1.
North Germanic languages
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The language group is sometimes referred to as the Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish, Swedish and Norwegian scholars and laypeople. Approximately 20 million people in the Nordic countries have a Scandinavian language as their native language, languages belonging to the North Germanic language tree are spoken commonly on Greenland and, to a lesser extent, by immigrants in North America. Dialects with the assigned to the northern group formed from the Proto-Germanic language in the late Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe. At last around the year 200 AD, speakers of the North Germanic branch became distinguishable from the other Germanic language speakers, the early development of this language branch is attested through runic inscriptions. The original vowel remained when nasalised *ōn and when before /z/, Proto-Germanic *geƀō ‘gift’ > Northwest Germanic *geƀu >, North Germanic *gjavu > with u-umlaut *gjǫvu > ON gjǫf, and West Germanic *gebu > OE giefu, cf. Goth giba. Proto-Germanic *tungōn ‘tongue’ > late Northwest Germanic *tungā > *tunga > ON tunga, OHG zunga, OE tunge, vs. Goth tuggō. *geƀōz ‘of a gift’ > late Northwest Germanic *geƀāz >, North Germanic *gjavaz > ON gjafar, the rhotacism of /z/ to /r/, with presumably a rhotic fricative of some kind as an earlier stage. This change probably affected West Germanic much earlier and then spread from there to North Germanic and this is confirmed by an intermediate stage ʀ, clearly attested in late runic East Norse at a time when West Germanic had long merged the sound with /r/. The development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to English this, Germanic *sa, sō, þat ‘this, that’ + proximal *si ‘here’, Runic Norse, nom. sg. þeim-si, etc. with declension of the 1st part, fixed form with declension on the 2nd part, ON sjá, þessi m. Some innovations are not found in West and East Germanic such as, Sharpening of geminate /jj/ and /ww/ according to Holtzmanns law Occurred also in East Germanic, Proto-Germanic *twajjôN > Old Norse tveggja, Gothic twaddjē, but > Old High German zweiio Word-final devoicing of stop consonants. Proto-Germanic *nahtuN > *nāttu > *nǭttu > Old Norse nótt /ɑi̯/ > /ɑː/ before /r/ Proto-Germanic *sairaz > *sāraz > *sārz > Old Norse sárr, with original /z/ Proto-Germanic *gaizaz > *geizz > Old Norse geirr. General loss of word-final /n/, following the loss of short vowels. Proto-Germanic *bindanaN > *bindan > Old Norse binda, but > Old English bindan and this also affected stressed syllables, Proto-Germanic *in > Old Norse í Vowel breaking of /e/ to /jɑ/ except after w, j or l. The diphthong /eu/ was also affected, shifting to /jɒu/ at an early stage and this diphthong is preserved in Old Gutnish and survives in modern Gutnish. In other Norse dialects, the /j/-onset and length remained, the word *ek, which could occur both stressed and unstressed, appears varyingly as ek and jak throughout Old Norse. Loss of initial /j/, and also of /w/ before a round vowel, Proto-Germanic *wulfaz > North Germanic ulfz > Old Norse ulfr The development of u-umlaut, which rounded stressed vowels when /u/ or /w/ followed in the next syllable. This followed vowel breaking, with ja /jɑ/ being u-umlauted to jǫ /jɒ/, Norwegian settlers brought Old West Norse to Iceland and the Faroe Islands around 800
2.
Phoenician alphabet
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The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants and it was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. The Phoenician alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and it became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Another derivative script is the Aramaic alphabet, which was the ancestor of the modern Arabic script, the Modern Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are texts written in boustrophedon. The earliest known inscriptions are the so-called Proto-Sinaitic script sporadically attested in the Sinai and in Canaan in the late Middle. The script was not widely used until the rise of new Semitic kingdoms in the 13th and 12th centuries BC, the Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script of the Bronze Age collapse period. Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet -- such as Greek, Old Italic, Anatolian, and the Paleohispanic scripts -- were very successful. This simple system contrasted with the scripts in use at the time, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Another reason for its success was the trading culture of Phoenician merchants. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt, Phoenician had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. As mentioned above, the script was the first widespread phonetic script and its simplicity not only allowed it to be used in multiple languages, but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. The Phoenician alphabet was first uncovered in the 17th century, and it was at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This idea was popular due to the recent decipherment of hieroglyphs. However, scholars could not find any link between the two writing systems, nor to hieratic or cuneiform, the theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single man conceiving it, to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian
3.
