A
Allen Drake
Does your GPS speak English or American? Mine says "Route" and
"roundabout" rather than "Rotary"
"roundabout" rather than "Rotary"
J
John M Ward
J. P. Gilliver (John) said:[snip]I have - supposedly - learned the Arabic alphabet, although
technically it's an abjad, not an alphabet
I always thought it came from the Greek Alpha Beta.
Good question. I'd find a response to that interesting and worth
keeping in my "General: Language" folder.
E
Ed Cryer
"Alphabet" is from Greek Alpha-beta. "Abjad" is from ArabicJ. P. Gilliver (John) said:[snip]I have - supposedly - learned the Arabic alphabet, although
technically it's an abjad, not an alphabetI always thought it came from the Greek Alpha Beta.
Good question. I'd find a response to that interesting and worth
keeping in my "General: Language" folder.
Alif-ba-jeem-dal. They are the first two letters of Greek and the first
four of Arabic respectively.
Linguists try desperately to distinguish the two but fail quite
miserably. It's probably down to a cultural reason why the Arabs didn't
like "alphabet" even though they praised the works of Aristotle to the
skies.
The Romans who gave us our "alphabet" praised the whole of Greek culture
to the skies; and they got their letters modified from Etruscan which
was modified from Greek.
Ironically all scripts mentioned so far trace back to Phoenician ones,
but have different evolutionary trees. The Arabic branch is more closely
related to the Hebrew and Aramaic one.
Ed
M
Mack A. Damia
"Route" (rhyming with pout) becomes "rout" in America. The
carpenter's tool - a router, or to rout a groove. Also, slang to beat
the other team hands-down without letting them score a point.
These messages are coming the to APIHNA in bits and pieces; they may
have been routed with a router.
carpenter's tool - a router, or to rout a groove. Also, slang to beat
the other team hands-down without letting them score a point.
These messages are coming the to APIHNA in bits and pieces; they may
have been routed with a router.
M
me again
Allen Drake wrote:
....
Allen in the USA BEWARE if it says "turn left at the roundabout"!!!
....
Allen in the USA BEWARE if it says "turn left at the roundabout"!!!
G
Gene E. Bloch
To go a step or two farther:"Alphabet" is from Greek Alpha-beta. "Abjad" is from ArabicJ. P. Gilliver (John) said:[snip]
I have - supposedly - learned the Arabic alphabet, although
technically it's an abjad, not an alphabetI always thought it came from the Greek Alpha Beta.
Good question. I'd find a response to that interesting and worth
keeping in my "General: Language" folder.
Alif-ba-jeem-dal. They are the first two letters of Greek and the first
four of Arabic respectively.
Linguists try desperately to distinguish the two but fail quite
miserably. It's probably down to a cultural reason why the Arabs didn't
like "alphabet" even though they praised the works of Aristotle to the
skies.
The Romans who gave us our "alphabet" praised the whole of Greek culture
to the skies; and they got their letters modified from Etruscan which
was modified from Greek.
Ironically all scripts mentioned so far trace back to Phoenician ones,
but have different evolutionary trees. The Arabic branch is more closely
related to the Hebrew and Aramaic one.
Ed
Alpha in fact comes from the Semitic alphabets that the Greeks borrowed.
In old Hebrew, aleph means ox, and the letter was a sort of pictograph
of an ox.
Phonetic (or phonetic-like) writing schemes come in three flavors,
alphabets, syllabaries, and abjads.
Alphabets have in principle a symbol for each consonant and each vowel,
and words are written as a sequence of such symbols. Speakers of French
and English know how that can get messed up, but that *is* the idea.
Syllabaries have s separate symbol for each possible syllable in a
language, such as Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese. This works well in
languages where syllables have a simple structure, such as Japanese,
where all syllables are of the one of the forms vowel alone, consonant +
vowel, or consonant + vowel + n.
Abjads are related to syllabaries, in that each letter basically
represents a syllable. Actually, each letter represents consonant +
vowel, where the vowel is indeterminate. So in Arabic, the b could
represent ba, bi, or bu. When necessary, the choice of vowel can be
represented by a mark under or above the letter. This works in the
Semitic languages, where the vowels vary as a word undergoes grammatical
and semantic modifications. Three of the consonants, w, y, and alif, are
also used to indicate lengthening of the vowels and to indicate
diphthongs. BTW, a vowel-only syllable is written with an alif, which is
considered a consonant.
One problem in Arabic is that the vowel marks are generally left out,
because if you know the language, you don't need them - the grammar
tells you what vowels go in each syllable. Someone like me is therefore
SOL when trying to read Arabic.
