3 ms·
There are a couple of errors in terminology. At first these phonemes (one symbol for one thing, instead of letters to make a word) symbolized concrete things
by gliese1337 11y ago
There are a couple of errors in terminology.
At first these phonemes (one symbol for one thing, instead of letters to make a word) symbolized concrete things;
Should say "pictograms", "logograms", or "ideograms", but definitely not phonemes, which are minimal units of sound in a language, and have nothing to do with writing.
At the end,
Fifteen other languages developed from cuneiform,
Confuses the cuneiform writing system with a language that uses cuneiform. It should probably say "fifteen other languages developer from Sumerian", though I'm not certain if that's actually correct. This is a particularly surprising error given that, right near the beginning, the article acknowledges that "It was used to write at least a dozen languages, just as the alphabet that you are reading now is also (for the most part) used in Spanish, German and many other languages."
- gkya 11y agoSumerian is a language isolate, so the second quote may only correctly refer to writing systems.
- jhbadger 11y agoExactly. The languages didn't evolve from Sumerian, they just borrowed the writing system in the same sense that non Indo-European languages like Finnish borrowed the Roman alphabet.
- gliese1337 11y agoHence my uncertainty. In that case, if it is intended to refer only to writing systems, it should probably say "15 other languages' writing systems evolved from Sumerian cuneiform." or "were adapted from Sumerian cuneiform", or some other variation thereon.