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All the articles in "Category:Alphabetic writing systems" could (should?) be added into this porges 04:42, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
I don't see the need for this navbox. The category already does the same thing better. — Gwalla | Talk 05:09, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The template should arrange the alphabets by relationship (i.e. genetically), otherwise it's just equivalent to the category. I'll try my hand. dab (ᛏ) 14:20, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
it's just that it's a bit unwieldy now. I'm having trouble placing this template on a few articles because it messes up the layout. Also, do we want to add colour coding, e.g. one color for abjad, one for abugida, and one for fully phonematic alphabets? It will make clear that once people went from abjad to either abugida or phonematic, they stay there. dab (ᛏ) 08:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This list has grown far too large to fit in articles. I really think it would be more useful to show script relationships through a more granular category hierarchy than an enormous navbox. — Gwalla | Talk 18:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
it's difficult to classify alphabets as genetically related, in cases where the characters didn't just evolve through "wear and tear" but a concious act of invention intervened. The alphabets not listed as dependent on Proto-Canaanite are suggested to be original inventions. Glagolitic was invented by one man in the 9th century, but it is obvious that it is partly inspired by the Greek alphabet. So it is quite ok to list it as dependent on Greek, but it should be above, not below cyrillic, since it is slightly older. Armenian is another case of an "invented" alphabet. It its case, there is no clear dependency on earlier alphabets, so I think we should properly leave it listed as an original invention. dab (ᛏ) 07:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I fail to see the point of including a list of every alphabet on every alphabet page. This list should just be included on alphabet, and anyone who wants to see a list of every alphabet can go to that page to see it. Adding a list of every alphabet to every alphabet page adds needless clutter. This is why we have categories. Nohat 00:21, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
indeed not! the template should give a brief overview of evolution and major alphabets used today. individual cases should be discussed here, I don't know if we really need the deeply-nested Devanagari entry since we have the brahmi one (I included it because the Devanagari is the Brahmi descendent in wide use today), or Thai. But the list shouldn't be longer than 20 or so entries, otherwise to a genesis of the alphabet or list of alphabets article! dab (ᛏ) 12:36, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
This template survived a TFD nomination - see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/May_2005#Template:Alphabet. R adiant _* 08:47, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I moved Hebrew to a descendant of Aramaic with a corrected date, replaced the existing 9th century Hebrew link to Paleo-Hebrew and added its closely relating descendant, Samaritan.
I also added the Cherokee syllabary as a descendant of Latin, which it sort of is, at least in letterform - 24 are borrowed wholesale from latin majuscule and miniscule. Anyway, it's certainly notable enough to merit inclusion.
Speaking of which, would it be correct to note the development of lower-case lettering here, or is that considered a font rather than an alphabet? -- April Arcus 09:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
this template is supposed to give an overview of the evolution of the alphabet ("the" alphabet as in the concept). Evolution of minuscule or cursive forms clearly cannot be included, since that's part of the evolution of a particular alphabet. The Cherokee syllabary is interesting in that it is the only(?) syllabary descended from an alphabet. Which somehow shows that it isn't really descended, i.e. the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary wasn't familiar with the idea of an alphabet. We should really keep the list to a minimum of the most notable alphabets. You can do a list of as many as you like on List of alphabets (which is incidentally very poor, and should be expanded, reordered and commented upon). dab (ᛏ) 10:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Frankly, and I say this as an expert in the world's writing systems, this template sucks. It is too big and it clutters a lot of articles. It is incomplete, and would be four times the length were it to go anywhere near completion. The discussion on the TfD and here on this talk page shows clearly that it's been put together by amateurs. There is a place for the History of the alphabet, and that is in an actual article where the interesting facts and relationships can be recorded, and where expertise can be applied to improve the article. Please spend your energy on the History of the alphabet. A template is not the place for history. Evertype 07:55, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Somewaht pointless to repeat what I've already said in TfD, but I can't help: en.wikipedia suffers from template creep, especially thise wonderfull "theme ringe" templates. And this one is a major offender. -- Pjacobi 21:52, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
with all due respect, Evertype, I think you are missing the point of this template. It does not aim to replace an article. Details will always have to be explained, well, in detail. For example, is Glagolitic descended from Greek? Yes, in a way. Is the Armenian alphabet ...well... sort of. That's not the point. The point is to give a rough sketch of the world's major alphabets, in roughly genetical arrangement. I agree it is getting cluttered again, and some less prominent entries should go. But I do think the template can be useful. dab (ᛏ) 17:17, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
The Aramaic alphabet article had a couple of dates listed with the BCE era, and the article was consistent in that style. However, these were changed to BC so as to be consistent with this template. As I feel that BCE is the right format for dates in the article in question, and the status of this template is questioned, I changed he dates in the article back to BCE. If we are going to use this template, perhaps we should look to the consistency between eras in articles and this template. -- Gareth Hughes 20:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Assuming we keep this template, what are our standards for including a script? We've gotten rid of Hangul, a quite remarkable alphabet, but still have Samaritan and someone put Old Italic back in. If this is to be used for navigation, Old Italic is minor compared to Hangul, Georgian, or Cree.
