Talk:Syriac alphabet

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Restore

Could somebody please restore this page. Other pages link to it - see "Syriac_language". It was here a few days ago & I have referred to it often

What do you mean by 'restore the page'? — Gareth Hughes 19:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake in the short table of the alphabet

For the letters with final form (k,m,n), the present table shows both normal and final form stuck together, which is wrong of course - only the normal form should be kept, as the final form is printed in the line beneath. I tried to edit it but failed - whenever I try to delete the final form, the normal form adjacent to it is transformed into a final form. So I don't know how to retain the normal form only. Perhaps someone could fix that.

They're not mistakes: that is the usual way to write these letters when they are written separately from a word (the initial and final forms are written together). Unfortunately, the short table relies on the user's fonts and Unicode compatibility of browser to make the Syriac work well. Yours seems to be working well, as the final form automatically appears. Perhaps the best thing would be to mention that these letters are written double when they appear alone. — Gareth Hughes 15:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a line explaining the double forms. It may need some re-wording though. --334 15:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Syriac Scouting

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Syriac? Thanks!

Chris 04:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nonverbal?

Since when are letters and fliers nonverbal? They do use words. I think the appropriate word is "nonoral." Caeruleancentaur (talk) 00:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Display the font

How do you display the Syriac characters? I have tried switching my browser thru Arial Unicode, Lucida Sans Unicode, etc, all I get are these little boxes with letters in. Please help. Thanks. SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 14:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Origins

The intro text says the alphabet originated in the second century. The sidebar says the alphabet originated "~200BC" (the third century). Encyclopedia Britannica says it originated in the first century. Which one is it? I'm looking for books and journal articles but haven't found any. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmyersturnbull (talk • contribs) 23:38, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Syriac alphabet originated in the first or second centuries *AD* – certainly not in the second century BC. I've changed the date. –Pinnerup (talk) 11:10, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Syriac Braille

I developed a Syriac braille system, may I add it? ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ 05:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, it's a good idea to start new sections on talk pages at the bottom of the page, not at the top. I've moved the section to its proper place. Anyway, your self-developed Syriac Braille system probably does not meet Wikipedia's original research guidelines. --334a (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Summary table

The three "fonts": estrangela, serto... look the same. This must be a mistake. Look in the German wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.77.4.129 (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They look fine (i.e., different) to me. The letters in the Summary table are Unicode characters, while in the German Wikipedia they're images. You probably don't have the proper Unicode fonts installed on your computer to be able to see the different scripts, hence why they all show up as the same script on your computer. --334a (talk) 20:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are not different scripts, i.e. different characters, but different styles of the same characters. The table required the specific fonts "Estrangelo Edessa" "East Syriac Adiabene" and "Serto Urhoy" to render the intended styles. I have fixed the table to show images. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.37.4.173 (talk) 07:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vowel Signs

This article could do with a paragraph mentioning Joseph Huzaya's system of dots to represent vowels, still common practice among the Nestorians and Chaldeans, and Jacob of Edessa's innovative use of Greek letters, adopted c.680 by the Jacobites.

Djwilms (talk) 08:59, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

܀

There are several characters, e.g. ܀, which appear in WP only on this page, and yet they are undefined here.
Varlaam (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

unspirantized

Is this a real word? If it is, what does it mean? TFighterPilot (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A google search yields a whopping 176 uses of the word, so I guess it's not all that common. Its use is mostly confined to linguistics, it just means that the letter has the "hard" pronunciation rather than the "soft". For example, the Hebrew Vet (ב) is spirantized while Bet (בּ) is unspirantized. --334a (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I kinda figured it out from the context. Still I wonder if it won't be better to replace it with a bit more understandable word (like soft). TFighterPilot (talk) 21:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Replace a word with a specific, precise meaning with one that can mean all sorts of different things? Not a good plan. Better to explain it in parenthesis, if you feel it's necessary, though "spirantized" is explained in the paragraph above with links to the articles on "spirantized" and "fricative". Linguistatlunch (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New research out

Might help the article (or Syriac language) - see this. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 13:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

