
I'm sure you can understand this.
M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
Msrycnndrstndths
I think Greek would be rather like English in that regard,
with about the same sort of consonant cluster sizes. How
about Ukrainian? This site is an example of what can go
wrong if one leaves out both vowels and word divisions there.
http://home.att.net/~oko/home.htm
Is Persian written without word divisions? How about Urdu?
I doubt it, though I don't know.
Dennis
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >> I just updated my website on the Invention of the Alphabet:
> >>
> >>http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/alphabet/index.html
> >>
> >>although it's still a bit ragged. I made use of recent
> >>remarks made here. I would appreciate any comments!
> >
> > You seem not to have ever read anything I've written, or you couldn't
> > include the spurious commonplace "The Greek language cannot be
> > represented nearly as well without vowels as the Semitic languages can,
> > so it may have been done out of necessity." If that were true, how would
> > it be possible for Persian (and many other Iranian languages) to be
> > written with varieties of Aramaic scripts?
>
> True. It's also true that many shorthand systems leave out vowels.
If you don't transcribe your "notes" within a few days, you can't read
them. This has nothing to do with omitted vowels, however.
> However, I question how well, and whether, one could write
> Greek, or English, without vowels if also one did not write
> word divisions, as was the custom at first.
>
> I'm sure you can understand this.
>
> M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
>
> Msrycnndrstndths
If you're going to do this silly exercise, don't leave out notation for
initial vowels (and don't use digraphs):
@mSrycn@ndrstndDs.
> I think Greek would be rather like English in that regard,
> with about the same sort of consonant cluster sizes. How
> about Ukrainian? This site is an example of what can go
> wrong if one leaves out both vowels and word divisions there.
>
> http://home.att.net/~oko/home.htm
>
> Is Persian written without word divisions? How about Urdu?
> I doubt it, though I don't know.
Persian and Urdu are written with the Arabic script, which marks the
ends of words by means other than additional space.
What, though, is a word?
Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
either script.
Joachim Pense
>
> Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
> either script.
People are reported having trouble reading Chinese (classical in particular)
for exactly that reason.
Joachim
Prai Jei
<dchlg...@enews4.newsguy.com>:
> I'm sure you can understand this.
>
> M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
>
> Msrycnndrstndths
A more appropriate rendering would be
¿ ¿m sr y¿ cn ¿ndrstnd ths
where an additional character (chosen to be devoid of any accepted
pronunciation) indicates a "silent" consonant (cf. Hebrew aleph, Arabic
alif) i.e. a vowel without a consonant sound before it.
--
A couple of questions. How do I stop the wires short-circuiting, and what's
this nylon washer for?
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Peter T. Daniels
Where did you get such reports?
Alan
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:42ECD8...@worldnet.att.net...>
> Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
> either script.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Am I misunderstanding you? Thai "script" may very well have no word
divisions, but how can you say the same for Chinese? Every word has its own
character and all characters are distinct and stand independent of one
another. Whether the Chinese text is written top-to-bottom, right-to-left,
or left-to-right, even someone totally unfamiliar with Chinese would
certainly be able to perceive the boundaries between the words.
Peter T. Daniels
If all the boundaries are identical, then there are no boundaries.
Anyway, in Modern Chinese most "words" are two characters, and there
most certainly is not extra space, or anything else, to distinguish
them.
Harlan Messinger
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:42ECD8...@worldnet.att.net...>
>
>>Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
>>either script.
>>--
>>Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
>
>
> Am I misunderstanding you? Thai "script" may very well have no word
> divisions, but how can you say the same for Chinese? Every word has its own
> character
That's a misconception. Many words in Chinese consist of multiple
syllables/characters, such as Chong1guo2, the name for China, or
ci2dian3, a word for "dictionary", or fu2wu4yuan2, a word meaning "waiter".
Dennis
>> However, I question how well, and whether, one could write
>>Greek, or English, without vowels if also one did not write
>>word divisions, as was the custom at first.
>>
>> I'm sure you can understand this.
>>
>> M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
>>
>> Msrycnndrstndths
>
> If you're going to do this silly exercise, don't leave out notation for
> initial vowels (and don't use digraphs):
>
> @mSrycn@ndrstndDs.
I'll have to give this some more thought. As you know,
that leaves room for a lot of ambiguity. I think Woodard
talked about all this in his book, that Greek can indeed be
written without vowels, and pointing out that ambiguities
arise in Semitic as well without vowels. However, would you
agree that vowels are needed more in Greek and Indo-European
languages in general than in Semitic ones? I did say that
it was relative, after all.