dab (ᛏ) 13:45, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Runes have been repeatedly moved to branch off Old Italic rather than Latin. Why? There was no longer an Old Italic script when the runes were first written. Given the level of detail elsewhere, do we even need Old Italic? kwami 19:14, 2005 August 9 (UTC)
But note the suggestions for reorganization above. I do suppose this template is clutter at this point, and should be made horizontal (and go to the bottom of articles). dab (ᛏ) 19:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
Cree can be classified as abugida, but Hangul is an alphabetic writing system. If the purpose of this template is to show the lineage between Western alphabetic systems, how about to consider changing the title? -- Puzzlet Chung 04:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
No matter it is the descendent of another, Hangul should be mentioned when the template is supposed to deal with alphabets. -- Puzzlet Chung 02:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/atobrukh/archaeology/matara/archevid1.html#archevid1pic4
See this page and click on Hawulti inscription (date fromm 5-6th century BC and is definitely Ge'ez). I don't have time to give more links right now, but I'll add some more later.
Yom 14:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Two points. First, to avoid confusion, kana is not an abugida, but rather a syllabary. Abugidas are segmental, syllabaries are not.
Second, Daniels and Bright briefly discuss unvocalized Ge'ez texts prior to 350 CE, but only from the first millennium. They give a couple distinctions between Ge'ez and South Arabian, such as the Greek influence, and mention that the available models for Ge'ez were South Arabian and Greek. Their clear implication is that BC-era inscriptions are in either South Arabian or Greek, not the Ge'ez script (though they may be in the Ge'ez language). I'm not saying they're correct on the dates, just something we need to account for. kwami 01:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I can understand a bias toward Western Europe, considering that we use the Latin and Greek alphabets in English, and a lot of people have an interest in runes, but this outline was starting to lean a little too far West in my opinion. Therefore I took out Celtiberian, Anatolian, and Coptic as relatively minor variants of Iberian and Greek; and added in Tibetan, Khmer, Javanese, and (questionably) Hangul to better represent that side of the family.
Also, (Old) Canaanite and Phoenician are the same script; anything before 1050 BCE is called Canaanite, and anything from 1050 on is called Phoenician. Hardly reason for the distinction we had made. We also don't know that South Arabic is independent from Canaanite/Phoenician, though that is sometimes supposed. kwami 19:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
How about some input on what to include? We want to avoid bloat, of course, but probably want to keep the outlines of the family intact.
Considerations? kwami 01:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
I have a question to the group. Please don't laugh at this story. Recently I bought a can of ethiopian coffee and was astonished to see writings on the can in an alphabet that resembled Armenian very much. I could recognize some of the letters as "Armenian". After browsing thru the internet, I suspect the alphabet is Ge'ez. I am not a linguist or historian. Could anybody please enlighten me if there are indeed any similarities between Armenian and any of the Ethiopian alphabets?
Thanks!! Lynist
ahem, the Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a "minor variant" of what? It is the archetype of all the NW Semitic abjads, and as such of crucial importance of a genealogical chart of alphabets... dab (𒁳) 18:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The greek alphabet is said to have started in early 8th century BCE (cf its wikipedia entry). But the summary box on the right side of the page has 9th century BCE. Shouldnt it be changed to 8th century BCE ?
