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)