Alphabets: what's the meaning of their letter names

[Asturrulumbo]

Yes, in Egyptian ! But then Alexandria is Al Iskandariyya is Arabic now. Talk about deforming the original pronunciation.

I think "deforming" sounds too negative... Call me an euphemerist, but I would rather call it reforming; which in my opinion is a pretty great thing, as otherwise there wouldn't be different dialects and languages, hehe (although I still wish (who wouldn't?) my native language had retained the PIE laryngeals!)

 

[Yetos]

I'm sorry, but none of that makes any sense. The Greeks had lost their writing system (Linear B) centuries before and were an illiterate people by the time they came into contact with the Phoenicians. There is no relationship between Linear B and the Greek alphabet, and any similarity is coincidential. Also, if the Greek alphabet had developed independently from the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet, we would expect the signs to look totally different from Phoenician. We would also expect it to have a completely different order, yet the order of the Greek alphabet makes only sense if we assume it derived from the Phoenician one.



What's the likelihood of that happening? I might as well say "what if say tomorrow a flying saucer is unearthed in Turkey?". Sorry, but Occam's Razor does not agree with you. You even admit that the Phoenician origin is the most obvious explanation, yet why do you prefer a theory for which there is absolutely no evidence? That makes no sense. Where is your problem?

because the evidence that Greek came out of Phoenician is just by an archaiology timing, a script that found somewhere and is 100 years older,
while phoenician Alphabet is the developed as 'natural choice' of Ugarit,
although I accept, the base of that theory is upon an unstable soil,
Becides by checking linear B we do found a good number of same symbols.

On the other hand we know that parts of Greeks like Minoans had colonies near Ugarit,
Greek is part Greco-Aryan languages which developed North of Ugarit,
and in the usage of the Lydian logogramms and Linears we also see similar letters (if we can use that word)

the theory that Greek comes from Phoenician is not a well based theory,
it is a theory that is trebling, and is accepted only due to archaiologiacal evidence.

the razor of Occam does not reject that maybe both come from same culture,
the use of razor is to cut the 'bad plants' in one field, not to cut another parallel field,

 

[Yetos]

Alphabetical symbols are based on ideograms wich only make sense through a semitic language. An "a" is an ox (aleph), a "b" is a house (beth), a "g" is a camel (gimmel), and so on...

an a Α as is written in Greek alphabet could be a bow and arrow Aor In Greek
a Δ δελτα could mean Di-El-Tau symbolizing a divine god sun (pyramid with eye of Chorus)

the Greek alphabet as it saved today is after the 500 BC pronounce and spelling due to a pray that was learned by kids,

a pray song that exists 2500 years with same tone and melody,

so the original is unknown
if A comes from ox and alef, or from Aor (arrow) and Al-fa Sun Shine (give us light)
a form like this

look at Greek A, why an ox and why not an Aor (bow), why alef and not Aorioi (similar Aryan means archers)

besides why Bητα comes from beth and not from βη - τα (go to) (order of virb βαινω) ?

 

[Taranis]

because the evidence that Greek came out of Phoenician is just by an archaiology timing, a script that found somewhere and is 100 years older,
while phoenician Alphabet is the developed as 'natural choice' of Ugarit,
although I accept, the base of that theory is upon an unstable soil,
Becides by checking linear B we do found a good number of same symbols.

Because we find signs in Linear B doesn't automatically mean the two scripts are related. If you take a look at the three scripts below (Old Turkic, Runic and Celtiberian) you see that there is a lot of similar symbols that are completely unrelated:

There is inevitably going to be some similarity between unrelated scripts, especially if you have only a fairly small inventory of relatively simple signs.

On the other hand we know that parts of Greeks like Minoans had colonies near Ugarit,
Greek is part Greco-Aryan languages which developed North of Ugarit,
and in the usage of the Lydian logogramms and Linears we also see similar letters (if we can use that word)

Sorry but the Minoans were not Greeks. They spoke an unrelated, as of yet undeciphered language. Also, with the Greco-Aryan hypothesis you're making a lot of conjectures and take them as absolute truth: this hypothesis assumes assumes a common ancestry of Greek and the Indo-Iranic languages (as well as Armenian, which is usually included), but it's absolutely not sensible to place this homeland in Anatolia, because we have another branch of the Indo-European languages in Anatolia, the Anatolian language family (including Hittite and Luwian), which is generally considered the most divergent path of Indo-European languages. There is also the issue that Greek is in many ways closer with the Italic and Celtic languages than it is with Indo-Iranic. Also, by the time the Ugaritic alphabet is invented, the Greek language (written in Linear B) is already attested.

the theory that Greek comes from Phoenician is not a well based theory,
it is a theory that is trebling, and is accepted only due to archaiologiacal evidence.

