2794: Alphabet Notes - Revision history

2001:4898:80E8:39:D51B:184C:2EFF:9FF9: /* Explanation */

2025-07-28T22:12:14Z

‎Explanation

FaviFake: Undo revision 370357 by 162.158.178.42 (talk)

2025-03-26T05:04:51Z

Undo revision 370357 by 162.158.178.42 (talk)

162.158.178.42: /* Explanation */

2025-03-25T22:00:03Z

‎Explanation

172.71.219.102 at 19:04, 20 February 2025

2025-02-20T19:04:56Z

172.71.219.101 at 19:04, 20 February 2025

2025-02-20T19:04:19Z

Xurkitree10: /* Transcript */

2024-09-28T09:15:01Z

‎Transcript

Asdf: 2x image version for consistency

2024-05-03T09:42:00Z

2x image version for consistency

172.69.194.224: /* Explanation */ "Chiropractor", for example. (Digraphs and other multigraphs often break rules more than their component unigraphs, though, so not sure it's important.)

2024-03-26T23:39:34Z

‎Explanation: "Chiropractor", for example. (Digraphs and other multigraphs often break rules more than their component unigraphs, though, so not sure it's important.)

Whoop whoop pull up: /* Explanation */

2024-03-26T18:33:25Z

‎Explanation

1.75RadianFever: X as /z/ word-initially

2024-01-06T16:37:07Z

X as /z/ word-initially

@@ Line 108: / Line 108: @@
 !X
 |"Not sure this is even a letter. Did you include a number by mistake?"
-|Randall questions whether '''X''' is even a letter. As Randall is a physicist, it is likely he is referring to how the letter is likely encountered more often as a variable representing a number in mathematics and algebra than as a letter for scientists. Alternatively, he could be referring to the Roman numeral X, though he doesn't have this kind of issue with I, V, L, D or M.
+|Randall questions whether '''X''' is even a letter. As Randall is a physicist, it is likely he is referring to how the letter is likely encountered more often as a variable representing a number in mathematics and algebra than as a letter for scientists. Alternatively, he could be referring to the Roman numeral X, though he doesn't have this kind of issue with I, V, L, C, D or M.
 Alternatively, as mentioned under '''Q''', it may be that '''X''' represents a combination of sounds that could instead be written as '''CS''' or '''KS''', or '''Z''' at the start of a word, since '''X''' frequently makes the /z/ sound word-initially.

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 |-
 !P
-| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
-| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
 |-
 !Q
@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 |-
 !Z
-| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
 |}

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 |-
 !P
+| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
+| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
 |-
 !Q
@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 |-
 !Z
+| [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
 |}

@@ Line 76: / Line 76: @@
 !Q
 |"Why is this ''here''?"
-|Randall considers '''Q''' strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW," and '''Q''' {{w|List of English words containing Q not followed by U|almost never}} appears on its own in English, but instead exclusively through the bigram '''QU'''. The modern English alphabet evolved from the {{w|Phoenician alphabet}}, where the letter '''Q''' represented a {{w|voiceless uvular plosive}}, a sound similar to /k/ but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks who learned to write from them did not have this sound, they kept the letter because Arabic numerals hadn't been invented yet and they adopted it to represent the number 90. Later, a group called the {{w|Etruscans}} learned to write from them, and their language not only had no /q/ sound, they did not have a /g/ (hard g as in 'ghost') sound either; this resulted in an alphabet where they had three letters for (what was to them) the same sound; '''C''', '''K''', and '''Q'''. The Romans who learned to write from the Etruscans eventually established a rule that '''Q''' was to be used for back vowels /o/ and /u/ (as well as developing '''G''' to distinguish it from '''C), a tradition carried on by the French and finally the English, hence why '''Q''' today is almost always followed by a '''U''' (as well as why '''C''' exists).
+|Randall considers '''Q''' strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW," and '''Q''' {{w|List of English words containing Q not followed by U|almost never}} appears on its own in English, but instead exclusively through the bigram '''QU'''. The modern English alphabet evolved from the {{w|Phoenician alphabet}}, where the letter '''Q''' represented a {{w|voiceless uvular plosive}}, a sound similar to /k/ but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks who learned to write from them did not have this sound, they kept the letter because Arabic numerals hadn't been invented yet and they adopted it to represent the number 90. Later, a group called the {{w|Etruscans}} learned to write from them, and their language not only had no /q/ sound, they did not have a /g/ (hard g as in 'ghost') sound either; this resulted in an alphabet where they had three letters for (what was to them) the same sound; '''C''', '''K''', and '''Q'''. The Romans who learned to write from the Etruscans eventually established a rule that '''Q''' was to be used for back vowels /o/ and /u/ (as well as developing '''G''' to distinguish it from '''C'''), a tradition carried on by the French and finally the English, hence why '''Q''' today is almost always followed by a '''U''' (as well as why '''C''' exists).
 "Why is this ''here''?" could also be referring to '''Q''''s position in the alphabet; the surrounding consonants '''P''', '''R''', '''S''', and '''T''' are all rather frequently used in English, while '''Q''' is one of the least-used letters (varying sources all list '''Q''', '''J''', '''X''', and '''Z''' as the least frequent letter in English).

