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OwenBlacker (talk | contribs) Added Semitic character table for Bet (letter); language tagging; linking; added the Thai for the Thai example; minor edits |
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{{improverefs|date=January 2016}}
'''Acrophony''' ({{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|k|r|ɒ|f|ə|n|i|}};
The paradigm for acrophonic alphabets is the [[Proto-Sinaitic script]] and the succeeding [[Phoenician alphabet]], in which the letter A, representing the sound {{IPAblink|ʔ}}, is thought to have derived from an [[Egyptian hieroglyph]] representing an [[ox]], and is called
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
The [[Glagolitic]] and [[early Cyrillic alphabet]]s, although not consisting of ideograms, also have letters named acrophonically. The letters representing /a, b, v, g, d, e/ are named ''Az'', ''Buky'', ''Vedi'', ''Glagol'', ''Dobro'', ''Est''. Naming the letters in order, one recites a poem, a [[mnemonic]] which helps students and scholars learn the alphabet: ''Az buky vedi, glagol’ dobro est’'' means "I know letters, [the] word is good" in [[Old Church Slavonic]].▼
|+ [[Semitic abjad]] letter ''[[bet (letter)|bet]]''
! [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Hieroglyph]]
! [[Proto-Sinaitic script|Proto-Sinaitic]]
! [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]]
! [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet|Paleo-Hebrew]]
|-
| align="center" | <hiero>O1</hiero>
| align="center" | [[File:Proto-Canaanite - bet.svg|36px]]
| align="center" | [[File:Phoenician beth.svg|20px|Bet]]
| align="center" | [[File:Early Aramaic character - Beth.png]]
|}
▲The [[Glagolitic]] and [[early Cyrillic alphabet]]s, although not consisting of ideograms, also have letters named acrophonically. The letters representing /a, b, v, g, d, e/ are named
In [[Irish orthography|Irish]] and [[Ogham]], letters were formerly named after [[tree]]s, for example A was ''ailm'' ([[white fir]]), B was ''beith'' ([[birch]]) and C was ''coll'' ([[hazel]]). The [[rune]] alphabets used by the Germanic peoples were also named acrophonically; for example, the first three letters, which represented the sounds /f, u, θ/, were named ''fé, ur, þurs'' in Norse (wealth, slag/rain, giant) and ''feoh, ur, þorn'' in Old English (wealth, ox, thorn). Both sets of names probably stemmed from Proto-Germanic ''*[[fehu]], *[[ur (rune)|uruz]], *[[thurisaz]]''.▼
▲In [[Irish orthography|Irish]] and [[Ogham]], letters were formerly named after [[tree]]s, for example A was
The [[Thai alphabet]] is learned acrophonically, each letter being represented pictorially in school-books ({{lang|th|ก ไก่}} {{lang|th-Latn|ko kai}} 'chicken'; {{lang|th|ข ไข่}} {{lang|th-Latn|kho khai}} 'egg', {{lang|th|ค ควาย}} {{lang|th-Latn|kho khwai}} 'buffalo'; {{lang|th|ฆ ระฆัง}} {{lang|th-Latn|kho rakhang}} 'bell'; {{lang|th|ง งู}} {{lang|th-Latn|ngo ngu}} 'snake', etc.).
[[Rudyard Kipling]] gives a fictional description of the process in one of his ''[[Just So Stories]]'', "How the Alphabet was Made".<ref>Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling</ref>
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Modern [[radiotelephony]] and aviation uses [[spelling alphabet]]s (the best-known of which is the [[NATO Phonetic Alphabet]], which begins with ''Alfa'', ''Bravo'', ''Charlie'', ''Delta''...) in which the letters of the English alphabet are arbitrarily assigned words and names in an acrophonic manner to avoid misunderstanding.
Most notes of the [[solfege]] scale{{snd}}namely ''re'', ''mi'', ''fa'', ''sol'', and ''la''{{snd}}derive their names from the first [[syllable]] of the lines of
==See also==
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