Template talk:Latin alphabet

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[edit] English alphabet

This should be called the English alphabet. It is neither Latin in the restricted sense that it was used to write the Latin language, nor Latin in the general sense that it is the full Roman script used by many languages. --Ptcamn 02:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO this template should be called “Template:Basic Latin”. Then restores the original “Template:Latin alphabet”. --Hello World! 14:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin alphabet of the Roman Empire

Using the "history of the Latin alphabet" I have removed all the letters not in the "classical" Latin alphabet otherwise there is an inherent POV that the English alphabet is the Latin alphabet and all the other Latin derived alphabets are somehow a subset or a superset of the English alphabet. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

That's ridiculous, the Latin alphabet of the modern day is and has always been recognized as ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, even in nations with variants, those letters are recognized as today's standard. That's common sense. I don't see any need to be reverting to ancient variants to preserve neutrality, this is an encyclopaedia, and people reading it will 99.9% of the time be looking for the Latin alphabet of today, not one of 2 millennia ago. +Hexagon1 (t) 10:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

How do ou know that "people reading it will 99.9% of the time be looking for the Latin alphabet of today"? There is no such thing as one Latin alhpabet.

If however you mean the "Modern basic latin alphabet" as defined in ISO/IEC 646 based on ASCII which was based on the 26 letters of the English alphabet and previous telecommunication standards, then that is another matter. But to state that the Latin Alphabet is the English alphabet is IMHO just wrong. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW Hexagon1 how do you explin the link to numerals if this a about the "Modern basic latin alphabet"? --Philip Baird Shearer 11:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

That's why it's a link, not an inclusion, it is a concept closely tied with the alphabet by any means. +Hexagon1 (t) 01:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of hard to say what is the Latin alphabet really. It's not like it has always been stable and then started getting additions. If we admit the so called "classical Latin alphabet" is the real Latin alphabet, the what's the alphabet right before it became "classical"? Why can't the alphabet that is currently considered "modern Latin alphabet" be considered the real alphabet? The matter is Hexagon is partly right. The Latin alphabet with 26 letters is generally considered as the modern Latin alphabet, with a few local exceptions. Just look at all the different Wikipedias and their articles on the Latin alphabet. Claiming the "classical Latin alphabet" is the only real Latin alphabet is more POV than claiming the "modern Latin alphabet" is. --moyogo 12:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I persume that you do no dispute that the alphabet used by the Roman's was a Latin alphabet. As the Roman Empire is seen by most to be typically Roman ... then that would seem to be the alphabet to use.

If we are going to defined the English alphabet, an alphabet derived from the Latin, as THE Latin alphabet then it needs to be qualified that this is only one Latin derived alphabet which happens to be promoted by the OSI for historical compatbility with a pre-defined English alphabet used in ASCII. To claim that the English alphabet is THE Latin alphabet is in my opinion a highly NPOV. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that this template should either be moved to "English alphabet" or a qualification needs to be added, that it is the "basic OSI Latin alphabet". --Philip Baird Shearer 18:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Where does this English alphabet stuff come from? I don't remember mentioning that. The one you are referring to as the English alphabet is the modern Latin alphabet. Even in for example the Czech language, the internationally-recognized Latin alphabet is still understood as being the 26-letter one, even though the Czech one is a 27-letter one (or a 42-letter one if you look at it with diacritics). In any case, the modern Latin alphabet is IMHO the one readers will be looking for, which is why I agree with the current OSI template. +Hexagon1 (t) 01:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The OSI basic Latin alphabet is base on the English alphabet. If during the 1960s Italy had dominated the computer and telecommunications industries then the OSI basic Latin alphabet would probably have had less letters. But Italy did not, the USA did, so the basic OSI alphabet is the English alphabet, not the Italian alphabet. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Like I said before, we need to agree on what Latin alphabet we should use. This template is not supposed to be about Classical Latin. If it is about the current state of the Latin alphabet then maybe it should include all the Latin characters currently in use. Arguing the OSI alphabet is not the real Latin alphabet but the Classical alphabet is, is like arguing the Original Latin alphabet is or the 16th century Latin alphabet is. --moyogo 14:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd have to agree, if this template should remain as it is content-wise then it should be renamed "Modern Basic Latin Alphabet" or something like that. —Nightstallion (?) 20:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
There's no need, a common person will think of the "Latin alphabet" as opposed to the "classical Latin alphabet" or the "Roman alphabet". They will not think of a "Modern Basic Latin Alphabet" as opposed to the "Archaic Latin Alphabet" or some other such definition. +Hexagon1 (t) 08:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hexagon1 I think you are looking at this with the systemic bias of a person who installs software on a PC and is familar with that paradigm, (as are many who contribute to Wikipedia). I would suggest that for those who are not so familar with computer software, think "English alphabet" (the alphabet song), French alphabet when leaning French, Spanish alphabet when learning Spanish [...]. The Latin alphabet from that perspective must be what is use when learning Latin. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

However in contemporary times, the Latin alphabet is simply understood to be the one we use in the template now. Calling the template the English alphabet would be biased, as that is not just the English alphabet of Anglophone nations, that is the Latin alphabet of the World at large. It would be an exception from your Language alphabets. We need to think, hey, what would a user type in looking for this? I doubt they'd type something like "OSI basic Latin alphabet". Oh, and I myself am also a native Czech speaker (a standard alphabet of 27 graphemes and an extended one of 42) so I am familiar with languages that use different alphabets. PS: I didn't quite catch your reference to me installing software. Does that somehow preclude me from having an opinion? +Hexagon1 (t) 23:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Like me you should express you opinion because that is how differences in points of view are explained and resolved. But as someone familar with installing software you may have a bias as to what you think the Latin alphabet is (see the link I gave above which explains it better than I can: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias). If the modern Latin alphabet is only the 26 letters used in the English alphabet, then for example it changes the meaning of WP:UE, this is a position that many people who have contributed to the page name debate would take issue with (See WP:UE Disputed issues, and the reams in the archives of the talk page to that guideline). --Philip Baird Shearer 22:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I still don't quite catch you, I fail to see how installing software would instil a bias, and why does the fact that the basic modern Latin alphabet is equivalent to the English alphabet counter any points in WP:UE? Foreign languages are free to use variants of the alphabet, however the most common Latin alphabet of today is simply the 26-letter one. Pardon my ignorance, but please elaborate. +Hexagon1 (t) 10:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
nonsense, the 26 letters are the "basic" set not only in English, but in many languages. In terms of standards, it is the "basic" set in ISO. In terms of evolution, it is the Latin alphabet as it was around 1750, as modern orthographies began to emerge. National variants are just that, variants, mostly expressed by diacritics, of the "basic" Early Modern set. dab (𒁳) 14:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Modern orthographies began to emerge long before 1750.
National "variants" did not evolve from this set. Some languages have had a written history for longer than this set has existed, and never used "w", for example, at any point.
Many diacritics are much older than this set is. Even Modern English was using tildes before v and u had become distinct letters.
Ptcamn 00:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OSI/ISO naming

I was asked to change the naming of the header from OSI to ISO by a request at WP:REQT. Since it linked to ISO anyway and other alphabet templates did too, this seemed reasonable. If the correct title of the template is "OSI", then perhaps someone should explain to me what OSI is, and/or change the link in the header to some article on whatever OSI is. If OSI is just a precursor or alternate name for the ISO, then I think the title should reflect the dominant modern usage, as an etymology of the name of the ISO/OSI Latin alphabet is probably too esoteric to be handled in a simple template header. —Dgiest c 02:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Done --Philip Baird Shearer 00:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Um... it wasn't a request. Someone asked at WP:REQT. I made the change. User:Hexagon1 reverted me saying "refer talk". I saw no explanation here so I'm asking for some clarification. —Dgiest c 02:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
The reason I reverted was that that was the name we painstakingly decided upon here, so I was weary of any change that would reignite this debate. I think it refers to the Open Systems Interconnection standards, but I see nothing wrong with ISO (or the specific standard name) if it links to it. +Hexagon1 (t) 04:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I still don't see a discussion thread where you reached consensus on "OSI". Is it archived somewhere? In older revisions of the talk page? Also, OSI defines networking standards, not character sets, right? —Dgiest c 05:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I meant the name in all, not just the OSI part. OSI indeed defines networking standards, however deep in the bowels of OSI must be some alphabetic standard too... apparently... somewhere... I'm all for ISO here. +Hexagon1 (t) 07:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ph

The link to the Ph digraph goes to pH not Ph like it should. Is there anything that can be done about that? Jake the Editor Man (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)