Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 5:01 am
Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2023 10:18 pm
But you DO use the Latin alphabet, just one step removed.
Braille is derived from the Latin alphabet. But then the Latin alphabet was derived from the Etruscan, which in turn was derived from the Greek.
I think she's correct that she doesn't use Latin alphabet and as one who can wield the Latin alphabet with decent skill, I am utterly lost when not-managing to use Braille.
Yes, true but this is way off relevance of the thread.
Braille is derived from the Latin alphabet, albeit indirectly. In Braille's original system, the dot patterns were assigned to letters according to their position within the alphabetic order of the French alphabet of the time, with accented letters and w sorted at the end.[11]
And if you keep reading in Wikipedia you can find out more about that 'one step removed' and how we end up with something quite different, (that's there's a progressions logic in the signs, for example) and how this 'one step' leads to it being different in quality and, as said, utterly unusable by the Braille illiterate.
How do you think this adds to the discussion with Wizard, if at all?
He was trying to make a point that English is influenced by Latin script and by Greek and Latin language, whilst ignoring the fact that English is a Germanic language.
My view is that generally, the praxis of communication is the driving force and that language acquires words that are useful and relevant to usage. Praxis demands functionality and does not respect arbitrary roots. Show me a person that persists in trying to demand meaning from etymology and I will show you a person who has missed the point.
Meanings change.
Linguistic change is influenced to some degree by the concepts. But it would be a mistake to think that, say a word like Biology was due to a Greek influence. The usage has no history in ancient Greek but was chosen by people studying the natural science of living things. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. 19thC science through necessity chose a neologism from Bios-Logos, and this owes nothing to ancient Greek thinkers.
The compound was suggested 1802 by German naturalist Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus.
Though Aristotle did think about the science of living things, and has basically nothing to contribute. He certainly did not use the term.
It is interesting to note that after Darwin had formulated his complete theory he referenced, with some surprise, remarks made by Aristotle which may have, if pursued formally, led to a theory of natural selection, but there was a massive hiatus through the Christian period of any such science serious enough to have influenced Darwin.