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Talk:Isopsephy

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Variant letters and letterforms

There's no evidence I know of that the system of Isopsephy was even in existence at the time that the letter San was eliminated from widely-used versions of ancient Greek alphabet, so therefore San should not be listed in the table. And despite the current name of its article, "Stigma" is not actually a letter as such. Furthermore, Sho should not be listed in the table unless it was actually used for purposes of isopsephy; I read through the linked n2411.pdf article, and found no evidence of this... AnonMoos (talk) 15:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Simple(6,74) English(7,74) Gematria(8,74)

This entry explains that Greek isopsephy is comparable to Hebrew gematria and that is true. But there should also be a reference to Simple English Gematria (SEG) for it definitely exists! SEG is based on the most basic key of A=1 B2 C3...Z26. Simple=74, English=74, Gematria=74, and 'the key'=74. - Brad Watson, Miami, FL 64.136.26.22 (talk) 14:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Isopsephy vs. Gematria

“Isopsephy is related to Gematria, the same practice using the Hebrew alphabet”: I'm not sure if that statement is accurate. I don't think Gematria is done exclusively with Hebrew letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frater Liberabit (talkcontribs) 14:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Sargon II

I removed one paragraph for the moment, since it's extremely hard to understand how "isopsephy" would have worked in the non-alphabetic cuneiform writing system used for the Akkadian languages. There should be some type of basic explanation of that point, so that the reader can understand that this really falls under isopsephy... AnonMoos (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know directly about your reasoning, AnonMoos. I too find it hard to understand, and I can't find out who does. There is of course a non-isopsephic system of numbers in cuneiform. As far as I can ascertain, the cuneiform of the time was a mixture of syllabary and ideogram, but how numerical values were assigned I can't discover. However it does seem to be attested with references that there is this inscription claiming isopsephy, so my leaning is to include it in history as the earliest reference we have to it. Let me put th paragraph here so I can find it more easily, perhaps when I've found out a little more:
A system of isopsephy appears to have existed among the Babylonians and Assyrians. There is a single example from the time of Sargon II. An enscription on a clay tablet states that the king built the walls of Dur-Sharrukin, present day Khorsabad, then the Assyrian capital, "according to the value of his name", 16280 Assyrian units.
  1. Maurice H., Farbridge. Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism. p. 94. ISBN 978-0766138568.
- the above copied from my talk page--Annielogue (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
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