Greek alphabet
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It is the ancestor of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. In its classical and modern forms, the alphabet has 24 letters, Modern and Ancient Greek use different diacritics. In standard Modern Greek spelling, orthography has been simplified to the monotonic system, examples In both Ancient and Modern Greek, the letters of the Greek alphabet have fairly stable and consistent symbol-to-sound mappings, making pronunciation of words largely predictable. Ancient Greek spelling was generally near-phonemic, among consonant letters, all letters that denoted voiced plosive consonants and aspirated plosives in Ancient Greek stand for corresponding fricative sounds in Modern Greek. This leads to groups of vowel letters denoting identical sounds today. Modern Greek orthography remains true to the spellings in most of these cases. The following vowel letters and digraphs are involved in the mergers, Modern Greek speakers typically use the same, modern, in other countries, students of Ancient Greek may use a variety of conventional approximations of the historical sound system in pronouncing Ancient Greek. Several letter combinations have special conventional sound values different from those of their single components, among them are several digraphs of vowel letters that formerly represented diphthongs but are now monophthongized. In addition to the three mentioned above, there is also ⟨ου⟩, pronounced /u/, the Ancient Greek diphthongs ⟨αυ⟩, ⟨ευ⟩ and ⟨ηυ⟩ are pronounced, and respectively in voicing environments in Modern Greek. The Modern Greek consonant combinations ⟨μπ⟩ and ⟨ντ⟩ stand for and respectively, ⟨τζ⟩ stands for, in addition, both in Ancient and Modern Greek, the letter ⟨γ⟩, before another velar consonant, stands for the velar nasal, thus ⟨γγ⟩ and ⟨γκ⟩ are pronounced like English ⟨ng⟩. There are also the combinations ⟨γχ⟩ and ⟨γξ⟩ and these signs were originally designed to mark different forms of the phonological pitch accent in Ancient Greek. The letter rho, although not a vowel, also carries a rough breathing in word-initial position, if a rho was geminated within a word, the first ρ always had the smooth breathing and the second the rough breathing leading to the transiliteration rrh. The vowel letters ⟨α, η, ω⟩ carry an additional diacritic in certain words, the iota subscript. This iota represents the former offglide of what were originally long diphthongs, ⟨ᾱι, ηι, ωι⟩, another diacritic used in Greek is the diaeresis, indicating a hiatus. In 1982, a new, simplified orthography, known as monotonic, was adopted for use in Modern Greek by the Greek state. Although it is not a diacritic, the comma has a function as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό. There are many different methods of rendering Greek text or Greek names in the Latin script, the form in which classical Greek names are conventionally rendered in English goes back to the way Greek loanwords were incorporated into Latin in antiquity. In this system, ⟨κ⟩ is replaced with ⟨c⟩, the diphthongs ⟨αι⟩ and ⟨οι⟩ are rendered as ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ respectively, and ⟨ει⟩ and ⟨ου⟩ are simplified to ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ respectively
4.
