Category talk:Monolingual writing systems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a controversial topic, which may be under dispute.
Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them.
Make sure you supply full citations when adding information to highly controversial articles.

1 Neologism?
2 Previous Discussion
3 deprecate
4 Not a real category
5 References
6 CfD
7 This bogus category isn't getting any better
8 Yi script

[edit] Neologism?

I couldn't think of a better name for this Category, if you can conjure up something more appropriate, please make it known. FrancisTyers 02:30, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Previous Discussion

I'd like to create a page documenting scripts that are used for one language only (for example Armenian_alphabet and Greek_alphabet). Should I make this an article or a category? Can anyone give me any further ideas? FrancisTyers 02:06, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Category. It'll be a "List of..."-type page otherwise, and those are just nasty. "Unique scripts" is about as close as you are going to get to a concise, meaningful name without violating WP:NOR for neologizing -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 02:20, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

I think this category title is potentially confusing and/or misleading because both the words "unique" and "script" are potentially ambiguous. How about "monolingual writing systems"? Nohat 03:15, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I thought about using 'writing systems', but was advised against it, I quite like monolingual writing systems, but i'm not sure, monolingual brings up different associations... is there an approved linguistic term for this? - FrancisTyers 04:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's no specific term that I'm aware of. What were the reasons you were advised against "writing system"? "Script" seems much more like unnecessary use of jargon to me than "writing system". At least "writing system" is mostly self-explanatory. Nohat 18:06, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Phyzome advised me against it, for reasons that I do not know, I was asking him for advice and he seemed pretty knowledgeable so I went with it. Although you are correct, writing systems is pretty self explanatory. I'd be happy to change, but I'm still not sure about the monolingual. I guess it makes sense, but somehow it jars, I've been going through synonyms in my head and I can't think of anything better... - FrancisTyers 18:13, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I understand the problem is that monolingual is usually used to describe people who only use or know one language. Perhaps then "single-language writing systems". Or invent a nonce word "unilingual" (which in fact seems more appropriate than monolingual because mono- is Greek and lingual is Latin; uni- is Latin too) Nohat 20:41, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unilingual writing systems sounds good to me, anyone else? - FrancisTyers 21:04, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead and change the category. Whatever the ultimate outcome may be, "unilingual writing systems" is many times better than "unique scripts". Nohat 23:18, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, going from the reference i found monolingual scripts might be better? FrancisTyers 15:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In fact, there is such a word named "unilingual." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.175.41.54 (talk) 02:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] deprecate

I would deprecate this category. It is almost impossible to apply it unambiguously and usefully. A better name would be "national alphabets", but I don't think that would be useful either. fwiiw, the Greek alphabet is not "unique" in any sense. It was used for the gaulish language, the phrygian language, and others. dab (ᛏ) 08:45, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Do people still today write Gaulish in the Greek alphabet? Would the Phrygian have been written using the Modern Greek alphabet? - FrancisTyers 17:54, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not a real category

This category is neither real nor useful. Indeed it is probably misleading. Certainly its name "unique" is ambiguous. I'd vote for abandoning this category entirely. Evertype 09:43, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

I removed Syriac alphabet from this category because it cannot be called unique in any kind of confidence. The idea of a writing system that is used for only one language, and that alone, is very odd. I suppose there must be a writing system that can be so described, but what if a substantially different dialect of the same language was written in the same script: is it unique anymore? As writing systems are not monolithic creations, they are not truly unique either. I've listed this category at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion: please vote there. Gareth Hughes 11:35, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Writing systems are not monolithic creations? How about Cherokee, Yi and Hangul, to name three? I realise that in Korea, Chinese symbols are used :with: Hangul, but I think to say that writing systems can't be truely unique is stretching the point. I realise that I may have been a bit zealous applying this category to articles, but please remove them if you think otherwise. On the question of dialects. I have excluded Thai and Georgian from this category as their pages suggest that along with writing their namesake languages they are also used to write minority languages within their countries. I would be happy for articles to be removed in this case. - FrancisTyers 17:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The MOMENT any anglophone kid in Oklahoma tries to write his one name in Cherokee, Cherokee ceases to be a "unique script". My name in Cherokee is ᎹᎢᎧᎵ ᎡᏩᏐᏂ Maikali Ewasoni. Not a bit of it is Cherokee. Evertype 00:02, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Would a literate person speaking/reading English be able to read your name? Would a literate person speaking/reading Cherokee be able to read your name? Wouldn't that make your name Cherokee? Like when my friend Nikolay writes his name romanised, his name might as well be English, or Croatian. If the only other text written in this script is Cherokee, then it doesn't make a difference if you write your name in it or not. - FrancisTyers 00:26, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, give us a break, will you? The point is that this category is bogus. It contains Myanmar, which is used for Karen and Shan and other minority languages. Anyway, what kind of questions are "Would a literate person speaking/reading English be able to read your name?" and "Would a literate person speaking/reading Cherokee be able to read your name?" A person literate in English but not in Cherokee would not be able to read ᎹᎢᎧᎵ ᎡᏩᏐᏂ. A person literate in Cherokee would certainly be able to read ᎹᎢᎧᎵ ᎡᏩᏐᏂ, and would probably (as Cherokees are bilingual in English) be able to reconstruct Michael Everson out of it. What is your point? My point was that the Cherokee script is, or can be, used by Cherokees and non-Cherokees to represent Cherokee or other languages. Evertype 01:11, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Thanks for removing Myanmar, I wasn't aware that it was used to write Karen and Shan, perhaps you'd like to update the Burmese script page to reflect this. The point is a name does not a language make, therefore, Cherokee script is still a Unilingual writing system, even after the MOMENT ;) that you write your name in it.