Greek does not come from Phoenician. The Greek alphabet comes from the Phoenician alphabet. And as I said before, it's not based only on archaeological evidence. There's also the Greek names for the letters, the order of the letters, and also the Greek gematria system, which would make no sense if there was no relationship with the Phoenician alphabet.

the razor of Occam does not reject that maybe both come from same culture,
the use of razor is to cut the 'bad plants' in one field, not to cut another parallel field,

I don't understand what you are trying to say there. What I understand is that you are completely opposed to the idea that the Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet, for reasons I do not understand.

 

[Yetos]

Because we find signs in Linear B doesn't automatically mean the two scripts are related. If you take a look at the three scripts below (Old Turkic, Runic and Celtiberian) you see that there is a lot of similar symbols that are completely unrelated:

There is inevitably going to be some similarity between unrelated scripts, especially if you have only a fairly small inventory of relatively simple signs.



Sorry but the Minoans were not Greeks. They spoke an unrelated, as of yet undeciphered language. Also, with the Greco-Aryan hypothesis you're making a lot of conjectures and take them as absolute truth: this hypothesis assumes assumes a common ancestry of Greek and the Indo-Iranic languages (as well as Armenian, which is usually included), but it's absolutely not sensible to place this homeland in Anatolia, because we have another branch of the Indo-European languages in Anatolia, the Anatolian language family (including Hittite and Luwian), which is generally considered the most divergent path of Indo-European languages. There is also the issue that Greek is in many ways closer with the Italic and Celtic languages than it is with Indo-Iranic. Also, by the time the Ugaritic alphabet is invented, the Greek language (written in Linear B) is already attested.



Greek does not come from Phoenician. The Greek alphabet comes from the Phoenician alphabet. And as I said before, it's not based only on archaeological evidence. There's also the Greek names for the letters, the order of the letters, and also the Greek gematria system, which would make no sense if there was no relationship with the Phoenician alphabet.



I don't understand what you are trying to say there. What I understand is that you are completely opposed to the idea that the Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet, for reasons I do not understand.

Let me put it in another way
why A alpha is from Alef and not from Al-fa or another pre-culture ?
assumption,

phoenician 22 Greek 27 about 13-15 same, proved relation ship,
accepted,

starting are Ugarit,

so who is infront and who is after who?
an archaiological evidence,
by that we start and say that Phoeniacian is before the Greek,
so if we find another script older, what we say?

on the other hand, phoenician never in aegean, but pelasgians (or peleset) were,
thyrrenians came from minor asia to greece and from there to italy,

so why we put phoenician, and not the etruscans (pelasgians) that had simmilar alphabet? or even the Hatti, since we know that Hatti lived in Attica?

remember that 9 different sounds is a big difference also to put that Greeks accepted phoenician, but a Hatti or a pelasgian one or an Etruscan one,

simply because we are not well informed from the pelasgian language but we are very well about phoenician so we accept the theory of phoenician,
also an archaiological evidence,

so the today thesis tomorrow can be rejected, by an archaiological evidence,

occam razor, can not reject another theory,
so we can't use razor to reject that a possible theory that both come from same source,

 

[Hal Fao]

- However, like Greek, Latin also had the sound /g/ for which it had no letter. In the beginning, C would interchangably represent both /g/ and /k/, but later the Romans developed a new letter by adding a stroke to C, thus creating the letter G.

We can’t assume. The letter “g” did not exist in early Latin alphabet. This implies that early Latin lacked the consonant “g”, and like etruscans did not distinguish b/p, d/t, g/k, early latins did not distinguish g/k. The consonant “g” was developed later by latins either because of contacts with other peoples (languages) or as a result of internal development of Latin. If the Latin alphabet was developed two or three centuries earlier, I’m quite sure that the letters “b” and “d” could have not figured too.

