Talk:Latin alphabet

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Latin alphabet was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Delisted version: November 24, 2006


This page has been selected for the release version of Wikipedia and rated B-Class on the assessment scale. It is in the category Langlit.
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[edit] Order

How and when was the order we currently know agreed (Gnevin 21:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC))

It goes a long way back, with spontaneous evolutions happening occasionally. It is largely derived from the order of the Greek alphabet, which in itself largely was derived from the Phoenician alphabet. . 惑乱 分からん 12:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The last change happened some time around 1860, and re-ordered things to the familiar 'U, V, W', replacing 'U, W, V', where the 'W' is seen literally as a 'Double U'. I'm trying to date this properly, as I have a dictionary that (just) pre-dates it Philh42 11:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)Philh42

  • The history of the ordering is not well described in any of the relevant articles: alphabet, latin alphabet, collating sequence, or collation. It seems to me that the history of the ordering of alphabets is best handled on their own pages, so some improvement here would be good. It's way out of my league, though! Anybody else able to take a pass at it? --Lquilter (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Encyclopedia" self reference

The image Image:Latin alphabet.png seems to violate Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. Other example text would be more appropriate. —Ben FrantzDale 23:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia" and "encyclopedia" are two different things. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
True, but this page has little to do with encyclopedias. That text might as well say "Thesaurus" :-). The other alphabet pages have ancient texts as their examples. I'd think this should have something like The quick brown fox or else something historical that's in Latin characters. —Ben FrantzDale 02:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, No worries. I'll re-upload the picture with the text "The quick brown fox." I suppose that is a better example. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 12:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the N?

No N?????

[edit] Alphabet Applications

This is just a shot in the dark, but is it not more logical to call it the Roman alphabet? I consider the Latin alphabet to be the Roman alphabet adjusted to the sounds of the Latin language, just like all the other systems.

For instance, the letter 'W' in the German language is adjusted to be the same sound as the letter 'V' in English. If a German said to me, in his native language, "I work for BMW", and I were to write that in the Latin alphabet with no previous knowledge of German, I would write BMW as 'BMV', because that's how he would say it.

So what I mean is, the Roman alphabet adjusted for the German language is the 'German' alphabet, the Roman alphabet adjusted for the English language is the 'English' alphabet, and the Roman alphabet adjusted for the Latin language is the 'Latin' alphabet.

It was, after all, the Roman Empire which was the principle cause of the adoption of this alphabet by the linguists of Europe, so I cannot see how it would be unfair to call it by this name. I'm hoping for the opinion of someone better placed to decide than me, as I am not a linguistics graduate. Sjnorthwood | Talk 12 July 2007.

It would make more sense, but "Latin alphabet" is far and away the more common name. — Gwalla | Talk 03:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Considering that "Latin alphabet" does appear to be the more common name, why is it that we seem to talk exclusively about "romanizing" text from other scripts rather than "latinizing" it? --Lazar Taxon 03:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it is the more common name in America? I've never known anyone call it the Latin alphabet. It's always been the Roman alphabet. If there's a distinction, I would say that the Latin alphabet didn't traditionally include j or v as independent letters, or w, whereas the term Roman alphabet denotes the 26-letter entity. -86.137.136.182 19:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Calling it Roman is more common in the US, also. However, the latin alphabet was standardized as "Latin" by international committees, and that is now the technical term. But there is a bigger problem - This article breaks out the "English" alphabet as different from the Latin Alphabet. In fact, the modern Latin Alphabet and the Modern English Alphabet are the exact same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.116.87.110 (talk) 20:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Latin names of the letters?!

Hi, these Latin names of the letters confuse me, even though the author readily admits that the names are disputed. The table says the y was called "i graeca". How is this possible? In the classical era, the y was used in Greek words to display the sound of the French u and the German ü. Why would the Romans call that letter "Greek i" when it was pronounced differently? And then the x. According to the article, the letter was called "ex", as in English. This seems highly inplausible to me. In all other languages I know, this letter is called "ix". This goes for both Germanic and Romance languages. So what the... ? Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 08:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

You have a point about "x". As for "y", the article explains that: FilipeS 09:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The letter Y when introduced was probably called hy /hyː/ as in Greek (the name upsilon being not yet in use) but was changed to i Graeca ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing /i/ and /y/ .

[edit] Windows font for Roman square capitals

which font do you use to get an ancient epigraphy impression? -- 172.173.183.42 09:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC) PS: de:Capitalis Quadrata

Trajan (typeface) -- 172.176.53.51 09:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Esh and Ezh?

I was wondering why there is no inclusion for these letters here. 20:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC) ·:RedAugust (talk) 06:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

They are listed in the subarticle List of Latin letters. FilipeS (talk) 21:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Well yeah... so is every other latin letter... I'm just wondering why they're not included in the "Wholly New Letters" section.·:RedAugust (talk) 06:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Because the "Extensions" section only mentions a few examples. A full list would be too long. FilipeS (talk) 12:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Z in the first alphabet table

There may be a misunderstanding here. I don't think the article means to say that the dropping of the letter Z from the alphabet and the introduction of G happened at the same time. FilipeS (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cumaean alphabet needs replacement for Ionic Alphabet

In Greece and most southern schools we are thought that the latin alphabet evolved from the Greek-Ionic alphabet, used by the Greeks in the southern region of Italy. Proof: any primary school textbook. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.85.234 (talk) 01:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mix up in table

There is a mix up with U and V in the first alphabet table. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.233.121.170 (talk) 22:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit: or maybe not. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.233.121.170 (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stargate

Is it worth adding that the ancient language in stargate is based on latin?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.27.168.196 (talk) 18:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)