Archaic Greek alphabets
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The system now familiar as the standard 24-letter Greek alphabet was originally the regional variant of the Ionian cities in Asia Minor. It was officially adopted in Athens in 403 BC and in most of the rest of the Greek world by the middle of the 4th century BC, the green type is the most archaic and closest to the Phoenician. The red type is the one that was transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of the Latin alphabet. The blue type is the one from which the later standard Greek alphabet emerged, *Upsilon is also derived from waw. The green type uses no additional letters beyond the Phoenician set, thus, the aspirated plosives /pʰ/, /kʰ/ are spelled either simply as Π and Κ respectively, without a distinction from unaspirated /p/, /k/, or as digraphs ΠΗ, ΚΗ. Likewise, the clusters /ps/, /ks/ are simply spelled ΠΣ and this is the system found in Crete and in some other islands in the southern Aegean, notably Thera, Melos and Anaphe. The red type also lacks Phoenician-derived Ξ for /ks/, but instead introduces a supplementary sign for that sound combination at the end of the alphabet, in addition, the red alphabet also introduced letters for the aspirates, Φ = /pʰ/ and Ψ = /kʰ/. Note that the use of Χ in the red set corresponds to the letter X in Latin, while it differs from the later standard Greek alphabet, where Χ stands for /kʰ/, only Φ for /pʰ/ is common to all non-green alphabets. The red type is found in most parts of central mainland Greece, as well as the island of Euboea, the light blue type still lacks Ξ, and adds only letters for /pʰ/ and /kʰ/. Both of these correspond to the standard alphabet. The light blue system thus still has no letters for the clusters /ps/, /ks/. In this system, these are typically spelled ΦΣ and ΧΣ and this is the system found in Athens and several Aegean islands. The dark blue type, finally, is the one that has all the consonant symbols of the standard alphabet, in addition to Φ and Χ, it also adds Ψ. This system is found in the cities of the Ionian dodecapolis, Knidos in Asia Minor, in the psilotic dialects of Anatolia and adjacent eastern Aegean islands, as well as Crete, vocalic Η was used only for /ɛː/. In a number of Aegean islands, notably Rhodes, Milos, Santorini and Paros, in Knidos, a variant letter was invented to distinguish the two functions, Η was used for /h/, and for /ɛː/. In south Italian colonies, especially Taranto, after c.400 BC and this latter symbol was later turned into the diacritic sign for rough breathing by the Alexandrine grammarians. The normal letter epsilon was used exclusively for the latter, while a new special symbol stood both for short /e/ and for /ɛː/, the letter Digamma for the sound /w/ was generally used only in those local scripts where the sound was still in use in the spoken dialect. During the archaic period, this includes most of mainland Greece, as well as Euboea, in Athens and in Naxos it was apparently used only in the register of poetry
5.
Old Italic script
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Old Italic is one of several now extinct alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European languages and non-Indo-European languages. The alphabets derive from the Euboean Greek Cumaean alphabet, used at Ischia, various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch originally used the alphabet. Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, North Picene, and South Picene all derive from an Etruscan form of the alphabet, the Germanic runic alphabet was derived from one of these alphabets by the 2nd century AD. It is not clear whether the process of adaptation from the Greek alphabet took place in Italy from the first colony of Greeks and it was in any case a Western Greek alphabet. In the alphabets of the West, X had the value, Ψ stood for, in Etruscan. Until about 600 BC, the form of the Etruscan alphabet remained practically unchanged. From the 6th century, however, the alphabet evolved, adjusting to the phonology of the Etruscan language and its origin is disputed, it may have been an altered B or H or an ex novo creation. Its sound value was /f/ and it replaced the Etruscan FH, some letters were, on the other hand, falling out of use, B and D were apparently considered superfluous over P and T. K was dropped in favour of G. O disappeared and was replaced by U, in the course of its simplification, the redundant letters showed some tendency towards a syllabary, C, K and Q were predominantly used in the contexts CE, KA, QU. This classical alphabet remained in use until the 2nd century BC when it began to be influenced by the rise of the Latin alphabet, soon after, the Etruscan language itself became extinct. U came to be used to represent Oscan o, while Ú was used for actual Oscan u, the Nucerian alphabet is based on inscriptions found in southern Italy. It is attested only between the 6th and the 5th century BC, the most important sign is the /S/, shaped like a fir tree, and possibly a derivation from the Phoenician alphabet. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished, Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/. There are claims of a related script discovered in Glozel, the alphabet of Sanzeno, about 100 Raetic inscriptions. The alphabet of Magrè, east Raetian inscriptions, alphabet of Este, Similar but not identical to that of Magrè, Venetic inscriptions. Inscripted abecedarium on rock engraves in Valle Camonica, the South Picene alphabet, known from the 6th century BCE, is most like the southern Etruscan alphabet in that it uses Q for /k/ and K for /g/. It is, ⟨. ⟩ is a reduced ⟨o⟩ and ⟨, ⟩ is a reduced ⟨8⟩, the Old Italic alphabets were unified and added to the Unicode Standard in March,2001 with the release of version 3.1. The Unicode block for Old Italic is U+10300–U+1032F without specification of a particular alphabet, writing direction varies based on the language and even the time period
6.
Elder Futhark
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The Elder Futhark is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a system used by Germanic tribes for the northwestern. Its inscriptions are found on artifacts from the 2nd to 8th centuries, in Scandinavia, from the late 8th century, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark, while the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians extended the Futhark which eventually became the Anglo-Saxon futhorc. The Elder Futhark consists of runes, often arranged in three groups of eight runes called an ætt. In the following table, each rune is given with its common transliteration, ï is also transliterated as æ, and may have been either a diphthong, or a vowel near or. Z was Proto-Germanic, and evolved into Proto-Norse, and is transliterated as ʀ. The remaining transliterations correspond to the IPA symbol of their approximate value. H n i j ï p. t b e m l d The Elder Futhark runes are commonly believed to originate in the Old Italic scripts, either a North Italic variant, conversely, the Greek-derived 4th century Gothic alphabet does have two letters derived from runes, and. Similarly, the Meldorf inscription of 50 may qualify as proto-runic use of the Latin alphabet by Germanic speakers, the Raetic alphabet of Bolzano in particular seems to fit the letter shapes well. The f, a, g, i, t, m and l runes show no variation, and are generally accepted as identical to the Old Italic or Latin letters F, A, X, I, T, M and L, respectively. There is also agreement that the u, r, k, h, s, b and o runes respectively correspond directly to V, R, C, H, S, B and O. The runes of uncertain derivation may either be original innovations, or adoptions of otherwise unneeded Latin letters, similarly, the s rune may have either three or four strokes, and only from the 5th century does the variant with three strokes become prevalent. Note that the runes of the 6th to 8th centuries tend to have only three directions of strokes, the vertical and two diagonal directions. Early inscriptions also show horizontal strokes, these appear in the case of e, the general agreement dates the creation of the first runic alphabet to roughly the 1st century. Early estimates include the 1st century BC, and late estimates push the date into the 2nd century, the question is one of estimating the findless period separating the scripts creation from the Vimose finds of ca. Other scholars are content to assume a findless period of a few decades, pedersen suggests a period of development of about a century to account for their assumed derivation of the shapes of þ and j from Latin D and G. The invention of the script has been ascribed to a person or a group of people who had come into contact with Roman culture, maybe as mercenaries in the Roman army. The script was designed for epigraphic purposes, but opinions differ in stressing either magical, practical or simply playful aspects
7.
Younger Futhark
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The reduction, somewhat paradoxically, happened at the same time as phonetic changes led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. Thus, the language included distinct sounds and minimal pairs which were not separate in writing, the Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch and short-twig runes, in the 10th century further expanded by the Hälsinge Runes or staveless runes. The lifetime of the Younger Futhark corresponds roughly to the Viking Age, usage of the Younger Futhark is found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward. During a phase from about 650 to 800, some inscriptions mixed the use of Elder and Younger Futhark runes, by the late 8th century, the reduction from 24 to 16 runes was complete. The main change was that the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants was no longer expressed in writing, other changes are the consequence of sound changes that separate Old Norse from Proto-Norse and Common Germanic. The first ætt was reduced to its first six letters, fuþąrk, the second ætt lost the æ and p runes. The j rune was rendered due to Old Norse sound changes. The old z rune was kept but moved to the end of the row in the only change of letter ordering in Younger Futhark. The third ætt was reduced to four runes, losing the e, ŋ, o and d runes, the names of the 16 runes of the Younger futhark are recorded in the Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems. The exceptions to this are, yr which continues the name of the unrelated Eihwaz rune, thurs and kaun, in cases the Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon. The Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch and short-twig runes, the difference between the two versions has been a matter of controversy. Later other runic inscriptions with the runes were found in other parts of Sweden. They were used between the 10th and 12th centuries, the runes seem to be a simplification of the Swedish-Norwegian runes and lack certain strokes, hence the name staveless. They cover the set of staves as the other Younger Futhark alphabets. This variant has no assigned Unicode range, in the Middle Ages, the Younger Futhark in Scandinavia was expanded, so that it once more contained one sign for each phoneme of the old Norse language. Inscriptions in medieval Scandinavian runes show a number of variant rune-forms. Medieval runes were in use until the 15th century, of the total number of Norwegian runic inscriptions preserved today, most are medieval runes. Notably, more than 600 inscriptions using these runes have been discovered in Bergen since the 1950s and this indicates that runes were in common use side by side with the Latin alphabet for several centuries
8.