>> I think Greek would be rather like English in that regard,
>>with about the same sort of consonant cluster sizes. How
>>about Ukrainian? This site is an example of what can go
>>wrong if one leaves out both vowels and word divisions there.
>>
>>http://home.att.net/~oko/home.htm
Obviously something like Ukrainian is worse without vowels,
since it has more consonant clusters. That is how this
fellow gets the freedom to read what he wants.
>> Is Persian written without word divisions? How about Urdu?
>> I doubt it, though I don't know.
>
>
> Persian and Urdu are written with the Arabic script, which marks the
> ends of words by means other than additional space.
>
> What, though, is a word?
>
> Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
> either script.
I don't think that's a proper comparison. Thai is pretty
phonemic, while Chinese is logographic. So there all you
lack is the word divisions. And, of course, we've already
said that ancient Greek writing lacked word divisions.
AFAIK, Etruscan was the only thing from that time period
that did include them.
The question of what is a word does indeed arise there. I
think the Chinese consider each syllable a word, but in fact
multi-syllable units often form words. I'm not sure that's
germane to this discussion.
Dennis
Richard Herring
<tsalag...@asus.net> writes
Ahem. Thai writing is not phonemic, *unless* you can first identify the
segment boundaries, which in general you can't do without additional
information.
>while Chinese is logographic. So there all you lack is the word
>divisions. And, of course, we've already said that ancient Greek
>writing lacked word divisions. AFAIK, Etruscan was the only thing from
>that time period that did include them.
>
> The question of what is a word does indeed arise there. I think
>the Chinese consider each syllable a word, but in fact multi-syllable
>units often form words. I'm not sure that's germane to this discussion.
>
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
I'm not sure what "this discussion" is -- you lumped together
vowellessness and spacelessness, which are two different and unrelated
things. IE languages _have been written_ vowellessly for millennia, so
that's not an interesting topic; and many languages _are still written_
spacelessly, suggesting that if English didn't have spaces, it wouldn't
be a terrible burden to learn to read it that way.
Spacelessness in Greek is less problematic because very few letters can
be word-final, and spacelessness in the Arabic family of scripts is less
problematic because of word-final flourishes.
António Marques
> And, of course, we've already said that ancient Greek writing lacked
> word divisions. AFAIK, Etruscan was the only thing from that time
> period that did include them.
Damn, such an advanced çanguages and look where it's gone.
--
am
laurus : rhodophyta : brezoneg : smalltalk : stargate
Lee Sau Dan
>>> Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word
>>> divisions in either script. -- Peter T. Daniels
>>> gram...@att.net
>> Am I misunderstanding you? Thai "script" may very well have no
>> word divisions, but how can you say the same for Chinese? Every
>> word has its own character
Harlan> That's a misconception. Many words in Chinese consist of
Harlan> multiple syllables/characters, such as Chong1guo2, the
Harlan> name for China,
Aren't Chong1 and guo2 themselves root-words? It's comparable to
"United Kingdom". Two words used together to refer to something
specific. Is "United Kingdom" one word? 2 words?
Harlan> or ci2dian3, a word for "dictionary",
Isn't <ci2> a word? Isn't <dian3> a word? <ci2dian3> is just a
compound. Comparable to English "word list". Is "word list" one
word, or two?
Harlan> or fu2wu4yuan2, a word meaning "waiter".
Again, just a compound of 3 root words. Compare that with "bus driver
license". Is that one word? 3 words? 2 words? or what?
And English doesn't mark the boundary of "book store", "bus fare",
"washing machine" "train station", etc. with other expressions before
or after them. How is Chinese that different? (BTW, is "washing
machine" one word or two words? What are the criteria?)
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Peter T. Daniels
Have you ever looked at a Chinese-English dictionary?
Single characters rarely even have a definition; the definitions are for
the two-character units listed under the characters.
Lee Sau Dan
>> And English doesn't mark the boundary of "book store", "bus
>> fare", "washing machine" "train station", etc. with other
>> expressions before or after them. How is Chinese that
>> different? (BTW, is "washing machine" one word or two words?
>> What are the criteria?)
Peter> Have you ever looked at a Chinese-English dictionary?
Yes. I used to have one, but I can't find it anymore.
Have you ever looked at a Chinese-Chinese dictionary, too?
Peter> Single characters rarely even have a definition;
Mine does. And most, if not all, Chinese-Chinese dictionary have
definitions for every single character. Indeed, we have 2 types of
dictionaries. There are <zi4dian3> for explaining single characters,
as well as <ci2dian3> for explaining multi-character combinations.
