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> Like Japan’s kanji alphabet, the oldest writing system in the world is syllabic. I think they have that mixed up with hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chines

> Like Japan’s kanji alphabet, the oldest writing system in the world is syllabic. I think they have that mixed up with hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters.

user982 1y ago
Additionally, syllabaries (like the kana) are not alphabets.
- CobrastanJorji 1y ago
  You are technically correct! Alphabets (ABC) are for phonemes, syllabaries are for syllables (hiragana, Cherokee), logograms are for words (chinese characters). Of course, some writing systems are very much hybrids (like Chinese, or hieroglyphics, or even the humble ampersand).
  - DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
    To be sure, 'logogram' is an even worse word than 'ideograph' for what the Chinese writing system is.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  Nonsense. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alphabet https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alphabet > al·pha·bet > a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written especially if arranged in a customary order And then it shows an Alphabet Table beginning with Hebrew and Arabic.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
thaumasiotes 1y ago
Well, if you call them kanji, they're Japanese characters. (Japanese characters with a name that literally means "Chinese characters", but still not Chinese characters.) Kanji are very much not syllabic. But Chinese characters are.
- hnfong 1y ago
  You’re right in a politically sensitive context, but practically speaking Kanji and Chinese characters mostly share the same unicode code points, and you might want to ask yourself whether it’s worth nitpicking over for example whether English uses the Latin alphabet when proper classical Latin does not have J or U…
  - DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
    No J, U, W, and, prior to ~230BC, also no G; around that time also no Z which had been disfavored; almost no K which was barely used if at all, and Y was a distinctively Greek-only letter in Roman times, so that gives you 20 or 21 letters: ABCDEFHI(K)LMNOPQRSTVX for the Latin alphabet.
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      A lot of Pompeii graffiti is the alphabet. For example: https://www.ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffito/AGP-EDR167443 https://www.ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffito/AGP-EDR167... 21 letters. It's post-3rd-century and includes the G; you might have remembered an accurate statistic ("20 or 21 letters") while forgetting to count your alphabet, which only contains 19 or 20. K is barely used, but you wouldn't be able to argue that it wasn't used at all. It's used in "kal.", which you have to use when you're specifying a date.
      - DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
        > count your alphabet, which only contains 19 or 20 off-by-one errors are to be expected... K is such a fringe case. I checked back and you're right, it was consistently used for that specific case 'kal.' and for some names. Interestingly though I don't think any (major) romance language retained that spelling afterwards. It's a bit like the British 'ö' in 'Coöperative'. Given that I remember one single time I saw that spelling in the wild while visiting the UK, should I now go and write angry letters to all editors that "English really has 27 letters!!"? How rare is a letter allowed to be used before we declare it "not part of the alphabet"?

> Like Japan’s kanji alphabet, the oldest writing system in the world is syllabic. I think they have that mixed up with hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters.

user982 1y ago

Additionally, syllabaries (like the kana) are not alphabets.

CobrastanJorji 1y ago
You are technically correct! Alphabets (ABC) are for phonemes, syllabaries are for syllables (hiragana, Cherokee), logograms are for words (chinese characters). Of course, some writing systems are very much hybrids (like Chinese, or hieroglyphics, or even the humble ampersand).
- DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
  To be sure, 'logogram' is an even worse word than 'ideograph' for what the Chinese writing system is.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
Nonsense. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alphabet https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alphabet > al·pha·bet > a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written especially if arranged in a customary order And then it shows an Alphabet Table beginning with Hebrew and Arabic.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

thaumasiotes 1y ago

Well, if you call them kanji, they're Japanese characters. (Japanese characters with a name that literally means "Chinese characters", but still not Chinese characters.) Kanji are very much not syllabic. But Chinese characters are.

hnfong 1y ago
You’re right in a politically sensitive context, but practically speaking Kanji and Chinese characters mostly share the same unicode code points, and you might want to ask yourself whether it’s worth nitpicking over for example whether English uses the Latin alphabet when proper classical Latin does not have J or U…
- DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
  No J, U, W, and, prior to ~230BC, also no G; around that time also no Z which had been disfavored; almost no K which was barely used if at all, and Y was a distinctively Greek-only letter in Roman times, so that gives you 20 or 21 letters: ABCDEFHI(K)LMNOPQRSTVX for the Latin alphabet.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    A lot of Pompeii graffiti is the alphabet. For example: https://www.ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffito/AGP-EDR167443 https://www.ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffito/AGP-EDR167... 21 letters. It's post-3rd-century and includes the G; you might have remembered an accurate statistic ("20 or 21 letters") while forgetting to count your alphabet, which only contains 19 or 20. K is barely used, but you wouldn't be able to argue that it wasn't used at all. It's used in "kal.", which you have to use when you're specifying a date.
    - DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
      > count your alphabet, which only contains 19 or 20 off-by-one errors are to be expected... K is such a fringe case. I checked back and you're right, it was consistently used for that specific case 'kal.' and for some names. Interestingly though I don't think any (major) romance language retained that spelling afterwards. It's a bit like the British 'ö' in 'Coöperative'. Given that I remember one single time I saw that spelling in the wild while visiting the UK, should I now go and write angry letters to all editors that "English really has 27 letters!!"? How rare is a letter allowed to be used before we declare it "not part of the alphabet"?