4 ms·

> But not all alphabets are equally good for a specific language why do you say that? The relationship between a letter[0] and the sound is entirely arbitrary

> But not all alphabets are equally good for a specific language why do you say that? The relationship between a letter[0] and the sound is entirely arbitrary - I could write 'A' and pronounce it as 'T'. Why would one set of charcters be less fit than another? [0] or symbol, more broadly eg. in welsh 'dd' and 'ff' are letters, even though 'd' and 'f' also exist in the alphabet. And in english we have sounds not represented by a single letter eg. 'th' sound

mrighele 7y ago
While in theory the relationship is arbitrary (in the end we just need the letter "0" and the letter "1") I think that there are practical reasons, such a conciseness (I don't want most of my sounds to use two or more letters, especially those that are used a lot), similarity between similar sounds, and similarity with other languages using the "same" alphabet (I hope nobody will every use the letter "a" to sound as a "t").
- yorwba 7y ago
  "A" is derived from the Phoenician consonant ʾālep, which is the glottal stop represented by ʾ in that transliteration of the letter's name. The Greeks reinterpreted it to mean the vowel sound instead, probably because there was no glottal stop in Greek. So on a very long timescale, it's possible that "a" will end up being pronounced as "t".
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    Upvoted for that nugget, but incidentally I noticed your name before and wondered if it was a ref to Yoruba the language?
    - yorwba 7y ago
      The opposite actually. A long time ago, I came up with "yoruba" as my username for various forums. (I think I was going for a vaguely Japanese look.) Some time later, I noticed "Yoruba" in the language selection sidebar of a Wikipedia article, so I decided to swap out a letter to make my username distinct.
jlg23 7y ago
> why would one set of charcters be less fit than another? Because one might already have phonetics associated with it. I literally have to read out messages aloud, have my wife read aloud other parts of the message so we can figure out what the sender meant. My favorite is a Berber from Tanger: amazight, arabic, spanish, some french, no formal education but also no inhibitions to write...and all in one alphabet. The only way to understand the text is to read it aloud once for each language, mark the parts that make sense in o e of the languages and then assemble all findings...

mrighele 7y ago

While in theory the relationship is arbitrary (in the end we just need the letter "0" and the letter "1") I think that there are practical reasons, such a conciseness (I don't want most of my sounds to use two or more letters, especially those that are used a lot), similarity between similar sounds, and similarity with other languages using the "same" alphabet (I hope nobody will every use the letter "a" to sound as a "t").

yorwba 7y ago
"A" is derived from the Phoenician consonant ʾālep, which is the glottal stop represented by ʾ in that transliteration of the letter's name. The Greeks reinterpreted it to mean the vowel sound instead, probably because there was no glottal stop in Greek. So on a very long timescale, it's possible that "a" will end up being pronounced as "t".
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  Upvoted for that nugget, but incidentally I noticed your name before and wondered if it was a ref to Yoruba the language?
  - yorwba 7y ago
    The opposite actually. A long time ago, I came up with "yoruba" as my username for various forums. (I think I was going for a vaguely Japanese look.) Some time later, I noticed "Yoruba" in the language selection sidebar of a Wikipedia article, so I decided to swap out a letter to make my username distinct.

jlg23 7y ago

> why would one set of charcters be less fit than another? Because one might already have phonetics associated with it. I literally have to read out messages aloud, have my wife read aloud other parts of the message so we can figure out what the sender meant. My favorite is a Berber from Tanger: amazight, arabic, spanish, some french, no formal education but also no inhibitions to write...and all in one alphabet. The only way to understand the text is to read it aloud once for each language, mark the parts that make sense in o e of the languages and then assemble all findings...