Same thing with the hebrew alphabet, the modern version based on the "square script" was adopted in the 6th century BCE, but the summary box has 3rd century BCE. Any objections if I change it to 6th century BCE ? -- Squallgreg ( talk) 13:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
When this template is collapsed, the “show” control overlaps the title, and can't be clicked (in the latest Safari/Mac 3.1.2). — Michael Z. 2008-10-29 18:41 z
As an editor, I find this template really annoying. It gets in the way of thumbnail images that I want to be displayed with a certain section. It would be nice to have a version of this template so we can dump at the bottom of the article (so those that want to browse by this template can still do so). -- Dara ( talk) 19:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I removed Brahmic Family and Kharosthi from this list as they aren't alphabets. They are Abugida. They can be said pseudo-Alphabets, but I believe they aren't anywhere near to be called alphabets. Devanagari have a complex system of compound syllables. They all are more of a syllable scripts... -- Rawal of Jaisalmer ( talk) 09:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
The improvements are based on the following literature: Gábor Hosszú: Heritage of Scribes. It is fully available from the Google Books at http://books.google.hu/books?printsec=frontcover&id=TyK8azCqC34C — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovasscript ( talk • contribs) 15:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC) Sorry, previously I forgot to sign. Rovasscript ( talk) 17:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
If the Proto-Sinaitic is descended from the hieroglyphs of Egypt, shouldn't that be mentioned in this template?
Anonymous 173.57.44.147 ( talk) 17:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Use of circa and century is inconsistent. Both are abbreviated as (c.) and this is slightly confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.94.241 ( talk) 21:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Unlike Kana, Chữ Nôm, or bofomopo, which is derivation of Chinese character, hangul is NOT derivation of chinese character, but it placed inside chinese family. Should be moved to somewhere else. 118.221.204.58 ( talk) 06:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
@ Hyacinth: I'm not sure how {{ Alphabetize}} is related to this template. They both share similar names, but they diverge significantly in their purposes. I've removed it; you are welcome to revert, preferably with explanation here. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) eπi ( talk | contribs) 19:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
All the articles in "Category:Alphabetic writing systems" could (should?) be added into this porges 04:42, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
I don't see the need for this navbox. The category already does the same thing better. — Gwalla | Talk 05:09, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The template should arrange the alphabets by relationship (i.e. genetically), otherwise it's just equivalent to the category. I'll try my hand. dab (ᛏ) 14:20, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
it's just that it's a bit unwieldy now. I'm having trouble placing this template on a few articles because it messes up the layout. Also, do we want to add colour coding, e.g. one color for abjad, one for abugida, and one for fully phonematic alphabets? It will make clear that once people went from abjad to either abugida or phonematic, they stay there. dab (ᛏ) 08:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This list has grown far too large to fit in articles. I really think it would be more useful to show script relationships through a more granular category hierarchy than an enormous navbox. — Gwalla | Talk 18:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
it's difficult to classify alphabets as genetically related, in cases where the characters didn't just evolve through "wear and tear" but a concious act of invention intervened. The alphabets not listed as dependent on Proto-Canaanite are suggested to be original inventions. Glagolitic was invented by one man in the 9th century, but it is obvious that it is partly inspired by the Greek alphabet. So it is quite ok to list it as dependent on Greek, but it should be above, not below cyrillic, since it is slightly older. Armenian is another case of an "invented" alphabet. It its case, there is no clear dependency on earlier alphabets, so I think we should properly leave it listed as an original invention. dab (ᛏ) 07:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I fail to see the point of including a list of every alphabet on every alphabet page. This list should just be included on alphabet, and anyone who wants to see a list of every alphabet can go to that page to see it. Adding a list of every alphabet to every alphabet page adds needless clutter. This is why we have categories. Nohat 00:21, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
indeed not! the template should give a brief overview of evolution and major alphabets used today. individual cases should be discussed here, I don't know if we really need the deeply-nested Devanagari entry since we have the brahmi one (I included it because the Devanagari is the Brahmi descendent in wide use today), or Thai. But the list shouldn't be longer than 20 or so entries, otherwise to a genesis of the alphabet or list of alphabets article! dab (ᛏ) 12:36, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
This template survived a TFD nomination - see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/May_2005#Template:Alphabet. R adiant _* 08:47, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I moved Hebrew to a descendant of Aramaic with a corrected date, replaced the existing 9th century Hebrew link to Paleo-Hebrew and added its closely relating descendant, Samaritan.