Peter> the definitions are for the two-character units listed
Peter> under the characters.
Maybe, that's because it's easier to find *English equivalents* when
considering 2-character units. That doesn't mean single characters do
not mean anything, nor that the 2-character units aren't compounds.
According to your argument, shall I call English expression "train
station" 1 word, because a French-English dictionary puts it under
"gare (n. f.)"? And because a German-English dictionary puts it under
"Bahnhof (n. m.)"? And English "central station" and French "station
centrale" are both 1 word expressions, because it's "Hauptbahnhof" in
a German-English or German-French dictionary?
Harlan Messinger
>>>>>>"Harlan" == Harlan Messinger <hmessinger...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>
> >>> Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word
> >>> divisions in either script. -- Peter T. Daniels
> >>> gram...@att.net
> >> Am I misunderstanding you? Thai "script" may very well have no
> >> word divisions, but how can you say the same for Chinese? Every
> >> word has its own character
>
> Harlan> That's a misconception. Many words in Chinese consist of
> Harlan> multiple syllables/characters, such as Chong1guo2, the
> Harlan> name for China,
>
> Aren't Chong1 and guo2 themselves root-words?
Yes.
It's comparable to
> "United Kingdom". Two words used together to refer to something
> specific. Is "United Kingdom" one word? 2 words?
Which proves that not every pair of words in English collapses into a
single word. Which isn't saying much.
>
>
> Harlan> or ci2dian3, a word for "dictionary",
>
> Isn't <ci2> a word? Isn't <dian3> a word? <ci2dian3> is just a
> compound. Comparable to English "word list". Is "word list" one
> word, or two?
Your English is good enough that your oversight of terms like
"vineyard", "cupboard", etc., must be intentional.
[snip]
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >> And English doesn't mark the boundary of "book store", "bus
> >> fare", "washing machine" "train station", etc. with other
> >> expressions before or after them. How is Chinese that
> >> different? (BTW, is "washing machine" one word or two words?
> >> What are the criteria?)
>
> Peter> Have you ever looked at a Chinese-English dictionary?
>
> Yes. I used to have one, but I can't find it anymore.
>
> Have you ever looked at a Chinese-Chinese dictionary, too?
Where would I even find one? It would do me no good at all.
> Peter> Single characters rarely even have a definition;
>
> Mine does. And most, if not all, Chinese-Chinese dictionary have
Your what? C-E or C-C?
> definitions for every single character. Indeed, we have 2 types of
> dictionaries. There are <zi4dian3> for explaining single characters,
> as well as <ci2dian3> for explaining multi-character combinations.
>
> Peter> the definitions are for the two-character units listed
> Peter> under the characters.
>
> Maybe, that's because it's easier to find *English equivalents* when
> considering 2-character units. That doesn't mean single characters do
> not mean anything, nor that the 2-character units aren't compounds.
I didn't say they don't mean anything at all. I said they don't function
on their own.
> According to your argument, shall I call English expression "train
> station" 1 word, because a French-English dictionary puts it under
> "gare (n. f.)"? And because a German-English dictionary puts it under
> "Bahnhof (n. m.)"? And English "central station" and French "station
> centrale" are both 1 word expressions, because it's "Hauptbahnhof" in
> a German-English or German-French dictionary?
What a peculiar way of arguing you have.
Yusuf B Gursey
I agree very much. spaceless arabic script writing, for decorative or
other reasons is not infrequent.
Peter T. Daniels
> I agree very much. spaceless arabic script writing, for decorative or
> other reasons is not infrequent.
Well, let's not get into decorative calligraphy!
Yusuf B Gursey
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
>
> > I agree very much. spaceless arabic script writing, for decorative or
> > other reasons is not infrequent.
>
> Well, let's not get into decorative calligraphy!
it's the best example of spaceless arabic script writing I know of.
Peter T. Daniels
But the point was legibility.
Dennis
>>>> However, I question how well, and whether, one could write
>>>>Greek, or English, without vowels if also one did not write
>>>>word divisions, as was the custom at first.
>>>>
>>>> I'm sure you can understand this.
>>>>
>>>> M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
>>>>
>>>> Msrycnndrstndths
>>>
>>>If you're going to do this silly exercise, don't leave out notation for
>>>initial vowels (and don't use digraphs):
>>>
>>>@mSrycn@ndrstndDs.
I understand the syllable marker. It's still not clear to
me that this is sufficiently unambiguous. It might be if
one got used to it. Is that your point?
>>>> I think Greek would be rather like English in that regard,
>>>>with about the same sort of consonant cluster sizes. How
>>>>about Ukrainian? This site is an example of what can go
>>>>wrong if one leaves out both vowels and word divisions there.
