Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems
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Latest comment: 9 days ago by Tamfang in topic Angle brackets
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Naming consistency
editarchived at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (writing systems)
Good article reassessment for Sinhala script
editSinhala script has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk)
Cuneiform, what type of system(s) is it?
editCuneiform, especially early forms of it use ideograms, so should that be added to the page for Cuneiform. Something like: Cuneiform is mostly a logo-syllabic writing system, some early forms also made extensive use of ideograms. these various versions of cuneiform were used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East.
this is probably a bad potential edit so if anyone has a more seamless way please respond.
Legendarycool (talk) 02:49, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- It depends which cuneiform. Most broadly construed, the word itself just describes the stylus making wedge-marks in clay. The Ugaritic alphabet is a script that is materially cuneiform but graphematically alphabetic. Akkadian itself was mostly written like a syllabary with some forms functioning as logographs from time to time. The original Sumerian, a much more analytic language than its Semitic neighbors, was like Chinese arguably better suited for a purer logo-syllabary. Think about it like this: for half of its history as a technology, we were using cuneiform in some form or another. It got used as many different ways as it reached. Remsense 🌈 论 02:55, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- That is to say, I think the fact that cuneiform wrote many differently functioning systems is key, and shrugging with "mostly logosyllabic" is ignoring most of its history, like any other single choice would. Remsense 🌈 论 03:06, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for responding so quickly.
- You have made some good point about the use of Cuneiform in its broadest sense (which is what the article is covering and what it should cover), as systems besides Sumerian where in most ways phonetic. I nonetheless think it is important to have some mention of the ideographic qualities of Sumerian. It could say something like: Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East, it’s earlier forms used ideograms to supplement these other characters. I still think it’s a bit unwieldy but I think the information should be in the introduction.
- Legendarycool (talk) 08:05, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- But that's not right for the same reason. It's like saying the English script is logosyllabic because the ancestors of its letterforms originally corresponded to Egyptian words. For the vast majority of its history, in the vast majority of extant texts, cuneiform scripts were not mainly logosyllabic, and really were mainly syllabic for most of that time. Remsense 🌈 论 08:48, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- But Sumerian still did use them (especially in the earlier periods) nonetheless so it is important for it to be recognised in the introduction.
- P.S. I think I noticed an error as the introduction calls ‘Cuneiform ...’ a ‘… writing system …’ which seems incorrect as cuneiform is a style? group? lineage? family? of scripts. It would be like calling every Egyptian hieroglyph derived script (including tentatively related ones like Cherokee and maybe Hangul) to be a script. Legendarycool (talk) 06:15, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- I wrote up how I would define cuneiform off the cuff, but in reality it's more prudent to consult sources first, since they're what matter here.
- By the definition of writing system that's generally explicated in our sources, it would make sense to me to define cuneiform as a family of writing systems, related graphically, that wrote several languages of the ancient Near East according to various principles. Looking through my books, I can't immediately come up with any one source that states it like that, though. Remsense 🌈 论 15:28, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- I would even contemplate going further that cuneiform isn't a writing system at all, but rather a technology and associated writing style used by several writing systems such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Persian, and Ugaritic. VanIsaac, GHTV contrabout 17:07, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- I checked out some other language and they might have a better structure?
- but yeah it is an issue because this page exists, has a purpose but what is it. Has there been any study into this family??? Of scripts – does there need to be a page about Egyptian derived scripts if this page fills that niche, is it about merely about the method/characters used.
- Given the current structure and what other pages have done I think this page should focus on the type of written script, base it off the structure of the French one.
- P.S. would specific scripts be notable enough to warrant their own pages; given Old Persian has its own page I would say so.
- P.P.S. Remsense since the source for the first sentence – the sentence that calls Cuneiform a script – only references a document pertaining to Sumerian grammar1,it is in effect not sourced
- This interesting choice of source has another massive issue. The article talking about Cuneiform only sources the type of script from something talking about Sumerian grammar.
- another random note: I think there would be sources that describe them as a group, due to mention of them being related to each other. Through that some sort of ‘family’ could be created through sourced ancestors and descendants, as in the articles pertaining to ‘ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and decedents’
- Also the info-box is messed up as it treats cuneiform as a single
- hopefully this is coherent
- Legendarycool (talk) 06:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)
- Writing is a bespoke enough technology that the impulse to impose consistency across articles here seems misplaced: we should treat hieroglyphs and cuneiform (and Chinese characters, ahem) differently because they functioned quite differently and had cross-cultural progeny that evolved quite differently as well. Again, our sources take priority, and enough of our sources treat cuneiform as an umbrella term emphasizing the material and conceptual overlap across what I would personally consider different systems that we should be careful here.
- This has to do with material conditions to a significant degree as well. In Egypt and its neighbors, one had papyrus reeds to accelerate inexpensive experimentation with forms of writing, while clay from the Tigris and Euphrates remaining the writing material one had most immediate access to in Mesopotamia encouraged the comparative conventionality we saw there. Remsense 🌈 论 07:15, 11 July 2025 (UTC)
- And on the separate-articles question: I don't think it best serves our readers to WP:SPINOUT unless there's a really clear idea of what goes there, keeping in mind Wikipedia is not a dictionary or any sort of glossary or reference guide for ancient languages. Cuneiform as an article is a bit of a dog's breakfast atm, but it's only 6k words in length – and the problem is emphatically not that it's overflowing with excess detail in areas that clearly could use their own articles. Remsense 🌈 论 07:31, 11 July 2025 (UTC)
- I would even contemplate going further that cuneiform isn't a writing system at all, but rather a technology and associated writing style used by several writing systems such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Persian, and Ugaritic. VanIsaac, GHTV contrabout 17:07, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- But that's not right for the same reason. It's like saying the English script is logosyllabic because the ancestors of its letterforms originally corresponded to Egyptian words. For the vast majority of its history, in the vast majority of extant texts, cuneiform scripts were not mainly logosyllabic, and really were mainly syllabic for most of that time. Remsense 🌈 论 08:48, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
- That is to say, I think the fact that cuneiform wrote many differently functioning systems is key, and shrugging with "mostly logosyllabic" is ignoring most of its history, like any other single choice would. Remsense 🌈 论 03:06, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
Egyptian hieroglyphs: A NooB asks
editAnyone accustomed to manipulating Egyptian hieroglyphs for Wikipedian purposes might (please!) have a look at Wikipedia:Help desk#Egyptian_Hieroglyphs_for_Dummies. Thank you! -- Hoary (talk) 01:23, 8 July 2025 (UTC)
Requested move at Talk:Kunrei-shiki romanization#Requested move 15 July 2025
edit
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Kunrei-shiki romanization#Requested move 15 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPathtalk 05:04, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Requested move at Talk:Gugyeol#Requested move 10 August 2025
edit There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Gugyeol#Requested move 10 August 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 09:12, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
Angle brackets
editDoes the project feel that angle brackets around letters around letters are beneficial, e.g. ⟨A⟩? Courtesy ping: Aerrapc. Certes (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
- In what context?★Trekker (talk) 08:11, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
- When discussing individual letters (or digraphs), it's customary in linguistic notation to surround the characters with chevron brackets, eg. ⟨A⟩ to clarify that the letter itself is the thing being discussed (see Bracket#Uses_of_⟨_⟩ for a better explanation). The articles about letters are currently inconsistent as to whether or not this is done. Currently, I'm hoping to reach some sort of consensus or at least a consistent method. ⇒ Aerrapc they/them, 15:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
- I see. Personally I think it would make sense to use the brackets for clarity.★Trekker (talk) 22:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the replies. Pinging JMF who may also have useful comments. Certes (talk) 11:06, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
- I see. Personally I think it would make sense to use the brackets for clarity.★Trekker (talk) 22:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
- When discussing individual letters (or digraphs), it's customary in linguistic notation to surround the characters with chevron brackets, eg. ⟨A⟩ to clarify that the letter itself is the thing being discussed (see Bracket#Uses_of_⟨_⟩ for a better explanation). The articles about letters are currently inconsistent as to whether or not this is done. Currently, I'm hoping to reach some sort of consensus or at least a consistent method. ⇒ Aerrapc they/them, 15:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
- In the intro to articles about letters, I believe that the current practice of using bold like every other article (
A, a is the first letter ... etc.
