Jump to content

Talk:B

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thera inscriptions

[edit]

Says "In the very early rock inscriptions of Thera (700006 BC)". That really sounds very early indeed to me. -- Roland Mas (not registered on Wikipedia).

Probably copied from a 6 year old article... —Herbee 02:24, 2004 Feb 21 (UTC)

Roman lowercase

[edit]

The link to "Roman" should be disambiguated, but since it could be a post-Imperial reference, I can't justify using Ancient Rome without more detail. Does anyone have a more precise time for when the earliest examples of the precursor of lower case b first appeared?

OK 01

[edit]

List OK https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1611106

Consistent proposal to unleash new format

[edit]

I've sought out one query at Help desk that mentions the heading alignment should be maintained. For real instance, while I was reading both two alphabetical articles, A and B, correspondingly, I found there was a slight change in order, one says that the first letter A deriving from the Latin alphabet, the other, B, details it comes from the Latin-script alphabet. A majority of articles relating to letters denote the heading the same as A, starting by [The uppercase letter] or [the lowercase letter] is [position] letter,..., used in the Latin alphabet. I wonder, why up to today the articles do not seem consistent? I need to find out and simultaneously, getting comment from you, readers and editors. 2001:EE0:4BC5:7AC0:3DA6:7723:C1A5:5A75 (talk) 14:46, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The likely reason they aren't consistent is that they were created and edited by different people. (I've no idea what "the Latin-script alphabet" means. If something different from the Latin alphabet, it needs to be explained.) Maproom (talk) 12:43, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to our articles with those titles, the Latin alphabet used by the Romans is an example of a Latin-script alphabet based on the Latin script. "B" has many nuances – glyph, sound, etc. – but the most relevant property here may be as an element of the Latin script. Certes (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So should we change now? @Certes, @Maproom. 14.185.32.176 (talk) 05:11, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Certes, @Maproom, any more response? This is all the chat? 2001:EE0:4BC2:16B0:2923:8EBD:8993:C44A (talk) 11:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Certes, removing the inconsistency seems to me a good idea. I've nothing else useful to say. Maproom (talk) 20:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Certes, @Maproom, I wonder if you could change just one minor from Latin-script to Latin to strive consistency among other alphabetical articles. 14.176.188.65 (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Being consistent is important, but let's ensure that we're consistently as good as possible. I've asked for expert help from WikiProject Writing systems. Certes (talk) 18:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The inconsistency is because editors conflate the Latin alphabet, the Latin script, and the English alphabet. A script by itself doesn't really have an order, because it includes any letter which is used by any language with the other letters of the script, while alphabets are usually ordered in some way, but are limited to the characters used to write a particular language or set of languages. When you go to an article like "W", the lede is incredibly imprecise, because W is not even in the Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet proper only has 23 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Y, and Z. U and J are allographs of V and I that are used to aid later readers in interpreting Latin texts, while W came about for writing Germanic languages in the late first millennium. All of these should realistically be consistent as either or both the English alphabet or the ISO basic Latin alphabet. I think there might be an argument for phrasing the second as just "basic Latin alphabet" while maintaining the ISO 646 link, but with how the naming convention for writing systems is written (disclosure: I was one of the authors), if we want to maintain consistent terminology we should be very precise on exactly this kind of situation. As a longer-term effort towards consistency, I think a good project would be to rewrite ledes for other Latin script letters like ñ to "the 15th letter of the Spanish alphabet and 19th letter of the common Turkic alphabet, among others" where appropriate. This both places letters not found in the "basic Latin alphabet" into a larger linguistic context, it also clarifies and emphasizes the larger identity of the Latin script as an expansive tool used by languages around the world. VanIsaac, GHTV contWpWS 19:21, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I can't wait any more until you implement it. 2001:EE0:4BE2:6F90:2923:8EBD:8993:C44A (talk) 11:34, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]