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Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) that represent the phonemes (basic significant sounds) of any spoken language it is used to write. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographic systems (in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit).
The first fully phonemic script, the Proto-Canaanite script, later known as the Phoenician alphabet, is considered to be the first alphabet, and is the ancestor of most modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and possibly Brahmic. Peter T. Daniels, however, distinguishes an abugida or alphasyllabary, a set of graphemes that represent consonantal base letters which diacritics modify to represent vowels (as in Devanagari and other South Asian scripts), an abjad, in which letters predominantly or exclusively represent consonants (as in the original Phoenician, Hebrew or Arabic), and an “alphabet”, a set of graphemes that represent both vowels and consonants. In this narrow sense of the word the first “true” alphabet was the Greek alphabet, which was developed on the basis of the earlier Phoenician alphabet.
Of the dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular is the Latin alphabet, which was derived from the Greek, and which many languages modify by adding letters formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille. The Khmer alphabet (for Cambodian) is the longest, with 74 letters.Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of “numbering” ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists and number placements.
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Alphabet (noun)
The set of letters used when writing in a language.
“The Greek alphabet has only twenty-four letters.”
“In the first year of school, pupils are taught to recite the alphabet.”
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Alphabet (noun)
A writing system in which letters represent phonemes. Contrast e.g. logography, a writing system in which each character represents a word, and syllabary, in which each character represents a syllable.
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Alphabet (noun)
A typically finite set of distinguishable symbols.
“Let L be a regular language over the alphabet Sigma.”
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Alphabet (noun)
An individual letter of an alphabet; an alphabetic character.
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Alphabet (noun)
The simplest rudiments; elements.
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Alphabet (verb)
To designate by the letters of the alphabet; to arrange alphabetically.
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Abecedary (noun)
The alphabet, written out in a teaching book, or carved on a wall; a primer; abecedarium. from 1350 to 1470
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Abecedary (noun)
One that teaches or learns the alphabet or the fundamentals of any subject; abecedarian. from late 16th century
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Abecedary (adjective)
Referring to the alphabet; alphabetical; related to or resembling an abecedarius; abecedarian. First attested from 1350 to 1470.
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Abecedary (adjective)
alphabetical. Also, of a poem, etc.: that has each verse or line beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, in alphabetical order.