… how do you explain that Etruscan had such a different sound inventory from Albanian? Which Etruscan sounds would correspond to Albanian sounds and vice versa? How do you explain that Albanian has the sounds /b/, /d/, /g/, /ɟ/, /ʒ/, /c/, /ð/, /θ/ etc. while Etruscan hasn't?

Even the sound inventories of today’s European languages have some differences (of course not so much, but there is). In my opinion, the lack of sounds “b”, “d”, “g” in Etruscan does not mean that it can not be an IE language just for that reason. If Etruscan was an isoglose, be sure that almost no Etruscan word could be found in today’s European languages.

As you can see, with the notable exception of the Germanic languages, in all language families in the list, the word for 'two' starts with *d. As I stated earlier, the Proto-Indo-Europan word for 'two' is reconstructed as 'dwo-'. Now, regarding the Germanic languages, the word is (with exception of German, but note that German 'z' is pronounced as /ts/) consistently *t. From that, we establish the hypothesis that Germanic *t corresponds with PIE *d. So, if we look at a few other English words, and compare it with cognates in other IE languages (I here take Latin), we can confirm this: …

Such similar cases are numerous in all European languages. And not only for the shift *t > *d but for the shifts *p > *b and *k > *g too. This is also one more reason to believe in the extraordinary impact of Etruscan in almost all European languages. So, if we need to establish the hypothesis that in some cases German *t corresponds with PIE *d (and it really does), we need no hypothesis to prove that in such cases German *t corresponds (and it really fits) with Etruscan *t.

What does this mean for Etruscan and Albanian? You claimed that an Etruscan word 'Tu' (of unknown meaning, but here assumed to be 'two') corresponds with Albanian 'Dy'. This would imply a shift from *t > *d. Sure, why not. If the hypothesis was correct, then we would *t in Etruscan to be regularly shifted to *d. You take the next Etruscan word, 'Tris' (assumed to mean 'three') and compared with the Albanian word, which however is 'Tre'. Apparently, suddenly Etruscan *t corresponds with *t in Albanian. Which one is it?

Because Etruscans did not distinguish b/p, d/t and g/k, it’s quite logical that Etruscan *p either corresponds with PIE *b or it fits with PIE *p; Etruscan *t either corresponds with PIE *d or it fits with PIE *t; Etruscan *k either corresponds with PIE *g or it fits with PIE *k.
In the same way as German *t either corresponds with PIE *d (in some cases), or it fits with PIE *t (in other cases).
And if (in return) I ask you the very same question WHICH ONE IS IT, the only answer would be: BOTH OF THEM!
I’m affraid I’m unable for a better explanation, so I wish you understand.

ALFA
well the word φαω (eat) is modern Greek, ...

Sorry to contradict you, but the Greek word φα/ω have the PIE base *bhag-.
I recommend you to visit www.etymonline.com

-phagous
comb. form meaning "eating, feeding on," from Gk. -phagos "eater of," from phagein "to eat," lit. "to have a share of food," from PIE base *bhag- "to share out, apportion, distribute," also "to get a share" (cf. Skt. bhajati "assigns, allots, apportions, enjoys, loves,"bhagah "allotter, distributor, master, lord," bhaksati "eats, drinks, enjoys;" Pers. bakhshidan "to give;" O.C.S. bogatu "rich").
(bolded by me)
as well as:
http://www.lexilogos.com/english/greek_ancient_dictionary.htm
and search for the word φα/ω. You’ll find there a lot of compound ancient Greek words where φα/ω is part of them.

