0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverHow did it arise?I can imagine it... "This shape C is pronounced K but we'll call it SEE". Eh? Where's the sense in that? Wouldn't it have been far more logical, and a lot easier, to have simply stuck with the phonetics of the letter?So when spelling, for instance, the word "SPELL" you would pronounce the letters rather than saying "Ess, pee, ee, ell, ell". I just don't see the point in them having names & I can't think how it may have started. Does anyone know?
quote:Firstly, what you refer to is not unique to English, but is common to all written languages, both alphabetic and ideographic. All languages give the shape of their letters a name that is distinct from their linguistic value.
quote:From the point of view of someone laying out written text, whether they be a scribe, or a printer laying out type, it makes sense to assign names to the shapes that can be considered independently of their meaning. If a typesetter wants to place a letter 'Y' in a particular position in the printed text, he wants to be able to unambiguously describe the shape of letter he wants, and does not want something that simply has a particular phonetic value, but something that has exactly that particular shape.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverChinese? Japanese? In those languages the ideograph is known by its sound even though that sound can mean different things depending on various rules.
quote:I don't really see that the printing press has anything to do with it. Letters having names pre-dates the press by hundreds of years (the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, for instance, have names).
quote:The names of the letters, which survive in the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, were probably already present. The names are based on an acrophonic principle, presumably from Semitic translations of the names of Egyptian hieroglyphs. For example, Egyptian nt (water) became Semitic mu (water), ultimately evolving into Latin M, while Egyptian drt (hand) became Semitic kapp (hand), and ultimately Latin K. One reconstruction of 22 letters, based on Proto-Canaanite's better-attested successors Phoenician, and its sibling South Arabian, follows, along with the Latin descendants, Code: [Select]1.[#702;] #702;alp "ox" (A) 2.[ b] bet "house" (B) 3.[g] gaml "throwstick" (C, G) 4.[d] digg "fish" (D) 5.[h] haw / hll "jubilation" (E) 6.[w] waw "hook" (F, U, V, W, Y) 7.[z] zen /ziqq "manacle" (Z) 8.[#7717;] #7717;et (H) 9.[#7789;] #7789;#275;t (#920;) "wheel" 10.[y] yad "arm" (I, J) 11.[k] kap "hand" (K) 12.[l] lamd "goad" (L) 13.[m] mem "water" (M) 14.[n] na#7717;š "snake" (N) 15.[s] samek "fish" 16.[#703;] #703;en "eye" (O) 17.[p] pi#702;t "corner" (P) 18.[#7779; ] #7779;ad "plant" 19.[q] qup (Q) 20.[r] ra#702;s "head" (R) 21.[š] šimš "sun, the Uraeus" (S) 22.[t] taw "signature" (T)
1.[#702;] #702;alp "ox" (A) 2.[ b] bet "house" (B) 3.[g] gaml "throwstick" (C, G) 4.[d] digg "fish" (D) 5.[h] haw / hll "jubilation" (E) 6.[w] waw "hook" (F, U, V, W, Y) 7.[z] zen /ziqq "manacle" (Z) 8.[#7717;] #7717;et (H) 9.[#7789;] #7789;#275;t (#920;) "wheel" 10.[y] yad "arm" (I, J) 11.[k] kap "hand" (K) 12.[l] lamd "goad" (L) 13.[m] mem "water" (M) 14.[n] na#7717;š "snake" (N) 15.[s] samek "fish" 16.[#703;] #703;en "eye" (O) 17.[p] pi#702;t "corner" (P) 18.[#7779; ] #7779;ad "plant" 19.[q] qup (Q) 20.[r] ra#702;s "head" (R) 21.[š] šimš "sun, the Uraeus" (S) 22.[t] taw "signature" (T)
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverIn any case, in most ancient alphabets of which I am aware, the letters each have only 1 sound.
quote:As I understand it, a Chinese ideograph has no particular sound value, since every dialect of Chinese will have a different sound value associated with the ideograph, and the only thing they agree about is the abstract meaning behind the character, not its sound value.
quote:In general, written and spoken languages deviate as time progresses, so the closer to the point at which a written language is introduced, in general, the less divergence between the written and spoken languages. German is more phonetic than English because a unified German State, and thus a unified German spelling, is a relatively modern introduction.
quote:The problem with ancient languages is either the language existed for a prolonged period of time, in which case you have to decide which point in time you look at the language (medieval Latin was very different from the Latin of the 3rd century BC), or else you are talking about a language that does not have a long history, and thus one may assume that the written language was a fairly recent (in the context of the time when we have a written history of the culture) innovation in the culture.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverI don't see how that would influence what the letters are called. At whatever point in a language's development the written form originated, the letters were given names that in many cases bear no resemblance to the way they are pronounced.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverHow did it arise?I can imagine it... "This shape C is pronounced K but we'll call it SEE". Eh? Where's the sense in that? Wouldn't it have been far more logical, and a lot easier, to have simply stuck with the phonetics of the letter?So when spelling, for instance, the word "SPELL" you would pronounce the letters rather than saying "Ess, pee, ee, ell, ell". I just don't see the point in them having names & I can't think how it may have started. Does anyone know?Brand new forum athttp://beaverlandforum.y4a.netMore than just science