I just read your page and am impressed, I too am really interested in minority languages and peoples, particularly the Celts/Celtic languages. Furthermore am glad to have the chance to say this: THANKS FOR HELPING TO CREATE UNICODE, I LOVE IT AS MUCH AS ONE CAN EVER LOVE A STANDARD :), you clearly have more experience than me in this, something I grant with pleasure, however, I still think that this category has its uses, and yes, I realise the name was misleading, however I think with the adjusted name, it is much less so. - FrancisTyers 01:44, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Evertype. This doesnt seem to be a useful or necessary way to classify scripts. Question: would Vietnamese writing system be unique since it uses a particular combination of diacritics? Or is it just a non-unique Roman script? I havent seen any major book use a category like this (for instance, Daniels & Bright's The world's writing systems). — ishwar (SPEAK) 15:05, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Vietnamese is a Latin orthography. It is not a script. Evertype 15:34, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

So, how to distinguish between an orthography and a script? Would you say that the degree of dissimilarity between two given orthographies is the criteria used to distinguish between them? That is, the Greek alpha is a script, and so is the Roman/Latin alpha. But, the Vietnamese alpha & the French alpha are the same script. — ishwar (SPEAK) 15:52, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

See Orthography and Writing system. Evertype 16:15, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

[edit] References

Issues in Indic Language Collation - Mentions monolingual scripts.

[edit] CfD

See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Unique scripts for discussion from CfD which was unresolved. -Kbdank71 15:45, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why was it unresolved? This category isn't a real category. It's a useless exercise. Evertype 11:56, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

Democratic process meets scholarly knowledge. Help me emptying the category by finding uses of the still included scripts for other languages, mention it in the article, and remove the category from the article. Once the category is emptied, I'll renominate to CfD. --Pjacobi 12:47, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

In my abundant spare time? I'm afraid not. It's a stupid and useless category without the least whiff of scholarly or other utility. You can quote me. Evertype 15:12, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

Please remove writing systems/scripts that belong to more than one language! I haven't asked for anything more :) Note: The reason it was unresolved is because not enough people disagreed that the category was real. I believe over half agreed it should be a category. FrancisTyers 01:35, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To see the postive side of this: It will enhance the script articles by explicitely mentioning the other languages. --Pjacobi 09:11, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

Exactly, the reason the category was so heavily populated was that I populated it solely on the basis of the Wikipedia articles for each of the scripts. FrancisTyers 14:53, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This bogus category isn't getting any better

You know, script amateurism is really irritating. This category is poorly defined, and some of the scripts attributed to it are completely wrong. Tamil script, for instance, is used to write Sanskrit and Saurashtra. But some genius has burdened the Tamil page with a link to this bogus category. Who put Armenian on this list? Is that person CERTAIN that Armenian script has only been used to write Armenian? Evertype 09:25, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Wow. It's been half a year and this bogus category still hasn't been put to death. Now it's been renamed "Monolingual writing systems". What piffle. A monolingual person is a person who only speaks one language. A monolingual script is a meaningless concept, as scripts do not speak. Cruft like this does the Wikipedia no good. Evertype 10:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, monolingual can also refer to "Of a publication or text: written in only one language." - FrancisTyers · 18:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yi script

Yi script says that the script is used in the Yi languages. Should it be removed from this category?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stereo (talk • contribs) 7 June 2006.