Until recently the term "alphabet" was used for any writing system where the symbols correspond approximately with phonemes, regardless whether both consonants and vowels are written as in all alphabets derived from or inspired by the Greek alphabet, or only the consonants are written, like in other writing systems derived from the old Semitic alphabet, without passing through the Greek alphabet.
Then the term "abjad" has been created, and also the term "abugida" (for alphabets where the base symbols are for consonants and the vowels are added as diacritic marks around the consonants), and the sense of "alphabet" has been restricted, in order to distinguish these 3 kinds of alphabets, but "alphabet" in the older wider sense can still be encountered frequently, either in the older literature or in informal speech, so one should be able to recognize both the stricter and the wider meanings.
In TFA, "alphabet" is used in the old wider sense. Moreover, it is not even used correctly in that sense, because they did not find a written "alphabet" like those used in teaching, but they have found a few written texts that are believed to have been written using an alphabetic script.
The oldest actual alphabets that have been found (which show the alphabetic order of the letters) are for the Ugaritic alphabet, which is older than the Phoenician alphabet, but much more recent than the oldest inscriptions that are believed to have been written with an alphabetic script.
And we live in the modern world, so we should use the modern definitions?
For reference, "abjad" was introduced in 1990, so it's 35 years old. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to start using 35 year old terms to accurately describe academic subjects.
Academic terminology tends to be inconsistent, vary from person to person, and evolve from year to year. The usual expectation is that you should define the terms you use if their exact meaning is important. Otherwise people will misinterpret them.
"Abjad" seems to be a more specific term than "alphabet". Sometimes it is used as a subcategory of "alphabet" (as in "abjad alphabet") and sometimes the terms are mutually exclusive.
> The oldest actual alphabets that have been found (which show the alphabetic order of the letters) are for the Ugaritic alphabet, which is older than the Phoenician alphabet
You're doing a lot of equivocating between identity and ancestry. (e.g. saying that "alphabet" is composed of the names of two Phoenician letters rather than two Greek ones.)
In that framework, can we actually say that Ugaritic script is older than Phoenician script? My impression was that all of our knowledge of Ugaritic arises by coincidence, just that we happened to excavate a tell that turned out to keep records in what is as far as we know a script unique to it. Do we have reason to believe that someone wasn't using a proto-Phoenician script at the same time and we just haven't excavated them?
Well, the actual scripts were distinguished semantically all along, and "alphabet" is also a word newer than the scripts in question. We should probably just use the words that make most sense to modern english speakers rather than... whomever you're referring to. Or just use "phonetic script" or something.
The word "alphabet" has been used at least since the second century AD (e.g. by Tertullian), but it is composed from the names of the first 2 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, names that must be at least 3 millennia old.
Without additional conventions, "alphabet" would have been the appropriate name for any writing systems derived from the Phoenician alphabet, which include the majority of the writing systems based on alphabets, abjads or abugidas. The few other such writing systems, which have not passed through the Phoenician alphabet, are those derived from the Ancient South Arabian script, which for some reason had a different alphabetic order of the letters than the Northern Semitic alphabets, so it did not start with Alep and Bet.
This is a modern distinction.
Until recently the term "alphabet" was used for any writing system where the symbols correspond approximately with phonemes, regardless whether both consonants and vowels are written as in all alphabets derived from or inspired by the Greek alphabet, or only the consonants are written, like in other writing systems derived from the old Semitic alphabet, without passing through the Greek alphabet.
Then the term "abjad" has been created, and also the term "abugida" (for alphabets where the base symbols are for consonants and the vowels are added as diacritic marks around the consonants), and the sense of "alphabet" has been restricted, in order to distinguish these 3 kinds of alphabets, but "alphabet" in the older wider sense can still be encountered frequently, either in the older literature or in informal speech, so one should be able to recognize both the stricter and the wider meanings.
In TFA, "alphabet" is used in the old wider sense. Moreover, it is not even used correctly in that sense, because they did not find a written "alphabet" like those used in teaching, but they have found a few written texts that are believed to have been written using an alphabetic script.
The oldest actual alphabets that have been found (which show the alphabetic order of the letters) are for the Ugaritic alphabet, which is older than the Phoenician alphabet, but much more recent than the oldest inscriptions that are believed to have been written with an alphabetic script.
And we live in the modern world, so we should use the modern definitions?
For reference, "abjad" was introduced in 1990, so it's 35 years old. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to start using 35 year old terms to accurately describe academic subjects.
Academic terminology tends to be inconsistent, vary from person to person, and evolve from year to year. The usual expectation is that you should define the terms you use if their exact meaning is important. Otherwise people will misinterpret them.
"Abjad" seems to be a more specific term than "alphabet". Sometimes it is used as a subcategory of "alphabet" (as in "abjad alphabet") and sometimes the terms are mutually exclusive.
> The oldest actual alphabets that have been found (which show the alphabetic order of the letters) are for the Ugaritic alphabet, which is older than the Phoenician alphabet
You're doing a lot of equivocating between identity and ancestry. (e.g. saying that "alphabet" is composed of the names of two Phoenician letters rather than two Greek ones.)
In that framework, can we actually say that Ugaritic script is older than Phoenician script? My impression was that all of our knowledge of Ugaritic arises by coincidence, just that we happened to excavate a tell that turned out to keep records in what is as far as we know a script unique to it. Do we have reason to believe that someone wasn't using a proto-Phoenician script at the same time and we just haven't excavated them?
> This is a modern distinction.
Well, the actual scripts were distinguished semantically all along, and "alphabet" is also a word newer than the scripts in question. We should probably just use the words that make most sense to modern english speakers rather than... whomever you're referring to. Or just use "phonetic script" or something.
The word "alphabet" has been used at least since the second century AD (e.g. by Tertullian), but it is composed from the names of the first 2 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, names that must be at least 3 millennia old.
Without additional conventions, "alphabet" would have been the appropriate name for any writing systems derived from the Phoenician alphabet, which include the majority of the writing systems based on alphabets, abjads or abugidas. The few other such writing systems, which have not passed through the Phoenician alphabet, are those derived from the Ancient South Arabian script, which for some reason had a different alphabetic order of the letters than the Northern Semitic alphabets, so it did not start with Alep and Bet.
2 replies →
The Hebrew alphabet does not include vowels.
By that standard, many alphabets, including the Phoenician and Arabic alphabets, aren't "real" alphabets.
Indeed, Arabic is an abjad.
shouldn't it be called a bjd?
2 replies →
Yes, exactly. Linear A was the first alphabet, and greek gave "alphabet" its name.
I almost get the sense that people are interpreting abjad as "lesser-than" an alphabet. It's just a distinction, it's not a value judgement.