Talk:Peter T. Daniels

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Peter may have popularized the term "abugida", but he certainly cannot claim to have "coined" it, since that very term (for precisely the same thing) has been used in Ethiopia for centuries...! All references to his "coining" the term therefore need be changed. Codex Sinaiticus 5 July 2005 05:30 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be most correct, to say that he gave the term a new meaning? IMHO his "invention" was the use of the terms abjad and abugida to create a categorization system for alphabetic writing systems. Both terms were in use before, but not exactly for that purpose. --Pjacobi July 5, 2005 09:02 (UTC)

Again, that is precisely the same meaning Ethiopian scholars have attributed to this Ethiopian word for centuries. But it seems like in the Western view there is no such thing as an "Ethiopian scholar" so therefore the "credit" must go to a Westerner... I'm not exactly sure what he "invented" or did that was new, other than to adopt or borrow the term into English from Amharic or Geez (and then it can even be argued whether he was the first to use the word in English). Codex Sinaiticus 5 July 2005 14:27 (UTC)

I'm only speculating out of ignorance. So, the term "abugida" was also used to classify together Indic scripts, Ge'ez, [[Meroitic script], and others? That would be a very interesting addition we can make to the Abugida article. Is there anything we can give as reference or source for this? --Pjacobi July 5, 2005 14:31 (UTC)

Sorry

I was translating this article to Catalan, and when I realised, I was edited my text over the English article. I hope to have restablished correctly the original article. Sorry for my rudimentary English too.

Is he really so imporant?

Is Peter T. Daniels really so important that he merits a whole page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.74.99.84 (talk • contribs) 09:39, 27 July 2006

Heh, well, I guess he wouldn't be sorry if it went away; he said once,

It [the Wikipedia article on me] was quoted to me once, and yes, it had some “accurate facts” in it.

—Tamfang 17:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of scholars in lots of fields that are at least as important as Daniels, but who don't have their own page on Wikipedia. The real reason why he's better known than them is not so much his scholarship, but his self-important, I'm-so-much-smarter-than-all-those-jerks-around-here attitude on Usenet and elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.88.12.210 (talk) 20:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

So start some articles for those more-deserving scholars. —Tamfang (talk) 19:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, there are plenty of people more famous, but those could be added as well. It's not like there's a shortage of space. Now, regarding the article, I have a low opinion of it. However, I don't believe it's so sinful as to merit my attention beyond this comment. Nehmo (talk) 15:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, there's a tendency to squeeze his opinion in every page on alphabet in Wikipedia by his online minions. 210.19.13.229 (talk) 05:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

He is the most important scholar in many aspects of writing systems. People may gripe about what others have posted about him, but that does not detract from the fact that the person who is the topic of the article is important in his field. Pete unseth (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

"He is the most important scholar in many aspects of writing system" - You've lost me there. Minion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.19.13.227 (talk) 01:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

More info

Is he alive is he dead, when was he born etc.--HalaTruth(ሀላካሕ) 14:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, he was alive as of November 27. —Tamfang 09:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Rm'd external link

I removed the external link to a page by (about?) him at elsevier.com, because it was broken. I searched for, but could not find, any other page about him. In particular, he does not appear to have a page at Cornell. It would be nice for someone to correct me on this! Mcswell (talk) 21:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Cryptic crosswords

Someone removed the line about Daniels' interest in cryptic crosswords as "not relevant". I don't see why that's so bad as a brief biographical mention; it would seem to have a bearing on his general linguistic interests. Equinox (talk) 17:10, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Unless it's been remarked on in independent reliable sources, it sounds like someone recognized his name on that newsgroup and decided to comment on it in the article, more like "let's mind our own business" rather than "this merits being reported here". It would be like seeing David Hockney knitting one day and adding "Hockney has been seen knitting in public" to David Hockney. Largoplazo (talk) 01:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I couldn't find a source for this trivia so removed it. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:36, 29 September 2020 (UTC)