Since Hebrew is closely related to Arabic, most or all of what I wrote
above is true there too (including the SOL part) - except Hebrew has a
few more vowels than Arabic.
G
Gene E. Bloch
And I'd say "rotary" is used in New England, with "traffic circle"
elsewhere. But there are exceptions...
J
J. P. Gilliver (John)
Oops, yes, obvious.on Sat said:J. P. Gilliver (John) said:[snip]I have - supposedly - learned the Arabic alphabet, although
technically it's an abjad, not an alphabetI always thought it came from the Greek Alpha Beta.
Explanation given at length - thanks!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
"Everyone has always regarded any usage but his own as either barbarous or
pedantic." - Evelyn Waugh, quoted by Lynne Truss in "Eats, shoots & Leaves"
2003
J
J. P. Gilliver (John)
Mine certainly says roundabout ("enter the roundabout and take the nth2011 said:
exit" - with up to about the fifteenth provided for: the designers must
live in some weird areas!); I don't think it ever says route, in any
pronunciation. It's a British English accent, when set to English.
It's a cheap one; I'm _sure_ that "keep to the left" in at least one of
the other languages it offers (about 6 or 8) is actually the English
phrase said with an attempt at the accent of the chosen language! (No, I
haven't deliberately listened: I use the thing more as an mp3 player
than a SatNav, since I _know_ my route to and from work. In mp3 mode, it
plays all the sound files loaded into it - which includes the SatNav
ones when it gets to the end of the ones I've loaded into it, so I
sometimes get to hear them all, since I don't want to keep pressing
"next track" when I'm driving.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
"Everyone has always regarded any usage but his own as either barbarous or
pedantic." - Evelyn Waugh, quoted by Lynne Truss in "Eats, shoots & Leaves"
2003
C
Char Jackson
If my Garmin Nuvi ever decides to 'play' the system files when it's
done playing my mp3's, I'll consider it to be seriously broken.
J
J. P. Gilliver (John)
Yes, but you probably paid a lot more for the name than I did for myon Sat said:
Foehn & Hirsch (Ebuyer's house brand) one.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
"Everyone has always regarded any usage but his own as either barbarous or
pedantic." - Evelyn Waugh, quoted by Lynne Truss in "Eats, shoots & Leaves"
2003
O
Odysseus
The distinction is clear enough in principle, but I suppose specialists
may see shades of grey when it comes to real-world cases. An alphabet
includes independent symbols for vowels, while an abjad proper comprises
only consonants. (An abjad writing system may indicate vowels with
diacritical marks in special circumstances, e.g. for the benefit of
learners or to preserve scriptural or liturgical forms.)
Another similar term is "abugida" (from the the first four letter-names
in Ethiopic), referring to systems that are based on consonants but
always indicate the vowels as well, either with diacritical marks or by
consistent variation in form or orientation of the consonantal symbols;
these are also called "alphasyllabaries".
G
Gene E. Bloch
Thanks for the further information.
E
Ed Cryer
Your name suggests the following point to me.
How about ancient Greek with all its diacritical marks that the
Alexandrian scholars added? Modern Greek only uses the acute accent, but
ancient Greek has acute, grave, circumflex, iota subscript, aspirate mark.
There's also Pitman's Shorthand which always reminds me of Arabic, but
it has a three-position (above line, on line, below line) technique for
vowel-signifying.
Ed
A
Allen Drake
Nice one
A
Allen Drake
Well that sure explains me to me. I am in Cowhampshire.
A
Allen Drake
Mine will occasionally tell me to keep to the left along with route
and pronounces Burlington BuLINGton. I have a Magellan Roadmate 1700
that I keep on while traveling to work south on 93 to 495 to 3 to 62.
Many times I need to avoid a tie up and go off route telling it to
avoid the highway for a while. Traveling 40 miles one way to work can
put you on some back roads you have never seen before not to mention
the one hour plus ride home up 93 north past exit one. Major tie up
every day with traffic crawling at 10 miles an hour if you are lucky.
I am really looking forward to the snow this being the first year at
that new job.
A
Allen Drake
My 7" screen Raodmate cost $150 and doubles as a video monitor and
can load files that turn it to a handheld although I haven't tried
that yet. It does work well when I switch on any of my on board
cameras, front and rear.
A
Allen Drake
I'd like to replace mine with custom slang of my own wording if I can
crack the code. I think I read somewhere that his can be done.
Google here I come.
M
Molly Mockford
I think that what they usually like to say is that his *will* be done.in said: