Talk:Theban alphabet

the W is there, people ...it is after the Z...

never was missing... Sabastianblak (talk) 01:32, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

A lot of these Resnaissance scripts were based on the basic Latin alphabet of the time ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ... AnonMoos (talk) 03:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Computer font identified

In archived subtopic "Which 'Theban alphabet' are we discussing anyway?", I noted that the chart of large SVG characters in Theban alphabet#Characters was a modern script and computer font, with changes from preceding (non-computer) Theban scripts that had me "... thinking it is a Wiccan's adaptation, thus a post-1950s (i.e. 'modern' in every sense) script. Not quite 'proof' but perhaps suggestive to other eyes once pointed out." It turns out to be a TTF named "ThebanBW100", marked "© Ben Whitmore 1998" in its "Copyright" tag, available free from wFonts, with eight other brief names listed in its "Trademark" tag.

It happens that a "Ben Whitmore" is also shown as the author of the book — Whitmore, Benjamin John (2010). Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft; A Critique of Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon (1st ed.). Auckland, Aotearoa (New Zealand): Briar Books. ISBN 978-0-473-17458-3. Retrieved 2023-03-02. — Again this is not quite "proof" but perhaps suggestive.

The SVG characters in the chart are marked "Own work, created in Inkscape using a freeware font I created in 1998" by @Fuzzypeg:, whose userpage says he says he's "Ben, an occultist" [among other things] who has "written a book-length critique on the subject of the history of European witchcraft"; on his talkpage he mentions "my various experiences in Wicca".

I think that tends to support my earlier conclusions. – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:08, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

@.Raven: I removed the section in question per your comments. Nosferattus (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Theban letter shapes (and referents) change from time to time

The original 1518 Polygraphia version of Theban ends with W, as do the 1600/1613 reprints — though the latter close loops left open in the original. The 1561 French translation, Polygraphie by Gabriel de Collange, changes that last sign to an ampersand (W being a new letter unused by the French). 1801's The Magus by Francis Barrett adds the "w" as a small-omega "ω" below that sign, and it becomes an end-of-sentence mark... leaving the letter "W" to be represented by a Theban double-V "VV". The simplest way to tell about all the character changes over time is to show them, so I think those charts should be stacked along the right-hand side. I've started doing that, and one more chart is on commons.wikimedia, awaiting trans-wiki to Wikipedia. Thanks to @Nosferattus: for the great detective work, besides providing me with a 1518 chart to clean up and post. – _•Raven  ^.talk 10:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Added (just) two fonts to "External links"

Since readers of this article may quite possibly want one or more fonts of the Theban alphabet, and they can find numerous websites offering usually the same one or more containing only the Agrippa/Barrett alphabet, I've added links to two rarely marketed fonts I thought useful: (1) based on Trithemius 1518, (2) based on Agrippa/Barrett with added [original] symbols for punctuation, numbers, etc.; those who don't want to use the extra symbols can skip them. – _•Raven  ^.talk 00:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 3 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Theban script → Theban alphabet – Restore page name and text from before WP:RMUM edit/move 1147910932 and 1147910975 at 23:52, 2 April 2023. These were already Boldly done once at 19:12–19:23 that day, and Reverted by me at 20:21–20:27 with a comment giving my objection to the move. Renamer reverted my revert two minutes before commenting on my talkpage under the heading "Script vs alphabet". I replied there in detail, not knowing that counter-reversion had preceded any Discussion. (See WP:RMUM: Autoconfirmed editors may move a page without discussion if all of the following apply: • No article exists at the new target title; • There has been no discussion (especially no recent discussion) about the title of the page that expressed any objection to a new title; and • It seems unlikely that anyone would reasonably disagree with the move. / If you disagree with such a move, and the new title has not been in place for a long time, you may revert the move. If you cannot revert the move for technical reasons, then you may request a technical move. / Move wars are disruptive, so if you make a bold move and it is reverted, do not make the move again. Instead, follow the procedures laid out in § Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves.) I don't wish to engage in edit-warring, but BRD has already been ignored. Participant notice to @Kwamikagami:. – _•Raven  ^.talk 03:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC) — Relisted. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support move back to Theban alphabet per WP:COMMONNAME. The topic of this article is almost always referred to as the "Theban alphabet" (or occasionally as the "Witches' alphabet", "The Runes of Honorius", or the "Theban Runes"). I've never seen it referred to as the "Theban script" anywhere. Kwamikagami's disruptive move warring is completely uncalled for. Nosferattus (talk) 04:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  "Script" is a descriptor, not part of the name, which is just "Theban". Similarly, the Mayan script is very commonly called "Mayan hieroglyphs", but that is inaccurate, and we avoid it per the exceptions allowed by COMMONNAME. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  And those exceptions are for cases "When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources". As Raven has shown "Theban alphabet" is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by a huge margin. You can't just cherry-pick the pieces of the policy that suite your argument. I would be much more sympathetic for a case like "Mayan script", which is a title that is actually used for the subject although maybe not as commonly as "Mayan hieroglyphs". In this case, "Theban script" is a distant 5th place for the most common title. Even Omniglot uses "Theban alphabet" (but "Mayan script") and it's a linguistics site, not a pagan site. Nosferattus (talk) 19:31, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

• Procedural comment. If this discussion ends without consensus, the page should be reverted back to the stable title. Also, a trout for re-moving the page without discussion. Dekimasuよ! 05:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NCWS: "The term 'script' is used [for] a general segmental writing system independent of any particular language"; "'alphabet' is used for language-specific adaptations of a segmental script." Arguably Theban is both, since it's a substitution cypher for the English alphabet, and perhaps it doesn't matter in this case, because AFAICT no-one is developing Theban alphabets for French or other languages (that is, Theban is specifically one of the English alphabets), but the generic term is "script".

For consistency, the same should probably be done with Shavian. — kwami (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

> "AFAICT no-one is developing Theban alphabets for French or other languages (that is, Theban is specifically one of the English alphabets)" — Perhaps you didn't read the article; it was first published by one German writer (the very byname Trithemius indicates his home was Trittenheim), adapted by another (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa), and its first translation was into French (where the last character was taken to be an ampersand; French didn't use that new letter W).

You think it's no longer used in either language (with the term "alphabet")? See Hexenschrift - Das Theban Alphabet: Workbook (German Edition) – and – AGENDA WICCA 2021: Fêtes Wicca, oghams celtiques, Runes, alphabet thébain, correspondances astrologiques, phases lunaires, un agenda pratique pour ... rituels, sabbats etc... (French Edition).

Even in English, you're ignoring WP:COMMONNAME. "Theban alphabet": About 32,900 Ghits. "Theban script": About 74 Ghits. – _•Raven  ^.talk 20:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

If there is a Theban German alphabet, Theban French alphabet, Theban Latin alphabet and Theban English alphabet, then all the more reason for the main article to be at "Theban script", because there is no single Theban alphabet, but instead several Theban alphabets. Just as there are several Cyrillic alphabets. — kwami (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Trithemius wrote in Latin because that was the international language of scholars. He didn't create different versions for use by German, French, English, etc., writers. Even Agrippa (also German), who changed some shapes and the use of the last character, wrote for an international readership. Francis Barrett adopted Agrippa's version without change, despite being English. Current books, including in German and French, are also not offering "national" versions, e.g. Das Theban Alphabet means simply "The Theban Alphabet", not "The German Theban Alphabet". – _•Raven  ^.talk 21:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

So, per WP:NCWS, it's a script. — kwami (talk) 21:07, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMONNAME, in English AND German AND French (among others), it's an alphabet. de:Thebanisches Alphabet, fr:Alphabet thébain, pt:Alfabeto tebano, ru:Фиванский алфавит, etc. – _•Raven  ^.talk 21:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME trumps WP:NCWS. The former is a policy, the latter, a guideline. Besides, this is obviously not a typical "writing system". Rigidly applying WP:NCWS in this case only causes confusion as the people looking for information on this topic aren't linguists, they're pagans, and the pagans call this the "Theban alphabet". Shoehorning it into a system meant for traditional writing systems and move warring to enforce your opinion is peremptory and arbitrary. Nosferattus (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

That's a reasonable argument. We would certainly need to call it a script if there were multiple Theban alphabets, but there don't appear to be. — kwami (talk) 21:27, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a misapplication of COMMONNAME to try to override technical distinctions and consistency in naming conventions. COMMONNAME would absolutely apply if the question was whether to call it Theban or Honorian, or even if it had a proper name that included "Alphabet". But this is about the non-proper part of the name of the script, and technical classification is significantly more compelling when deciding where an article should sit. Fortunately, Theban alphabet is perfectly fine as a redirect, so there's no problem with searches or even linking to it as an alternate name anyway. But especially considering that the term "Theban alphabet" has a connotation of being an alphabet for the language spoken in Thebes, which would be ancient Egyptian, it's even more important to hold on to the consistency of NCWS for its precision of meaning. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 05:42, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Since there was more than one "Thebes" (at least one Egyptian and one — for a while three — Greek city/ies), let's not jump to conclusions. Since kwami insists only English-language sources matter here, I'll quote Joseph H. Peterson's The Sworn Book of Honorius: Liber Iuratus Honorii, Ibis Press (2016), ISBN 978-0892542154, which early on identifies the purported author as "honorius the sonne of eucludvs master of the thebanes" — indeed suggesting he came from some city so named. "Euclid" (if that is how we should read it) does sound like a Greek name, but then Greeks had settled in (and for a while ruled) Egypt. And a stylistic similarity between some Theban and Coptic letters (descended from Demotic (Egyptian) characters) has been noted in this article's footnote 5. So we may well and duly wonder about that. – _•Raven  ^.talk 07:15, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

But I suppose "honorius" and "thebanes" were not "proper names" either, because they were not capitalized! – _•Raven  ^.talk 10:38, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

> "... even if it had a proper name that included 'Alphabet'...." — Oddly enough, in Wiktionary the entire phrase Theban alphabet is a proper noun.

Per wikt:proper noun#Usage notes, "... some proper nouns are preceded by articles (such as the Netherlands) and some are uncapitalized (kd lang), and many common (non-proper) nouns are also capitalized, like European. Some references erroneously conflate whether a noun is common or proper with whether it is capitalized or not, although these are not the same."

Otherwise I suppose we could rename kd lang to kd long on the basis that, since it's not capitalized it's not a proper name, thus the Scots-dialect word should be replaced by the common English word? – _•Raven  ^.talk 10:01, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

> ... per WP:NCWS: "The term 'script' is used [for] a general segmental writing system independent of any particular language"; "'alphabet' is used for language-specific adaptations of a segmental script." — What's puzzling, kwami, is that you went directly against this "rule" when on 15 March 2019 you moved three very specifically Somali-language-alphabet articles (i.e. on alphabets specifically created just for Somali, no other language) to rename them "scripts":

• "Kaddare alphabet" to "Kaddare script";
• "Osmanya alphabet" to "Osmanya script;
• "Borama alphabet" to "Borama script" (that last one's qualifier has since been changed to make it "Gadabuursi Somali Script", note caps);

... each with the comment "it's a distinct script". (Not under the "rule" you quoted!)

Likewise other moves you made the same day, e.g.:

• "Zaghawa alphabet" to "Zaghawa script" (created just for the language it's named after, but again you comment "it's a distinct script");
• "Mandaic alphabet" to "Mandaic script" (only for the language it's named after... which may be part of why it was moved back in 2021);
• "Vithkuqi alphabet" to "Vithkuqi script" (created specifically for Albanian), with the comment "per article"... well, you had just made a prior edit to the article changing the wording, but the References section still has the term "alphabet" repeatedly, not the term "script"; where are your RSs for the change?

How am I to believe your sincerity in thumping a "distinction" you yourself don't observe, a "rule" you repeatedly break? Particularly when you never provide RSs, even when asked multiple times? It begins to look more like you have been repeatedly changing the word "alphabet" to the word "script" without due cause. And I note you helped write that revision to WP:NCWS, but it nowhere cites a reliable off-WP Reliable Source for the change from the real-world (e.g. Merriam-Webster) definition of "alphabet". Why shouldn't everyone disregard it, just as you do? – _•Raven  ^.talk 08:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as per Kwamikagami, but I think that it is best considered a substitution cipher for the Latin script in general rather than for the English alphabet specifically. I think Shavian is in a different place as more of an edge case, as it was specifically created for the phonology of English. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 20:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, yes, you're correct. This was proposed in texts written in Latin, not English, and so presumably is not specific to one language. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Except that the Latin script did not have a W, as the original Theban alphabet by Trithemius does. The later French translation lets that character represent an ampersand, because French also did not use W then. (It does now, but not often, mostly for borrow-words. "West" is still Ouest in French, though a film might be le western.) The 1801 English version by Francis Barrett renders that character as "end-of-sentence", because its source, Agrippa, had turned the original small "w" into ω (small-omega) as part of the symbol. See the charts in the article. – _•Raven  ^.talk 20:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Correction: the Latin alphabet did not have a ⟨W⟩, the Latin script did. This exemplifies why we try to distinguish the two! According to our article W, ⟨W⟩ has been a letter of the Latin script (German and English alphabets) since the 14th century, predating Theban.

Are you saying that Theban was specifically a German alphabet? [Answered above.] — kwami (talk) 20:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you not read the sources you cite? From W:

... it remained an outsider, not really considered part of the Latin alphabet proper, as expressed by Valentin Ickelshamer in the 16th century, who complained that:

Poor w is so infamous and unknown that many barely know either its name or its shape, not those who aspire to being Latinists, as they have no need of it, nor do the Germans, not even the schoolmasters, know what to do with it or how to call it....

> "Are you saying that Theban was specifically a German alphabet?" — I posted a rebuttal to this implication above (see "Trithemius wrote in Latin because that was the international language of scholars. He didn't create different versions for use by German, French, English, etc., writers. ...") — Anyone who didn't need a W wasn't forced to use it. – _•Raven  ^.talk 21:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Which means it's a script, not a specific alphabet: which letters you use depends on which language you're using it for. — kwami (talk) 21:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I note that you didn't use any of the letters J, K, Q, V, X, or Z in your reply. Since which letters you use depends on what you're using it for, I suppose now the English alphabet isn't a specific alphabet, either! Nor is that International Phonetic Alphabet, since we only use those of its characters fitting the sounds of the language (or rather the specific words) we're discussing. Are there many IPAs, then? Is it a script? Better have them rename it! – _•Raven  ^.talk 23:18, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Don't play stupid.

Yes, the IPA is a script. In its case, "Alphabet" is an integral part of its name -- we even capitalize it -- as e.g. with the NATO Phonetic "Alphabet", which isn't a writing system at all but instead a set of code words for the letters of the Latin script. There are times when COMMONNAME will override our other conventions, but I'm arguing this shouldn't be one of them. — kwami (talk) 23:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Aside from the IPA article title, the article body refers to it as an alphabet, e.g., "The alphabet is designed for transcribing sounds (phones), not phonemes, though it is used for phonemic transcription as well." The infobox also says, "Script type: Alphabet". So, yes, a script, but more specifically an alphabet.

By the same token, Theban has been called an alphabet from its initial publication in Polygraphia (1518): Sequitur aliud alphabetum Honorij cognomento Thebani... File:Theban alphabet Trithemius 1518.png — and that remains the overwhelming majority usage (32,900 to 74, i.e. 99.77+%) per Google. – _•Raven  ^.talk 00:06, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

That's the COMMONNAME argument made above, which is a perfectly good argument. "Alphabet" isn't actually part of the name, though, just a disambiguating label (alphabetum ... cognomento Thebani), just as in "IPA alphabet", "alphabet" isn't part of the name, similarly with "English language", "European continent" etc. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

To date the earliest known author is Trithemius; you've seen what he called it — the alphabet of Honorius called "Thebani" (=of Thebes). If he ever called it a "script", please document that. – _•Raven  ^.talk 00:29, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

That's utterly irrelevant. First of all, he wasn't writing in English. Secondly, COMMONNAME is based on what something is know by at present. Lastly, I think we all agree that "alphabet" has priority by COMMONNAME. That's not what the argument is, so repeating it is just wasting space. — kwami (talk) 00:32, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

> "First of all, he wasn't writing in English." — Translating alphabetum as "alphabet" is both trivially easy and correct.

> "Secondly, COMMONNAME is based on what something is know by at present." — And we DO "at present" know that Theban is called an alphabet rather than a script in 99.77+% of Ghits, in multiple languages, and by the first person known to have published it; this is the long- and well-established name. But you are pushing for Wikipedia to adopt the 0.22+% usage, because you feel the 99.77+%, those multiple languages, and the first known author, are all wrong. "Original research" doesn't begin to cover it.

> "Lastly, I think we all agree that "alphabet" has priority by COMMONNAME." — Yes, and as Nosferattus mentioned, that has priority over NCWS. So why are you still going on about overriding it? – _•Raven  ^.talk 00:53, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Translation isn't the issue. COMMONNAME is about common forms in English. Only if a name were not established in English would we discuss translation.

N. may have said that, but it's not true. COMMONNAME is subject to judgement calls, and those can be based on a variety of things. As the policy states, "ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject ... are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." — kwami (talk) 00:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

1) What Nosferattus said was, "WP:COMMONNAME trumps WP:NCWS. The former is a policy, the latter, a guideline. ..." (The two pages each declare their respective status in banners at the top.) What you said then was, "That's a reasonable argument." But now you say, "N. may have said that, but it's not true." Ohhhhh.

2) Your quote prefixed "As the policy states,...." omits five significant words. The full sentence: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."

3) You have neglected to cite or quote any reliable sources to call this article's original title "inaccurate". I will remind you that you have previously insisted Wikipedia itself is not a "reliable source". – _•Raven  ^.talk 02:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, COMMONNAME is a reasonable argument. It's not a conclusive one, because the policy allows for exceptions in cases such as these. I didn't think I needed to nit-pick about that, because I assumed I was discussing this with people who were arguing in good faith. Sorry for my error.

"Ambiguous or inaccurate names ... as determined in reliable sources" is exactly what this is. I didn't think I needed to spell it out. The word "alphabet", as determined in reliable sources, is indeed ambiguous.

Okay, according to your last argument, COMMONNAME does not apply because WP is not a WP. Again, stop playing stupid. We don't need RS to follow WP guidelines. — kwami (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

But to follow WP policy, you should provide (off-WP) RS that the term "alphabet" - which has applied to Theban from the time of its first publication, beats "script" by 32,900 to 74 Ghits, and is echoed on multiple other-language Wikipedias — is nevertheless "inaccurate". You have still not done this, not before making your original undiscussed move, not before reverting its reversion, and not during any of the subsequent discussion, only implied "bad faith" in my pointing that out. That's argumentum ad hominem, an especially poor argument given your record in this case. – _•Raven  ^.talk 02:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

And other cases [see page bottom]. – _•Raven  ^.talk 01:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

> "The word 'alphabet', as determined in reliable sources, is indeed ambiguous." — The word "script", both in WP:NCWS#Scripts and the disambiguation page/section Script#Writing systems, is given four different definitions, which is even more "ambiguous". If ambiguity is a reason not to use a word in a title, no article ever could use either word — "script" would be worse off than "alphabet."

But Theban meets the definition given in the article Alphabet. – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:08, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Which language is it an alphabet of? — kwami (talk) 04:22, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

To which language do the ISO basic Latin alphabet and International Phonetic Alphabet belong? Do you intend to change those article titles too?

I note that, off-WP, Merriam-Webster defines "alphabet", primary meaning (1a): "a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written especially if arranged in a customary order" – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:36, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

They're not alphabets under our convention. 'Alphabet' is just part of the name. Same with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. Not so for Theban, any more than for Cyrillic or Tengwar. Anyway, your pointed refusal to understand what everyone else is capable of understanding suggests this line of discussion is pointless. — kwami (talk) 04:46, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Taking them in reverse order, I note that Tengwar's infobox declares its script type "Alternative abugida or alphabet according to the 'mode'" — so it's entirely reasonable to place it under the superset of both types, "script".

Cyrillic script's script type is unambiguously "Alphabetic"; the first hatnote states, "This article is about the alphabet." The reason this title is used is that there are multiple Cyrillic alphabets (with differing characters) for different languages, i.e. to represent different sets of phonemes, such as the 'umlauted' vowel sounds of Mongolian and Buryat. Again the script is the superset of the multiple alphabets.

I note again that Theban covers no such multiplicity, though like the IPA, its script type is "Alphabetic".

Which brings us back to ISO basic Latin alphabet — note the lowercase "a" in "alphabet" — and the article refers to it as "the alphabet", and a "Latin-script alphabet", not "the/a script"; headings for subsets are "Uppercase Latin alphabet" and "Lowercase Latin alphabet", not "... script". Your claimed "convention" doesn't even agree with Wikipedia's own usage in articles, let alone the off-WP dictionary Merriam-Webster. – _•Raven  ^.talk 06:46, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Again, you fail to understand the basic ideas of this discussion. "Alphabet" here doesn't mean "alphabetic script" or we wouldn't have Arabic alphabet in contrast to Arabic script. — kwami (talk) 06:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Again, there are multiple adaptations of Arabic script to different languages (e.g. the Persian alphabet adds four letters); it is like Cyrillic script in that way. "Arabic alphabet" refers only to its use in the Arabic language; the parallel to Cyrillic isn't complete because we don't call that the Russian script — but Wikipedia can't resolve that inconsistency, only report the real world's usage. Mind you, the Musnad script and assorted Ancient North Arabian scripts are "Arabic" too, so that title "Arabic script" is ambiguous... isn't that your reason not to use a title? – _•Raven  ^.talk 07:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I also note that in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (writing systems)#Kwami's version, you wrote: "... the name should reflect the preponderance of the coverage of the article: 'script' if it details the various alphabetic instantiations of the script, but 'alphabet' if it's largely limited to the dominant alphabet." — and here we're not discussing multiple national/linguistic instantiations. If some language added extra letters to Theban, as Persian did vs the Arabic alphabet, or as Buryat & Mongolian did vs the Russian alphabet, then "script" would cover the superset. – _•Raven  ^.talk 08:14, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Except that exactly zero of this article covers any sort of language-specific orthographic convention or other content that would move it away from being a "script" article. Because as a substitution cipher, it doesn't have any orthographic conventions outside of what it inherits directly from Latin script. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 03:29, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The last sentence is saying it is language-specific to the language, and alphabet, Trithemius himself used (hence a W but no J or U) — which contradicts the first sentence's claim. I also note that any letter-set titled "alphabet" here (Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) can likewise be used as a substitution cipher, under the same terms: the user is limited to the characters available. Джуст عاصي טהיס. This use, by your terms, makes them all non-alphabets. I think it might be simpler to leave them "alphabets into which text in another alphabet is [may be, has been] transcribed".

I think the off-WP, Merriam-Webster, definition, "a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written especially if arranged in a customary order", is more defensible. Theban meets this real-world definition. Departing so far from such real-world definitions for arcane WP-only redefinitions (what we think words ought to mean, rather than what lexicographers report they do in off-WP usage) means we wouldn't be writing for our readers' understanding, only engaging in an insiders' argot or conlang creation. – _•Raven  ^.talk 20:08, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• And that is absolutely a defensible reason to open up an RFC on updating and changing NCWS. But it is not a reason for just ignoring it. If anyone can just come in and cite a dictionary whose only purpose is to document how some people use language, and we are held hostage to all the ambiguity and inconsistency that entails, then Wikipedia doesn't have naming conventions at all. We can't organize information on Wikipedia in a way that is internally consistent so that people can find the information they are looking for if anyone can just ignore it because people out in the world who don't need to make distinctions end up using specialized language in imprecise ways.

The plain and simple fact is, you are not arguing for a name change that makes the title fundamentally more recognizable in any way. Nobody is going to see "Theban script" as the title of the page and think "I was looking for the Theban Alphabet, so I'm at the wrong place." And that is explicitly the scope of WP:COMMONNAME - to use a "Commonly recognizable name" for the subject. "Theban script" is absolutely commonly recognizable, even if it is not the phrasing that appears first on a Google n-gram. We are not contrasting "Paul Hewson" with "Bono" here. Naming conventions are part of the exact same policy COMMONNAME, WP:Article titles. The NCWS naming convention allows for distinctions like Arabic alphabet/Arabic script, Latin alphabet/Latin script, and Greek alphabet/Greek script, and given that the current title meets the purpose of COMMONNAME, there is no justification for ignoring NCWS here. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 18:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

@Vanisaac: I have to disagree. "Theban script" is "absolutely commonly recognizable" to who? The only people interested in this article are neo-pagans and they are not going to recognize "Theban script". It will also negatively impact the SEO for this article, as no one is going to be searching for "Theban script". We've seen this in the past with medical articles where the titles are changed from common names to more "correct" terminology and the page views fall off a cliff. We are not helping our readers by slavishly applying naming conventions without applying common sense for exceptions like this. Nosferattus (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

How do you envision that they would see "Theban script" and think they somehow ended up at the wrong place? I mean, I'm just struggling to see how that introduces some sort of confusion here. If I were looking for information on a medication X and an article popped up with the exact same name but it was called X "pharmaceutical", I wouldn't throw my hands up in despair. Do they mean the exact same thing? Not really, but they definitely have overlapping domains and connotations. I don't know what your litmus for recognizability is, but it seems vastly divergent from mine. Do neo-pagans ascribe some sort of spiritual significance to the term "alphabet" that is germane here?

Because there either needs to be something about the subject itself that makes divergence from a naming convention compelling, or there needs to be something about the target audience that makes the conventional name inadequate. Otherwise, all of this has nothing to do with this article being an exception to the naming convention policy. On the other hand, all of this would very much be a justifiable reason to take a new holistic look at the NCWS naming convention in general. WP:NCWS is over ten years old now, and if we can come up with a better convention after these years of experience and all the new articles that have been created - a new convention that still makes the necessary technical distinctions of the original while allowing a more intuitive naming for articles all around - then I am 100% on board with opening an RFC tomorrow to do that. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 20:21, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

In fact I see kwami made that change in WP:NCWS himself (several edits on 16 March 2011, e.g. this one), despite having only two comments in reply to his suggestion – no supports, one opposed, one seemingly neither – thus without consensus. That's sufficient reason to revert, aside from its disagreement with off-WP definitions like Merriam-Webster's. – _•Raven  ^.talk 01:27, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

There was a very long discussion, involving multiple people, that led up to that change. — kwami (talk) 01:42, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you perhaps include this comment by Vanisaac? "I think we are seeing an emerging consensus on 'X script' for all of the scripts out there, eg 'Latin script', ' 'Phags Pa script', 'Jurchen script'; and 'X alphabet' for national alphabets, notation systems, and other symbol collections for specific languages or use, eg 'Belarusian Latin Alphabet', 'NATO phonetic alphabet', 'Russian alphabet' (implied Cyrillic), 'American manual alphabet', etc. The plural forms 'X scripts' and 'X alphabets' should be used for describing a family of scripts, and the collection of script conventions for writing a given language or in a particular medium, eg. 'Brahmic scripts', 'Semitic scripts', 'Belarusian alphabets', 'Semaphore alphabets', 'Manual alphabets'" – "or use" emphasized by me, and omitted in your edit. Theban is "for use" by occultists, and now notably by Wiccans. Thus it fits what was the consensus intention for "alphabet", just not the edit that you alone made. – _•Raven  ^.talk 02:01, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

... And kwami, no-one else, has now reverted the reversion (plus edit to match expressed consensus) of his non-consensus edit. This is the typical beginning of an edit war – this after his earlier move-warring violation of WP:RMUM – Move wars are disruptive, so if you make a bold move and it is reverted, do not make the move again. Instead, follow the procedures laid out in § Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves. Clearly, following policy is optional to kwami. I decline to engage in such anti-WP behavior by re-re-reverting. But a "rule" so imposed (and then thumped as it has been here) is without moral force. – _•Raven  ^.talk 03:12, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Again, stop playing stupid. The guideline has been stable for twelve years. Stable versions of articles and guidelines are recognized as consensus by WP policy. — kwami (talk) 03:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think anyone would ever have noticed your omission of the two little words "or use" if you hadn't thumped it so hard to insist that use-specific but not language-specific alphabets like the IPA, ISO basic Latin alphabet, and Theban are not alphabets at all. – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:57, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps so.

BTW, they are alphabets, under some definitions of "alphabet". The problem is that the word "alphabet" is polysemous, and there are difficulties in applying the word consistently across multiple articles. E.g. the Hebrew alphabet is not an "alphabet" in the sense of Daniels & Bright, since it's an abjad, and there have been those who insisted that we must therefore move it to a different name. We must either accept inconsistency in our article titles and constant bickering over terminology at the level of individual articles, or attempt to come to an agreement on a general convention, which will by necessity be arbitrary at some level and make no-one completely happy. — kwami (talk) 05:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

By the same token, using your own phrasing, The problem is that the word "script" is polysemous, and there are difficulties in applying the word consistently across multiple articles. E.g. you've called letter-sets "script" rather than "alphabet" both when they've been used without variation across multiple languages for particular uses (ISO basic Latin, IPA, Theban), and when they've been created for and used only within a single language (Kaddare, Osmanya, Borama, Zaghawa, Mandaic, Vithquki). Possibly on the grounds that some languages have had multiple alphabets — but then "script" would designate both a superset and a subset in relation to languages. By that reasoning even the English alphabet is a subset, because (not counting the Anglo-Saxon runes used in Old English, e.g. that OE Rune Poem, "ᚠ Ꝼeoh bẏþ ꝼꞃoꝼuꞃ ꝼiꞃa ᵹehƿẏlcum") we also had the Old English Latin alphabet and even arguably a separate Middle English alphabet (which changed the "customary order" of letters), and they should all be called "scripts". No, because two are for earlier times in the history of the language? But then why not call the various Somali alphabets (including the current one) by their time of creation – e.g., first (about which we actually have no details), second, third, etc.? Well, because we have actual names for them. Then is being named (other than by age) the criterion for being a script? That's senseless: an alphabet's an alphabet until it has a unique name, then it's a script... bears no relation at all to real-world usage of "alphabet" – but then your current "language-specific" definition of alphabet contradicts both your actions moving the above language-specific set of 6 (among others) to "script", and the Merriam-Webster definition: "a set of letters or other characters with which one or more languages are written especially if arranged in a customary order". Since you don't actually follow your own rule, nor does the real world, what good is it? Even as a single-person private definition it fails. More so communicating with the readers not privy to your arcane reasoning. It doesn't follow the "consensus" Vanisaac describes ("or use", remember?), so it fails procedurally to belong in a policy, guideline, or convention. It's there right now only because you reverted a reversion, violating BRD – again. (That's not supposed to be BRR D.) You want to get away with it because you waited a while before acting on it, so no-one noticed at first... and now that it has been noticed, you feel "Too late!" is sufficient defense of your solitary and inconsistent decision(s). I don't think so. Let's hear from other commenters. – _•Raven  ^.talk 16:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Again, you're playing stupid rather than engaging in good faith. — kwami (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

You've reduced your "argument" to raw insults rather than either facts or reasoning, revealing your own level of "good faith". – _•Raven  ^.talk 17:13, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

You have a history of pretending that you don't understand simple English whenever you disagree with someone, presumably so that they will waste their time explaining the obvious to you, burying the point in verbiage. That's not arguing in good faith, and it's not an insult to call you out on your behaviour. — kwami (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Kwami, you mistake disagreement for incomprehension. Again, let's hear from other commenters. Did you not understand that, or pretend not to? – _•Raven  ^.talk 17:27, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. Support, for all the reasons I gave above. (I've just been reminded that I should actually vote, though as the proponent I thought my support might be assumed.) – _•Raven  ^.talk 23:49, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Your being the "proponent"/"nom" in a move request does mean your support is assumed (unless otherwise stated in the proposal). So a bulleted support vote is not warranted and can be confusing. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:01, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

    Thanks for the clarification (and correction). – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:06, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

my pleasure! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 04:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per kwami and VanIsaac. Double sharp (talk) 04:41, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support after a long boring reading of the discussion, and especially taking into account that the page sources and External links almost all refer to this as an alphabet, Raven makes a strong case that the page had been at the correct common name all along. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
• There is now an RFC on the WP:NCWS alphabet definition topic. – _•Raven  ^.talk 04:53, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support (status quo ante). It's both an alphabet and script. Neither is wrong. Alphabet is slightly more specific and the two are about equally understandable. The descriptor should be based on the ordinary meaning of words as ordinary readers of the article would understand them. The distinctions which some editors are trying to draw are, in my view, untenable and excessively technical. As for WP:COMMONNAME, it's not clear to me that there is a clear common name in this case. Here is the Ngrams, with the usual caveats about using Ngrams. (Note that if you go from there to the Google Books results, or go to other kinds of search results, many are probably not what we'd call reliable sources for most purposes... but the purpose here is just the limited, mundane, and inconsequential question of whether it's called the "Theban alphabet" or "Theban script".) In the end I would default to the stable title (WP:TITLECHANGES). Adumbrativus (talk) 09:27, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Like Adumbrativus, I think the best option here is to fall back upon the original stable title of "Theban alphabet". Both terms are understandable and fundamentally accurate, and I'm not convinced there's a clear WP:COMMONNAME; in addition to the Ngrams cited above, I note that Google Scholar ("Theban script" (34) vs. "Theban alphabet" (38)) and Google News ("Theban script" (265) vs. "Theban alphabet" (299)) also give similar numbers for either name. In the absence of a compelling argument against it, I think the stable title is the best option. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:40, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• Relist comment. Seems like good args thus far from both knowledgable camps – consensus is yet to be achieved, and a case could be made for several slights having occurred (might wanna keep that to bare minimum from this point). Interested to see how the §RFC on alphabet definition turns out. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

  Per Dekimasu's "procedural comment" (second left-margin comment from the top), "no consensus" should result in a return to "Theban alphabet", since the present "Theban script" was the result of a reverted-reversion — a case of BRR D. – _•Raven  ^.talk 23:37, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, and the objective of every discussion on this project is to build, uphold or restore consensus. Just means that in this case there must be much more opposition than usual to overcome the "previous consensus". P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 04:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Except that in this case the requested move is to the status quo ante title that had been stably in place since the page was created 18 years ago, over the current title to which it got moved 11 days ago without discussion, reverted citing WP:RMUM the same day, then re-reverted still without talkpage discussion* by the first mover in violation of WP:BRD and WP:RMUM, clearly not the result of a "previous consensus". Per WP:STABLE, "Reverting to the stable version returns the article to neutral ground" – the proper outcome of "no consensus", and indeed where we should be already, absent the move-warring.
 * He did use the edit-comment "per WP distinction of script vs alphabet" – but as I have shown on WT:NCWS, the talkpage consensus was: (1) "... for specific languages or use, eg 'Belarusian Latin Alphabet', 'NATO phonetic alphabet',..." [emphasis added]; (2) "If an alphabet is specific to more than one language then it’s still language-specific", and "Alphabet is specific to one or more languages." (Theban with its limited character set can't be used to encrypt accented letters, tone marks, or ideographic/logographic character sets. It is thus useful for encryption specifically only to the languages/alphabets which, like the ISO basic Latin alphabet – also titled "alphabet" rather than "script" – don't require these, and don't need to use more letters than this. The ISO basic Latin alphabet is also used internationally; if that's an alphabet, so is this.) Kwami's own edit of WP:NCWS omitted those two consensus specifications, but his non-consensus edit is what he's thumping now. – .Raven  ^.talk 03:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a given that a no-consensus ruling would move the page back to its long-term title, that's how the process works. Someone boldly moved it, you objected and put the question to a discussion, and it's understood that status quo goes to the long-term name. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:42, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

• Update, by consensus resolution, to the lede of WP:NCWS: "Magical alphabets, ciphers, and other special purpose writing systems may deviate from these guidelines."
  As WP:NCWS was the sole reason kwami cited for moving Theban alphabet to Theban script – and it is a 'magical alphabet' – then however WP:NCWS is interpreted, this article should regain its original and WP:COMMONNAME title. Comments? – .Raven  ^.talk 13:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, I believe that a return to 'alphabet' may be appropriate per the new wording of NCWS. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.