Talk:Peter T. Daniels/Archive 1

Archive 1

rant removed

I reverted the addition of this passage:

Of course, one wonders why a person capable of earning an advanced degree would perceive a need to "introduce" a term for "an 'alphabet' with no vowel letters" when NONE of the original alphabets had vowel letters (the issue of matres lectionis aside). The word alphabet comes from semitic languages without vowel symbols (like Hebrew) whose first two letters are a variation of "aleph" and "beit". A person moved by logic would comprehend that the very term "alphabet" derives from languages that do not have grapheme symbols for vowels. To then come along thousands of years after the fact and decide that the namesake of written language systems is not worthy of the name that was generated by its very fabric, is not in the least bit scholarly...it is something quite the opposite. What is needed is a name for systems with graphemic vowels. Mr. Daniels should probably cast about for a suitable name for such systems so that he doesn't go down in history solely as the progenitor of a gross linguistic misnomer (which would likely be embarrassing for a linguist, or so one would think). Non-vowels systems already have generated a name for themselves...and that name, in English, is ALPHABET.

Some of the points made here might be appropriate, if they could be put in a less blatantly opinionated way. — While the words alpha and beta are of course ultimately Semitic, the compound alphabet was (so far as I know) first used in Greek, for the first full alphabet (with vowels); apparently Arabic uses the word abjad. So this criticism is precisely backward, unless evidence can be shown of the use of aleph-beit (or a cognate) as a noun in a Semitic language before such language began borrowing from Greek. —Tamfang (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Alphabet is most certainly Semitic in origin regardless of how the Greeks use it, it is most certainly semitic in origin and has actual meaning unlike in Greek. Western pseudo history likes to assign every thing as Greek. Peter T daniels is most certainly a rampant Eurocentric and to speak of a true alphabet is ridiculous in many ways, as we understand that some alphabets are better suited to some languages. They didn’t need vowels hence hey they didn’t use them that does not make them less than 2A02:C7C:36FF:3600:BD03:9AF7:C379:AC68 (talk) 00:36, 2 December 2023 (UTC)