I agree pretty much with Peter Constable's assessment, but... I
wasn't trying to be really technically precise, as I did not
think the QUESTION that was asked was really one of techincal
precision in a LINGUISTIC sense, just of normal usage by people
in the context of computer standards for characters, glyphs, and
typography. The original question did not include "writing
system", which of course is another term that is useful
technically. > In the explanation Rick gave, the term "alphabet"
is used in a > way that could be confused with "writing system",
Let me elaborate, then on my perspective. An "alphabet" is a
collection of symbols. It includes only the "phonological" or
"syllabic" units and not the punctuation, quoting conventions,
document formatting conventions, and so forth. An alphabet is a
static collection of symbols, which typically represent some
form of segmentation of a natural language. A "writing system"
includes the symbols of the alphabet, but in addition includes
rules about their use, som