 

[Yetos]

Phagous does not mean eat

Phagous it was used for a situation of acid work, axe work etc

for example εφαγα ξυλο,

does not mean I ate wood, But i was in situation of Beating

Phagous and Bacteriophagus in English is Virus,

Phagus is a situation of sick Illnes and errosion,

Acid eat metals, Οξεα φαγουσιν Μεταλλοις, oxea phagousin metallis
acid does not eat mettals, but slowly make them weak and thin


Phagous in ancient Greek does not means eat,
means a situation of descendig process

phagous (virus) does not eat, but slowly cretaes a situation of a descending process that change or even dissapear and kill the pre status


in modern Greek after Roman times, phag- also took the meaning of eat, and in many cases its original meaning it is replaced by the composite word δια-βρωσις where we find the correct word βρωσις with the pre-theme δια, meaning something like 'through' or 'with',

besides you may also find the word ροκανιζω, which means I use a torn,

the 2 ancient words are Βρωττομαι and Θρευομαι -Τρεφομαι

why phag- is not? cause even in modern follows only 1 voice and the noun form is φαγητο and φαι which does follow the rules of ancient, but the modern demodic

just look

Βρωττομαι Βρυθω Βρωσις (fem)
Θρευομαι Θρευω Τροφη - Θρεψις (fem)
?????? Φαω Φαγητο ??? (neu)
All neutral nouns endings in -eto comes from western - et like caminet kamineto instead of Kaminos the Greek words
cavallet καβαλετο etc
and they are considered imported form after roman-byzantine times, cause we don't find that form in early and Hellenistic times.

another story is that there is no future in form,
Βρωττομαι εβρωσσα βροσσομαι (pres past fut)
Φαω εφαγα (φαγισω?) so future does not exist

so as word with that form is earlier form, or an older that changed and took another meaning,

 

[Segia2]

We can’t assume. The letter “g” did not exist in early Latin alphabet. This implies that early Latin lacked the consonant “g”, and like etruscans did not distinguish b/p, d/t, g/k, early latins did not distinguish g/k. The consonant “g” was developed later by latins either because of contacts with other peoples (languages) or as a result of internal development of Latin. If the Latin alphabet was developed two or three centuries earlier, I’m quite sure that the letters “b” and “d” could have not figured too.

Some peoples adopted writing systems that didn't possess their phonologic inventary, just for geographical proximity. The fact that some of them didn't develop new letters doesn't imply that their language lacked certain sounds. In the iberian peninsula you can see examples of this, such as celtiberian language adopting iberian writing system (wich didn't distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants, hadn't consonantic groups bl/br/kl....)

The differentiated use of latin /g/ and /k/ isn't arbitrary and can't be explained as an internal evolution. Why to use "centum" and "gens" if there isn't a phonetic rule that would lead to a differentiated solution?

 

[Taranis]

We can’t assume. The letter “g” did not exist in early Latin alphabet. This implies that early Latin lacked the consonant “g”, and like etruscans did not distinguish b/p, d/t, g/k, early latins did not distinguish g/k. The consonant “g” was developed later by latins either because of contacts with other peoples (languages) or as a result of internal development of Latin. If the Latin alphabet was developed two or three centuries earlier, I’m quite sure that the letters “b” and “d” could have not figured too.

I am sorry to say this, but as Segia2 already said, you have a completely wrong assumption there. The letter 'g' did not exist in early Latin because the Romans adopted the Etruscan alphabet, and the Etruscans didn't distinquish between /g/ or /k/. Indeed, the Romans adopted the other Etruscan convention of using 'q' to represent 'k' before 'u' to represent the 'kw' sound in Latin, and as mentioned we even today have kept this convention (English 'question', 'queen').

One critical issue about sound laws is that they have no memories. So assuming for a moment that Latin indeed merged PIE *g and *k at an earlier point, there is no way how Latin at a later point could have separated *g and *k again because a language has no memory of sound changes, because clearly Latin *g and *k correspond with PIE *g (and *g´) and *k (and *k´). The only reasonable assumption here is that early Latin did indeed distinguish between /k/ and /g/, while the early Latin writing system didn't.

Even the sound inventories of today’s European languages have some differences (of course not so much, but there is). In my opinion, the lack of sounds “b”, “d”, “g” in Etruscan does not mean that it can not be an IE language just for that reason. If Etruscan was an isoglose, be sure that almost no Etruscan word could be found in today’s European languages.

What do you mean by 'isoglose'? By the way, this is the case: we do find almost no word in today's European languages.

Such similar cases are numerous in all European languages. And not only for the shift *t > *d but for the shifts *p > *b and *k > *g too. This is also one more reason to believe in the extraordinary impact of Etruscan in almost all European languages. So, if we need to establish the hypothesis that in some cases German *t corresponds with PIE *d (and it really does), we need no hypothesis to prove that in such cases German *t corresponds (and it really fits) with Etruscan *t.