I also added the Cherokee syllabary as a descendant of Latin, which it sort of is, at least in letterform - 24 are borrowed wholesale from latin majuscule and miniscule. Anyway, it's certainly notable enough to merit inclusion.
Speaking of which, would it be correct to note the development of lower-case lettering here, or is that considered a font rather than an alphabet? -- April Arcus 09:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
this template is supposed to give an overview of the evolution of the alphabet ("the" alphabet as in the concept). Evolution of minuscule or cursive forms clearly cannot be included, since that's part of the evolution of a particular alphabet. The Cherokee syllabary is interesting in that it is the only(?) syllabary descended from an alphabet. Which somehow shows that it isn't really descended, i.e. the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary wasn't familiar with the idea of an alphabet. We should really keep the list to a minimum of the most notable alphabets. You can do a list of as many as you like on List of alphabets (which is incidentally very poor, and should be expanded, reordered and commented upon). dab (ᛏ) 10:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Frankly, and I say this as an expert in the world's writing systems, this template sucks. It is too big and it clutters a lot of articles. It is incomplete, and would be four times the length were it to go anywhere near completion. The discussion on the TfD and here on this talk page shows clearly that it's been put together by amateurs. There is a place for the History of the alphabet, and that is in an actual article where the interesting facts and relationships can be recorded, and where expertise can be applied to improve the article. Please spend your energy on the History of the alphabet. A template is not the place for history. Evertype 07:55, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Somewaht pointless to repeat what I've already said in TfD, but I can't help: en.wikipedia suffers from template creep, especially thise wonderfull "theme ringe" templates. And this one is a major offender. -- Pjacobi 21:52, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
with all due respect, Evertype, I think you are missing the point of this template. It does not aim to replace an article. Details will always have to be explained, well, in detail. For example, is Glagolitic descended from Greek? Yes, in a way. Is the Armenian alphabet ...well... sort of. That's not the point. The point is to give a rough sketch of the world's major alphabets, in roughly genetical arrangement. I agree it is getting cluttered again, and some less prominent entries should go. But I do think the template can be useful. dab (ᛏ) 17:17, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
The Aramaic alphabet article had a couple of dates listed with the BCE era, and the article was consistent in that style. However, these were changed to BC so as to be consistent with this template. As I feel that BCE is the right format for dates in the article in question, and the status of this template is questioned, I changed he dates in the article back to BCE. If we are going to use this template, perhaps we should look to the consistency between eras in articles and this template. -- Gareth Hughes 20:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Assuming we keep this template, what are our standards for including a script? We've gotten rid of Hangul, a quite remarkable alphabet, but still have Samaritan and someone put Old Italic back in. If this is to be used for navigation, Old Italic is minor compared to Hangul, Georgian, or Cree.
dab (ᛏ) 13:45, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Runes have been repeatedly moved to branch off Old Italic rather than Latin. Why? There was no longer an Old Italic script when the runes were first written. Given the level of detail elsewhere, do we even need Old Italic? kwami 19:14, 2005 August 9 (UTC)
But note the suggestions for reorganization above. I do suppose this template is clutter at this point, and should be made horizontal (and go to the bottom of articles). dab (ᛏ) 19:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
Cree can be classified as abugida, but Hangul is an alphabetic writing system. If the purpose of this template is to show the lineage between Western alphabetic systems, how about to consider changing the title? -- Puzzlet Chung 04:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
No matter it is the descendent of another, Hangul should be mentioned when the template is supposed to deal with alphabets. -- Puzzlet Chung 02:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/atobrukh/archaeology/matara/archevid1.html#archevid1pic4
See this page and click on Hawulti inscription (date fromm 5-6th century BC and is definitely Ge'ez). I don't have time to give more links right now, but I'll add some more later.
Yom 14:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Two points. First, to avoid confusion, kana is not an abugida, but rather a syllabary. Abugidas are segmental, syllabaries are not.