) is the appropriate one. In the body of the text, after Template:Orthography notation has been used to introduce it, then yes {{angbr}} should be used as it is the conventional notation. - See also MOS:WAW (but the italics notation is definitely not suitable for single glyphs).
- (Btw, chevrons are horizontal, so not the same thing). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
- Some chevrons point up, some point down, why not sidewise? —Tamfang (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
- In the intro to articles about letters, I believe that the current practice of using bold like every other article (
- Pinging @Nardog:, who has a lot more expertise in this area than I do and may have better advice. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
- (retrospectice clarification: template:Infobox grapheme (as used by A, B, C etc) already includes a box to explain the IPA notatipns, so that meets my criterion already. template:Orthography notation would only be needed if an article didn't use the usual template.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 02:28, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
- Pinging @Nardog:, who has a lot more expertise in this area than I do and may have better advice. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
- I have pretty consistently used quotation marks for Latin letters as in «The letter "X" is written with two strokes». That having been said, this does not extend to letters of other scripts, which I have not marked in any way as far as I can tell. I think before you can talk about recommendations for style, you need to define the intended purpose. By my pattern of usage, it would appear that my sole consideration is about not confusing mentions of a letter with an intended word in prose. This has two beneficial effects in clarifying for the reader that the quoted letter is not intended to be read as a word, and marking the letter as not being a typographic error to be edited. The discussion above seems to be taking the purpose farther into concepts of linguistic documentation, which is certainly a legitimate end, but I'm not convinced that stylistic prescription to the needs of that purpose is necessarily justified outside of specific instances. I'd need to be convinced that bold and "quotation marks" are lacking before I would support requiring ⟨angle brackets⟩, which are not accessible on standard keyboards. VanIsaac, GHTV contrabout 18:52, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with you that an intended purpose should be defined before discussing the method of identification. For context, I've been looking to standardize angle brackets because of a complete lack of consistency across articles, and even throughout different sections of some individual articles.
- While you may have consistently been using quotation marks, not everyone has been. I've seen double quotation marks, single quotation marks, angle brackets (or chevrons as I call them), parenthesis, italics, bold, code format, asterisks, and more.
- My reason for supporting chevrons, and disproving of quotation marks, seems to ironically be the very reasons you've been using quotation marks. I feel that using quotation marks around letters may lead the reader to feel that it is being referred to as a word, not a letter. Quotation marks are often used to reference words or phrases. The only function that chevrons serve in modern English is specifically this purpose -- identifying graphemic content -- which is why I think it's the best solution. I'm fine with exceptionally allowing the lede sentence to bold it with no chevrons though. ⇒ Aerrapc they/them, 17:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)
- My concern is that angle brackets are functionally WP:Jargon and disrupt reader understanding by introducing a learning curve of linguistic documentation to general purpose articles. I also disagree that quotation marks imply the unit of a word in any sense - they are just as freely used to indicate a clause, phrase, word, letter, or any other linguistic unit that is treated as a single entity. VanIsaac, GHTV contrabout 16:15, 21 August 2025 (UTC)
- The current MoS recommends double quotes or italics for letters and words used as words, defaulting to italics (see also Talk:Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine/Archive_2#Requested_move_18_July_2021). Angle brackets are not discussed, but they are standard for orthography and for bra–ket notation and expectation value in physics. Therefore, I'd recommend consistently using either italics or angle brackets for letter articles. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:20, 21 August 2025 (UTC)
- There are two different contexts here: (a) the letter as given in the lead sentence and (b) the letter as subsequently used in the article. For context (b), I agree completely: the subject needs to be clearly identified and angle brackets are the best known convention.
- But for context (a), the relevant MOS is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Bolding of title and alternative names, amplified at Wikipedia:Writing better articles#First sentence content: "The article should begin with a short declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?". To me, the key message there is that the wp:principle of least surprise applies. The visitor is expecting an article about A, not ⟨A⟩. If they are not familiar with IPA, they are immediately confronted with an unfamiliar notation that immediately questions if this is the right article. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:12, 21 August 2025 (UTC)