User talk:Lord Farin/Backup/Definition:Formal Language/Alphabet

This definition continues to be awkward. We have an "alphabet". But it does not only consist of "letters", it also has "signs". Worse still, there is not a universal term that means '"letter" or "sign"'.

One of my digital sources distinguishes what we presently call letters and signs as proper vs. improper symbols. So perhaps we could show a little inventivity and decide to speak of "letters" as members of the alphabet, while "proper letters" constitute the vocabulary, and "improper letters" correspond to signs.

Thoughts? &mdash; Lord_Farin (talk) 14:04, 31 August 2013 (UTC)


 * You've run into the same problem that I did when I came into this for the first time. (I decided I'd wait to see whether the concepts would rearrange themselves in my head of their own accord - they did, but not sufficiently.)


 * It's worth a try, see how it looks. As long as we indicate that we have coined the usage.


 * As an aside: I wonder whether we want to set up a template with a little icon, which will be used to indicate that a particular term has been specifically invented by . We have a few, but we have deliberately tried to limit them as much as possible. --prime mover (talk) 21:18, 31 August 2013 (UTC)