Second, Daniels and Bright briefly discuss unvocalized Ge'ez texts prior to 350 CE, but only from the first millennium. They give a couple distinctions between Ge'ez and South Arabian, such as the Greek influence, and mention that the available models for Ge'ez were South Arabian and Greek. Their clear implication is that BC-era inscriptions are in either South Arabian or Greek, not the Ge'ez script (though they may be in the Ge'ez language). I'm not saying they're correct on the dates, just something we need to account for. kwami 01:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I can understand a bias toward Western Europe, considering that we use the Latin and Greek alphabets in English, and a lot of people have an interest in runes, but this outline was starting to lean a little too far West in my opinion. Therefore I took out Celtiberian, Anatolian, and Coptic as relatively minor variants of Iberian and Greek; and added in Tibetan, Khmer, Javanese, and (questionably) Hangul to better represent that side of the family.
Also, (Old) Canaanite and Phoenician are the same script; anything before 1050 BCE is called Canaanite, and anything from 1050 on is called Phoenician. Hardly reason for the distinction we had made. We also don't know that South Arabic is independent from Canaanite/Phoenician, though that is sometimes supposed. kwami 19:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
How about some input on what to include? We want to avoid bloat, of course, but probably want to keep the outlines of the family intact.
Considerations? kwami 01:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
I have a question to the group. Please don't laugh at this story. Recently I bought a can of ethiopian coffee and was astonished to see writings on the can in an alphabet that resembled Armenian very much. I could recognize some of the letters as "Armenian". After browsing thru the internet, I suspect the alphabet is Ge'ez. I am not a linguist or historian. Could anybody please enlighten me if there are indeed any similarities between Armenian and any of the Ethiopian alphabets?
Thanks!! Lynist
ahem, the Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a "minor variant" of what? It is the archetype of all the NW Semitic abjads, and as such of crucial importance of a genealogical chart of alphabets... dab (𒁳) 18:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The greek alphabet is said to have started in early 8th century BCE (cf its wikipedia entry). But the summary box on the right side of the page has 9th century BCE. Shouldnt it be changed to 8th century BCE ?
Same thing with the hebrew alphabet, the modern version based on the "square script" was adopted in the 6th century BCE, but the summary box has 3rd century BCE. Any objections if I change it to 6th century BCE ? -- Squallgreg ( talk) 13:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
When this template is collapsed, the “show” control overlaps the title, and can't be clicked (in the latest Safari/Mac 3.1.2). — Michael Z. 2008-10-29 18:41 z
As an editor, I find this template really annoying. It gets in the way of thumbnail images that I want to be displayed with a certain section. It would be nice to have a version of this template so we can dump at the bottom of the article (so those that want to browse by this template can still do so). -- Dara ( talk) 19:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I removed Brahmic Family and Kharosthi from this list as they aren't alphabets. They are Abugida. They can be said pseudo-Alphabets, but I believe they aren't anywhere near to be called alphabets. Devanagari have a complex system of compound syllables. They all are more of a syllable scripts... -- Rawal of Jaisalmer ( talk) 09:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
The improvements are based on the following literature: Gábor Hosszú: Heritage of Scribes. It is fully available from the Google Books at http://books.google.hu/books?printsec=frontcover&id=TyK8azCqC34C — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovasscript ( talk • contribs) 15:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC) Sorry, previously I forgot to sign. Rovasscript ( talk) 17:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
If the Proto-Sinaitic is descended from the hieroglyphs of Egypt, shouldn't that be mentioned in this template?
Anonymous 173.57.44.147 ( talk) 17:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Use of circa and century is inconsistent. Both are abbreviated as (c.) and this is slightly confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.94.241 ( talk) 21:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Unlike Kana, Chữ Nôm, or bofomopo, which is derivation of Chinese character, hangul is NOT derivation of chinese character, but it placed inside chinese family. Should be moved to somewhere else. 118.221.204.58 ( talk) 06:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
@ Hyacinth: I'm not sure how {{ Alphabetize}} is related to this template. They both share similar names, but they diverge significantly in their purposes. I've removed it; you are welcome to revert, preferably with explanation here. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) eπi ( talk | contribs) 19:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC)