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November 27

Greek alphabet being first with vowels?

I was on the Greek alphabet page and I think I found an error but I was unable to add a discussion to the talk page as it came up as protected when I tried.

Sanskrit predates Greek by several hundred years and has 5 vowels and 4 semi-vowels.

In this page on the Greek alphabet it states " and was the first alphabetic script in history to have distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants" which I believe is untrue since Greek says it is from 800 BC but Sanskrit is from 1500 BC. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by RajiK10 (talk o contribs) 15:59, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sanskrit is not a script (writing system) but a natural language. The phonemes of that language - as for every other spoken human language - include vowels. The oldest attested writings use the Brahmi script, and later a variety of other Indic scripts has been used, today most commonly Devanagari. None of these Indic scripts is an alphabet; although they encode for the vowels, they have no separate signs for vowels. It is meaningless to ask how to write an A in Devanagari. Instead, the consonant signs have a default /a/ vowel; to indicate another vowel, it is modified. The (possibly modified) signs correspond to syllables. The name abugida has been coined for this type of script. Yet another type includes the Arabic and Hebrew scripts, whose signs are basically just consonants without a vowel, and in which vowels are often not indicated, or else in the form of diacritics. This type of script is called an abjad. --Lambiam 16:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam -- Under the basic traditional classification of alphabet vs. syllabary vs. logograms, Indic writing systems do fall under alphabets, since in a syllabary "ta" is likely to be written graphically completely independently from "to" etc (with no common visual element, as in the Japanese kana systems), and that's not what happens in Devanagari etc. This "abugida" etc. stuff are neologisms coined by one person in the late 20th century, which didn't clarify things as much as he thought they would, and certainly should not be allowed to redefine the meaning of the word "alphabet"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:18, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AnonMoos: that's your opinion. I don't agree. Traditional classifications can be superseded by ones that work better (eg parts of speech), and I find Peter Daniels' classification more useful. Amharic script is a abugida where a significant minority of the consonant-vowel combinations are not transparent and have to be learnt separately. Is that an alphabet or a syllabary? --ColinFine (talk) 23:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at a Japanese katakana or hiragana chart. As you look across the rows and columns, there's clearly nothing visually in common between the written syllable signs that would indicate when a syllable begins with "t", or when a syllable contains "a", etc. That's the essence of a syllabary according to traditional valid definitions. (The same with Linear B, etc.) By contrast, in Ethiopic writing there is a lot in common between the symbols in each row, and also between the symbols in each column. Therefore it's basically an alphabet, even though an unusal one with some idiosyncrasies or unpredictability in the combining of written consonant elements and written vocalic elements. Peter Daniels can use invented words like "abugida" all he wants -- the only thing I'm asking is that he not try to change the accepted traditional meaning of the word "alphabet"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:48, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'm unaware of any great advance that has been made over traditional part-of-speech categories and is widely accepted in the linguistic analysis of English, other than the addition of a "determiner" category... AnonMoos (talk) 13:04, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RajiK10 -- Alphabetic writing in India dates to about 500 B.C., while alphabetic writing in Greece dates to a little after 800 B.C. Also, Indic alphabets usually only have full letters for vowels which occur at the beginnings of words -- vowels elsewhere in the word are basically written diacritically... AnonMoos (talk) 19:18, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

December 1

Whilst or while?

I am busy updating a website for a client. The text they gave me includes "...cool off in our swimming pool whilst your BBQ fire is getting started at your chalet". Is that a correct use of "whilst"? The Engvar, if it matters, is South African/Commonwealth. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not wrong, but it comes over as a bit pompous to me. "While" goes much better in this sentence. --Viennese Waltz 11:02, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know of no context in which "whilst" is a better word than "while". Abolish it, I say. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:04, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In British and Indian English whilst does not have the pretentious aura it has elsewhere. I don't know about South African English, but while is the safer choice, especially if the site should also appeal to foreign customers. Unless, of course, the point is to create a suggestion of luxurious elegance for ~~snobs~~ the culturally refined elite. --Lambiam 11:36, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone - the consensus seems to be that "whilst" is too high register for the website of a B&B in a small rural town. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Whilst My Guitar Gently Weeps? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:15, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By the dictionary definition, the two words are basically perfect exact synonyms. However, as noted, they vary in register, and so depending on the social and cultural context one or the other may be more appropriate. YMMV, etc. --Jayron 32 12:04, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Today i learned a new word: excrescent[1] (Epenthesis). fiveby(zero) 12:31, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting link, covering amidst, amongst, and whilst. I have an unpleasant autonomic response to amongst and whilst, but it hadn't occurred to me to group amidst with them. I don't use it (or amid) very much, but it looks OK to me, whereas amid makes me think of the reaction product of an amine with a carboxylic acid, even though that's not how you spell it. --Trovatore (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2021 (UTC) [reply]

See, and I thought that "excrescent" was the odor of feces. --Jayron 32 18:53, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A full moon is an excrescent. --Lambiam 23:26, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To me "whilst" comes across as very marked language, while "amidst" is normal usage, and "among" and "amongst" are both current. The difference being that "amongst" is generally used specifically about humans ("He stood out amongst the crowd") while "among" is more common with inanimate objects ("Among my souvenirs"). --Khajidha (talk) 02:11, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've never understood the prejudice against whilst. If it's natural to you to use it then do so, and if it isn't, don't. You'll rarely, if ever, actually improve a piece of prose by its removal. DuncanHill (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Carthago delenda est. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:11, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

December 2

Why do so many mis-pronounce the newest variant?

Watching and listening to the news recently, I noticed that many people mis-pronounce the latest COVID variant as Omnicron, as opposed to the correct Omicron. This includes such luminaries as many news anchors, the President of the U.S., and myself. (I really thought it was pronounced Omnicron until I looked it up.

A quick search found that "Omnicron" was used in a movie name, but I couldn't find any other uses.

Does anyone have any ideas of why this might happen? The only thing I could imagine is that some people might think it Greek for "All Crons". Uh, forget that. I have no idea what a cron is. Bunthorne (talk) 06:45, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do you actually expect accuracy in news reporting? 2603:6081:1C00:1187:45A9:90E5:D977:B574 (talk) 06:53, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Omni- is a fairly standard prefix (omnipotent, omnivorous), so it's not all that surprising that people who don't know one Greek letter from another might think this is another case. Except, if they thought for a second, they'd realise that no letter could mean "all-something". Except, our global decline into cultural idiocy means they don't think, but just spout what they thought they heard/read (and in some cases, what they actually heard/read). If they understand that Greek has two letters called o, omicron and omega (little o and big o), they wouldn't make this mistake. But expecting the great unwashed to understand this is probably like expecting DJT to concede defeat in the 2020 presidential election. It ain't gonna happen. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just mentioning that 'omni' is not even Greek, but Latin. --T*U (talk) 07:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An omni-cron might come in handy. clpo13_(talk) 07:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And this cron even better. No such user (talk) 14:59, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I believe omicron's name means "small O"; it was named to differentiate it from "omega", which means "big O". But, what was omicron called before omega was added to the end of the Greek alphabet?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But unlike with the Big O, a variety of pronunciation, of the first vowel, seems possible: /ˈoʊmɪkrɒn, ˈɒmɪkrɒn, oʊˈmaɪkrɒn/;^[1] Martinevans123 (talk) 15:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Georgia guy:. The article Omega, in the history section, states "in Classical Greek, the letter [omega] was called ō (ὦ), whereas the omicron was called ou (οὖ).". --Jayron 32 16:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If I heard right, the new variant was initially named "mu" or "nu" — far more confusing. Doug butler (talk) 20:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Mu" was the previous new variant. The WHO rejected "nu" because it would be confusing. --184.144.99.241 (talk) 04:56, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I feel highly honoured that I might catch Classical Greek COVID... Martinevans123 (talk) 20:39, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "omicron". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

Is the word kidnap a portmanteau kid and napping?

kid means a small child napping means take a sleep in the noon.2404:8000:1005:DE4A:4D80:9BB7:4D3F:79A3 (talk) 08:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC) please somebody answer my question immediately.[reply]

The second element appears to be a variant of nab, “to snatch away”. Cheers ❖_hugarheimur 08:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is OED available only by subscription?

Why are many pages in the Oxford English Dictionary available only by subscription? Why aren't all OED's pages available for everyone? --40bus (talk) 09:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is a subsidiary of Oxford University Press and unlike Wikipedia, actually employs people to write their articles and has physical offices, all of which need to be paid for. They use the surplus for a wide range of educational endeavours, including recently publishing technical data relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and a free e-book for African school children on mental wellbeing. Their annual report is here. Alansplodge (talk) 10:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone resident in the UK can get full access with the number from their local authority library card, which is issued free. Anyone else can ask at WP:RX. DuncanHill (talk) 14:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

December 3

[1] "omicron". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

[1]