Because Etruscans did not distinguish b/p, d/t and g/k, it’s quite logical that Etruscan *p either corresponds with PIE *b or it fits with PIE *p; Etruscan *t either corresponds with PIE *d or it fits with PIE *t; Etruscan *k either corresponds with PIE *g or it fits with PIE *k.
In the same way as German *t either corresponds with PIE *d (in some cases), or it fits with PIE *t (in other cases).
And if (in return) I ask you the very same question WHICH ONE IS IT, the only answer would be: BOTH OF THEM!
I’m affraid I’m unable for a better explanation, so I wish you understand.

Actually, Indo-European is constructed with a much larger inventory of sounds which have various reflexes in various Indo-European languages. You have five series of stop sounds in total in PIE, each with an unvoiced, a voiced and a voiced+aspirated consonant:

*p, *b, *bh
*t, *d, *dh
*k, *g, *gh
*k´, *g´, *g´h
*kw, *gw, *gwh

Which leave for some example the following reflexes in various branches of Indo-European:

- in the Centum languages (Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Italic and Tocharian) *k´, *g´, *g´h from PIE are merged with *k, *g and *gh respectively, whereas in the Satem languages (Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranic) they are turned into fricative sounds instead.

- in the Celtic languages *p from PIE is generally lost (compare Irish 'Athair' vs. Latin 'Pater'). *gw is shifted to *b (compare Gaulish 'bena' and Irish 'bean' with English 'queen'), and *bh, *dh and *gwh become /b/, /d/ and /gw/ (but only after *gw > *b, obviously).

- In Latin, *bh yields *f at the beginning of a word, but *b in the middle of a word, which is why it is 'frater' in Latin, but 'bratir' in Gaulish and 'brother' in English.

- in the ancient Greek language, *bh, *dh and *gh are devoiced to /ph/, /th/ and /kh/ (represented by the letters Phi, Theta and Chi respectively), and later shifted to /f/, /θ/ and /x/ respectively.

- Sanskrit retains *bh, *dh and *gh.

- the Germanic languages make a chain shift (called 'Grimm's Law' or the 'First Germanic Sound Shift'), in which:

*bh > *b, *b > *p, *p > *f
*dh > *d, *d > *t, *t > *θ
*gh > *g, *g > *k, *k > *x (later *h)

A typical example would be the English words 'father' vs. Latin 'pater' or 'hound' vs. 'canis', Latin 'centum' vs. English 'hundred', and so on.

- Albanian, without exception, merged *bh, *dh, *gh, *g´h with *b, *d, *g, *g´ respectively. *g´ later became *ð while *k´ became *θ (which is why Albanian is a Satem language). However, many additional Albanian sound shifts are based on where specifically in a word is sound located:

For example PIE *kw yields /k/ in Albanian in most cases, but yields /s/ before positions where a front vowel (i or e) stood in PIE. For this reason, PIE *kwetores (four) yields Albanian 'katër' but PIE *penkwe yields *pesë.

None of the Albanian sound correspondences would really make any sense if you take Etruscan as the source language, because as mentioned Etruscan is fundamentally non-Indo-European. One very critical issue I would like to bring up here is the absence of /o/ in Etruscan, which is found in PIE as well as Albanian (as well as most IE language).

Some peoples adopted writing systems that didn't possess their phonologic inventary, just for geographical proximity. The fact that some of them didn't develop new letters doesn't imply that their language lacked certain sounds. In the iberian peninsula you can see examples of this, such as celtiberian language adopting iberian writing system (wich didn't distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants, hadn't consonantic groups bl/br/kl....)

The differentiated use of latin /g/ and /k/ isn't arbitrary and can't be explained as an internal evolution. Why to use "centum" and "gens" if there isn't a phonetic rule that would lead to a differentiated solution?

I absolutely agree with your post here except for a small nitpick: Iberian, just like Celtiberian distinguished between voiced and voiceless stops, but Tartessian (the language for which the oldest writing system of Iberia was actually developed) didn't make such a distinction. It's also in my opinion the most straightforward reason why Tartessian is not a Celtic language. To quote Zeidler, the Tartessian script is hardly suitable for representing an Indo-European language.