>>>>
>>>>http://home.att.net/~oko/home.htm
>>
>> Obviously something like Ukrainian is worse without vowels,
>>since it has more consonant clusters. That is how this
>>fellow gets the freedom to read what he wants.
>> I'm not sure that's
>>germane to this discussion.
>
> I'm not sure what "this discussion" is -- you lumped together
> vowellessness and spacelessness, which are two different and unrelated
> things.
I agree, they *are* different and unrelated. My question
is, if one omits *both* vowels and word divisions, does one
have too much ambiguity, in ancient Greek, modern English,
or IE languages in general?
> IE languages _have been written_ vowellessly for millennia, so
> that's not an interesting topic;
Agreed.
> and many languages _are still written_
> spacelessly, suggesting that if English didn't have spaces, it wouldn't
> be a terrible burden to learn to read it that way.
Most likely.
> Spacelessness in Greek is less problematic because very few letters can
> be word-final,
That may be the important factor! The issue, of course,
isn't spaces as such, but word breaks.
> and spacelessness in the Arabic family of scripts is less
> problematic because of word-final flourishes.
Yes, that's how you get word breaks there.
Once again, if you leave out both word divisions, in some
form, and vowels, can you get away with it, and in what
languages? The crackpot Ukrainian site linked above rather
suggests it won't work there - although he does *not*
provide a blank syllable start marker where a syllable
starts without a consonant.
OTOH, what you said about Greek suggests it *would* work
there. If one grants that, how then would you explain the
Greeks' introduction of vowels into the Phoenician abjad?
You'll have to cut me a little slack; I'm not a
professional linguist, just an amateur. ;-)
Dennis
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >>>> However, I question how well, and whether, one could write
> >>>>Greek, or English, without vowels if also one did not write
> >>>>word divisions, as was the custom at first.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm sure you can understand this.
> >>>>
> >>>> M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
> >>>>
> >>>> Msrycnndrstndths
> >>>
> >>>If you're going to do this silly exercise, don't leave out notation for
> >>>initial vowels (and don't use digraphs):
> >>>
> >>>@mSrycn@ndrstndDs.
>
> I understand the syllable marker. It's still not clear to
> me that this is sufficiently unambiguous. It might be if
> one got used to it. Is that your point?
It's not a "syllable marker." it notes the presence of an initial vowel.
> >>>> I think Greek would be rather like English in that regard,
> >>>>with about the same sort of consonant cluster sizes. How
> >>>>about Ukrainian? This site is an example of what can go
> >>>>wrong if one leaves out both vowels and word divisions there.
> >>>>
> >>>>http://home.att.net/~oko/home.htm
> >>
> >> Obviously something like Ukrainian is worse without vowels,
> >>since it has more consonant clusters. That is how this
> >>fellow gets the freedom to read what he wants.
>
> >> I'm not sure that's
> >>germane to this discussion.
> >
> > I'm not sure what "this discussion" is -- you lumped together
> > vowellessness and spacelessness, which are two different and unrelated
> > things.
>
> I agree, they *are* different and unrelated. My question
> is, if one omits *both* vowels and word divisions, does one
> have too much ambiguity, in ancient Greek, modern English,
> or IE languages in general?
Clearly not, since lots of scripts omit one or both.
> > IE languages _have been written_ vowellessly for millennia, so
> > that's not an interesting topic;
>
> Agreed.
>
> > and many languages _are still written_
> > spacelessly, suggesting that if English didn't have spaces, it wouldn't
> > be a terrible burden to learn to read it that way.
>
> Most likely.
>
> > Spacelessness in Greek is less problematic because very few letters can
> > be word-final,
>
> That may be the important factor! The issue, of course,
> isn't spaces as such, but word breaks.
>
> > and spacelessness in the Arabic family of scripts is less
> > problematic because of word-final flourishes.
>
> Yes, that's how you get word breaks there.
>
> Once again, if you leave out both word divisions, in some
> form, and vowels, can you get away with it, and in what
> languages? The crackpot Ukrainian site linked above rather
> suggests it won't work there - although he does *not*
> provide a blank syllable start marker where a syllable
> starts without a consonant.
>
> OTOH, what you said about Greek suggests it *would* work
> there. If one grants that, how then would you explain the
> Greeks' introduction of vowels into the Phoenician abjad?
I have published the explanation too many times to want to retype it
here!
Can you get at Blackwell's *Handbook of Linguistics*, ed. Aronoff &
Rees-Miller?
