This is cool. Linguistic history is pretty fun, especially when you run across examples of books with these letters still being used. And I had always wondered about the history of ſ and when we stopped using it.
I enjoy this thread muchly...yet I will not participate besides saying (clicks preview and goes back and says OMG I am writting way too much after announcing I will not participate )
I enjoy this thread muchly...yet I will not participate besides saying ...The Ampersand is definitely a logogram, and not a letter or ligature.
(the unintended rant below)
I love this subject, but language can be like the abyss and you can go too deep into staring into the abyss. Eventually talking about purity of form with what is an Alphabet letter, what is an Abjad, Abugida, Ligature, Syllabary, Logogram, and so on can just get insane.
But what brings the insanity back to the sublime is trying to use the language in day to day use. The infinite now becomes definite again. Asking why now becomes useful by transitioning to how. It is this transitioning from why to how brings me sublime joy. It is what Plato in Philebus (with the voice of Socrates) has a dialogue of "what is the Good" and during which Plato talks about two different forms of the good , things you can count and things that have form but are uncountable (the limited and the limitless) and then Plato transitions to a 3rd form of "the good" and how this 3rd form is better than the first two. Followed almost instantly by a 4th type of the good, where Plato talks about the 4th type of the Good which also mixes the limitless and the limited like the 3rd but this 4th type of the Good is so much better for it orders nature. Aka knowledge and wisdom is awesome, but it is so much better when it has to be used in day to day life, for example when you teach it to someone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philebus
Yeah Language is awesome, but it is also a dæmonic abyss. Nods!