Dalecarlian runes
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The Dalecarlian runes, or dalrunes, was a late version of the runic script that was in use in the Swedish province of Dalarna until the 20th century. The province has consequently been called the last stronghold of the Germanic script, which one does not know to be still continued anywhere else in Sweden. The Dalecarlian runes were derived from the runes, but the runic letters were combined with Latin ones. At the end of the 16th century, the Dalecarlian runic inventory was almost exclusively runic, in its last stage almost every rune had been replaced with a Latin letter, or with special versions that were influenced by Latin characters. Although the use of runes in Dalarna is an ancient tradition and it is a bowl from the village of Åsen which says Anders has made bowl anno 1596. Most inscriptions are brief but there are also longer ones, the Dalecarlian runes remained in some use up to the 20th century. Some discussion remains on whether their use was a tradition throughout this period or whether people in the 19th and 20th centuries learned runes from books written on the subject. The character inventory was used for transcribing Elfdalian. Jansson, Sven BF, Runes in Sweden, Stockholm, Gidlund, ISBN 91-7844-067-X
9.
International Phonetic Alphabet
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The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators. The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of language, phones, phonemes, intonation. IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a letter, or with a letter plus diacritics. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription, thus, /t/ is less specific than, occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, there are 107 letters,52 diacritics and these are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA. In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, for example, the sound was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French. However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, the idea of making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the International Phonetic Association Kiel Convention in 1989, a minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid central vowels and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives. The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap, apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces. Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology were created in 1990, the general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as do hard, finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as selectiveness. These are organized into a chart, the chart displayed here is the chart as posted at the website of the IPA. The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet, for this reason, most letters are either Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. Some letters are neither, for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ⟨ʔ⟩, has the form of a question mark
10.
Specials (Unicode block)
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Specials is a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, five are assigned as of Unicode 9, U+FFFD � REPLACEMENT CHARACTER used to replace an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character U+FFFE <noncharacter-FFFE> not a character. FFFE and FFFF are not unassigned in the sense. They can be used to guess a texts encoding scheme, since any text containing these is by not a correctly encoded Unicode text. The replacement character � is a found in the Unicode standard at codepoint U+FFFD in the Specials table. It is used to indicate problems when a system is unable to render a stream of data to a correct symbol and it is usually seen when the data is invalid and does not match any character, Consider a text file containing the German word für in the ISO-8859-1 encoding. This file is now opened with an editor that assumes the input is UTF-8. The first and last byte are valid UTF-8 encodings of ASCII, therefore, a text editor could replace this byte with the replacement character symbol to produce a valid string of Unicode code points. The whole string now displays like this, f�r, a poorly implemented text editor might save the replacement in UTF-8 form, the text file data will then look like this, 0x66 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD 0x72, which will be displayed in ISO-8859-1 as f�r. Since the replacement is the same for all errors this makes it impossible to recover the original character, a better design is to preserve the original bytes, including the error, and only convert to the replacement when displaying the text. This will allow the text editor to save the original byte sequence and it has become increasingly common for software to interpret invalid UTF-8 by guessing the bytes are in another byte-based encoding such as ISO-8859-1. This allows correct display of both valid and invalid UTF-8 pasted together, Unicode control characters UTF-8 Mojibake Unicodes Specials table Decodeunicodes entry for the replacement character