@@ Line 76: / Line 76: @@
 !Q
 |"Why is this ''here''?"
-|Randall considers '''Q''' strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW," and '''Q''' {{w|List of English words containing Q not followed by U|almost never}} appears on its own in English, but instead exclusively through the bigram '''QU'''. The modern English alphabet evolved from the {{w|Phoenician alphabet}}, where the letter '''Q''' represented a {{w|voiceless uvular plosive}}, a sound similar to /k/ but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks who learned to write from them did not have this sound, they kept the letter because Arabic numerals hadn't been invented yet and they adopted it to represent the number 90. Later, when the Romans learned to write from them, this resulted in an alphabet where they had three letters for (what was to them) the same sound; '''C''' '''K''' '''Q''' were used all but interchangeably, but eventually a rule was established and '''Q''' was to be used for back vowels /o/ and /u/, a tradition carried on by the French and finally the English, hence why '''Q''' today is almost always followed by a '''U'''.
+|Randall considers '''Q''' strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW," and '''Q''' {{w|List of English words containing Q not followed by U|almost never}} appears on its own in English, but instead exclusively through the bigram '''QU'''. The modern English alphabet evolved from the {{w|Phoenician alphabet}}, where the letter '''Q''' represented a {{w|voiceless uvular plosive}}, a sound similar to /k/ but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks who learned to write from them did not have this sound, they kept the letter because Arabic numerals hadn't been invented yet and they adopted it to represent the number 90. Later, a group called the {{w|Etruscans}} learned to write from them, and their language not only had no /q/ sound, they did not have a /g/ (hard g as in 'ghost') sound either; this resulted in an alphabet where they had three letters for (what was to them) the same sound; '''C''', '''K''', and '''Q'''. The Romans who learned to write from the Etruscans eventually established a rule that '''Q''' was to be used for back vowels /o/ and /u/ (as well as developing '''G''' to distinguish it from '''C), a tradition carried on by the French and finally the English, hence why '''Q''' today is almost always followed by a '''U''' (as well as why '''C''' exists).
 "Why is this ''here''?" could also be referring to '''Q''''s position in the alphabet; the surrounding consonants '''P''', '''R''', '''S''', and '''T''' are all rather frequently used in English, while '''Q''' is one of the least-used letters (varying sources all list '''Q''', '''J''', '''X''', and '''Z''' as the least frequent letter in English).

@@ Line 123: / Line 123: @@
 ==Transcript==
 :[A list of the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z, in black]
 :ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 | date      = June 26, 2023
 | title     = Alphabet Notes
-| image     = alphabet notes.png
+| image     = alphabet notes 2x.png
 | titletext = Listen, you're very cute, but if you rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together it will RUIN the spacing!
 }}