Talk:Roman alphabet
Move
I think this should be moved to Roman alphabet - strictly speaking, the Latin alphabet is the one used to write Latin (equivalent to 'English alphabet'). Linguists such as Cook and Bassetti (Second Language Writing Systems) use 'Roman alphabet', i.e. a single script with many language-dependent orthographies (rules). John Stephenson 19:11, 27 August 2008 (CDT)
- Agreed - Ro Thorpe 19:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
- I have no real objection. Let's move to "Roman alphabet". But the term "Latin alphabet" should be accepted as a synonym. The Romance languages use preferently terms such as alfabet latin, alfabet llatí, alfabeto latín, alfabeto latino, alphabet latin, etc. (something like alfabet roman sounds odd for Latins).--Domergue Sumien 19:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
- Absolutely. Ro Thorpe 22:50, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Talk:Spanish language#"New" alphabet
The above applies here too. Peter Jackson 10:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Case
The article says that doubling of upper and lower case began in late antiquity or the early middle ages. As far as I know, that's true in the sense that minuscule characters were introduced as an alternative to uncials about then. But were they used in the way we use them now? That is, u.c. initials of proper names (or German nouns) and sentences. Or were they just alternative hands used in different mss? The names are much later, referring to printing. Peter Jackson 09:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Is the origins section misleading?
I was of the understanding that the origin of the Latin and Greek alphabets was from the Phoenicians, which is more specific (I think) than the Etruscans. It was, unless I misremember, the Phoenicians who first created the innovation of letters as corresponding to sounds, and everybody else took it from them. Should this section be revised? I am no expert about this matter. Pat Palmer (talk) 15:25, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- Neither am I! But the Phoenician one is the parent alphabet going way back, and the Roman one emerged via an early Greek alphabet. So the Roman one doesn't come directly from the Phoenician. The grapheme-phoneme alphabetic system goes back to that (but not the idea of representing sound generally, since there are syllabaries etc. that have developed separately). John Stephenson (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2021 (UTC)