East Syriac

In the display box with the opening words of the Gospel of John, the East Syriac appears to be mechanically converted from the West Syriac, and is almost certainly wrong. The first word, meaning 'in the beginning', is brāšīṯ in Genesis 1:1 (I don't have an East Syriac New Testament at hand), with ā, not ē, and the second word should be īṯāw[hy], not īṯaw[hy] -- East Syriac (nearly) always has ā before w, not a. Is there documentation of the text as it stands now? If not, it should be fixed.Linguistatlunch (talk) 15:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using the Peshitta tool at Dukhrana I found the following East Syriac script ܒ݁ܪܹܫܝܼܬ݂ ܐܝܼܬ݂ܲܘܗ݈ܝ ܗ݈ܘܵܐ ܡܸܠܬ݂ܵܐ‎, transliteration was given as: bəriššīṯ ᵓīṯaw(hy) (h)wā melṯā wəhū melṯā, which is identical to western Syriac pronunciation. There is a manuscript with vocalised East Syriac letters but I'm having difficulties reading the vowels.--Rafy talk 15:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That manuscript clearly has brāšīṯ! The Dukhrana tool mechanically converts the Western Syriac vowels into the corresponding Eastern vowels. That's not reliable as a source for the ES text. Thus, ES typically doesn't mark rukkakha/qushshaya on the initial consonant of words, but it includes the qushshaya on the B. Likewise, it continues to show itawhy with <a>, rather than the correct <ā>. All of those show that this is not authentic ES, but simply a changed font. Unfortunately the display box is an image, not text, I don't know how to modify it and I don't want to mess with it. It's a pity that it's still incorrect. Linguistatlunch (talk) 18:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

From which century Madnḥāyā stratred?

The article is declaring the date of estrangelo and serta! But it is not declaring any dates for Madnḥāyā! please someone update this!--تسلیم (talk) 09:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that we can give an exact date to when those forms "started". They were peobably variants of Estrangela which slowly diverged and evolved until reaching their current form in the 15th century.--Rafy talk 21:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ܪ̈

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS THE SOUND OF THIS LETTER ܪ̈ ? KANTH
PLEASE MENTION IT IN THE PAGE.
Z.G.A (talk) 13:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That letter is called "Resh" (ܪܫ). Whenver Resh is in a plural word and is the second to last letter, it will have two dashes/dots on top. This is applied to all other letters too. Luke0821 (talk) 19:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Majliyana܁

SÔMË‑ÔNÉË KNOWS WHAT TʰYSË DIA‑CRITIC LOOK LIKE ? WHAT IS HIS UNI‑CODE RANGE ? PLÊASË DE‑SCRIBE…
ΘϷΕΝΑΝΑΤΕΣΟΣ (dôr.) ΗΤϷΑΝΑΝΘΕΣΟΣ (att.) ΑΟΛΙΕΥϷΟΛϜ ΜΑΝΓΖΕΔΙ / طشأنانثس أعليهوسعلۋ مأنجزهدي (talk) 15:00, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

? Luke0821 (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Contextual forms

What exactly is meant by "normal form" and "final unconnected"? In the Summary table, the "isolated (non-connected) forms" appear to be treated as normal forms. Is there a reason why the proven distinction between "final", "medial", "initial", and "isolated", used for other related scripts, such as Arabic, can't be used here?

A related question: The introduction to the Summary table says "The Syriac alphabet consists of the following letters, shown in their isolated (non-connected) forms. When isolated, the letters Kāp̄, Mīm, and Nūn are usually shown with their initial form connected to their final form." What does the "When isolated" in that sentence mean? It can't refer to the table, since that's not the case in the table. — Sebastian 07:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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What does these letters mean?

ܜ, ܞ, ܧ, ݍ, ݎ, ݏ, ܭ, ܮ, ܯ, ܔ and ܑ

And what is the deference between ◌ܳand ◌ܴ, or ◌ܰ and ◌ܱ, or ◌ܶ and ◌ܷ, or ◌ܺ and ◌ܻ, or ◌ܽ and ◌ܾ? א. א. אינסטלציה (talk) 13:50, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there!

So "ܞ" is "Yodh-He" (YH), which represents "Yahweh". "ܑ" is a miniaturized Aleph that's used sometimes at the beginning of a word when phonological changes have it beginning in a vowel. "ܔ" and "ܜ" are letters used in Arabic Garshuni, "ܧ" is used in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and the rest are used in Sogdian. The vowel pairs you posted have no phonetic difference, only stylistic: one is used over the other depending on how "tall" the letter is, with taller letters usually having the vowel placed beneath it (there are no real hard rules for this, it's entirely at the discretion of the scribe). --334a (talk) 19:58, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contextual forms of Serto/Serta

Hi,

I note that the contextual forms table doesn't have a set of columns for the Serto script. Only the unconnected forms are given. Could someone fix this? 73.53.89.33 (talk) 16:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gallaudet University seal

past
present

— Arlo James Barnes 04:27, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Change title of article to Syriac abjad

Syriac is an abjad and not an alphabet, so I feel like the title is misleading. Luke0821 (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abjads are alphabets, and "alphabet" is a much more commonly known and understood term. Abjads didn't stop being alphabets just because one linguist coined a more specific term for them. Largoplazo (talk) 20:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]