Or the Eerdman's One-Volume Dictionary of the Bible, ed. D. N. Freedman?
Or the Oxford Encyclopedia of Archeology in the Near East?
> You'll have to cut me a little slack; I'm not a
> professional linguist, just an amateur. ;-)
Yusuf B Gursey
Prai Jei wrote:
> Dennis (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message
> <dchlg...@enews4.newsguy.com>:
>
> > I'm sure you can understand this.
> >
> > M sr y cn ndrstnd ths
> >
> > Msrycnndrstndths
>
> A more appropriate rendering would be
>
> ¿ ¿m sr y¿ cn ¿ndrstnd ths
>
> where an additional character (chosen to be devoid of any accepted
> pronunciation) indicates a "silent" consonant (cf. Hebrew aleph, Arabic
> alif) i.e. a vowel without a consonant sound before it.
in arabic and hebrew the alif / aleph represents the glottal stop
preceding the vowel (i.e. vowels have initial glottalic onset), i.e. a
consonant. but many other languages using these scripts don't have this
onset, so then the letters alif / aleph become as you say in initial
position.
Lee Sau Dan
>> Have you ever looked at a Chinese-Chinese dictionary, too?
Peter> Where would I even find one? It would do me no good at all.
Obviously: in the country where this script was invented.
Peter> Single characters rarely even have a definition;
>> Mine does. And most, if not all, Chinese-Chinese dictionary
>> have
Peter> Your what? C-E or C-C?
My Chinese->English dictionary.
Peter> the definitions are for the two-character units listed
Peter> under the characters.
>> Maybe, that's because it's easier to find *English
>> equivalents* when considering 2-character units. That doesn't
>> mean single characters do not mean anything, nor that the
>> 2-character units aren't compounds.
Peter> I didn't say they don't mean anything at all. I said they
Peter> don't function on their own.
Neither do most English word function on their own. You need to
formulate a sentence.
And most Chinese character do function on their own -- at least as
"abbreviations". We often do that when writing headlines.
>> According to your argument, shall I call English expression
>> "train station" 1 word, because a French-English dictionary
>> puts it under "gare (n. f.)"? And because a German-English
>> dictionary puts it under "Bahnhof (n. m.)"? And English
>> "central station" and French "station centrale" are both 1 word
>> expressions, because it's "Hauptbahnhof" in a German-English or
>> German-French dictionary?
Peter> What a peculiar way of arguing you have.
You're running out of arguments?
Maybe, you should tell me why it is justifiable for you to judge the
'wordness' of Chinese characters based on your Chinese->English (or
English->Chinese) dictionaries, but at the same time it is
unjustifiable for me to analogously argue about the 'wordness' of
English expressions based on English<->German and English<->French
dictionaries.
Lee Sau Dan
Harlan> That's a misconception. Many words in Chinese consist of
Harlan> multiple syllables/characters, such as Chong1guo2, the
Harlan> name for China,
>> Aren't Chong1 and guo2 themselves root-words?
Harlan> Yes.
Harlan> It's comparable to
>> "United Kingdom". Two words used together to refer to
>> something specific. Is "United Kingdom" one word? 2 words?
Harlan> Which proves that not every pair of words in English
Harlan> collapses into a single word. Which isn't saying much.
If you consider "United Kingdom" to be "2 words NOT collapsed into a
single word", then why would you consider "Zhong1 guo2" to be "2 words
COLLAPSED into a single word"?
You're so inconsistent, and mislead by the spacing.
Harlan> or ci2dian3, a word for "dictionary",
>> Isn't <ci2> a word? Isn't <dian3> a word? <ci2dian3> is just
>> a compound. Comparable to English "word list". Is "word list"
>> one word, or two?
Harlan> Your English is good enough that your oversight of terms
Harlan> like "vineyard", "cupboard", etc., must be intentional.
You're simply evading to answer my question: Is "word list" one word?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >> Have you ever looked at a Chinese-Chinese dictionary, too?
>
> Peter> Where would I even find one? It would do me no good at all.
>
> Obviously: in the country where this script was invented.
So you'll buy me a plane ticket and a hotel reservation so I can go to
Anyang to see a dictionary?
I know what books about Chinese tell me.
Chinese-English dictionaries follow the analysis by linguists who study
Chinese.
Jeez.
Peter T. Daniels
I don't know "word list." "Wordlist" is one word.
Lee Sau Dan
>> You're simply evading to answer my question: Is "word list"
>> one word?
Peter> I don't know "word list." "Wordlist" is one word.
And "name list"? "Shopping list"? "mailing list"?