An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols to words, morphemes, or other semantic units.
An abjad, also abgad, is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introduced in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. Other terms for the same concept include partial phonemic script, segmentally linear defective phonographic script, consonantary, consonant writing, and consonantal alphabet.
An abugida – sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabet – is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, similar to a diacritical mark. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of the script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel.
In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or moras which make up words.
The Soyombo script is an abugida developed by the monk and scholar Zanabazar in 1686 to write Mongolian. It can also be used to write Tibetan and Sanskrit.
Inuktitut syllabics is an abugida-type writing system used in Canada by the Inuktitut-speaking Inuit of the territory of Nunavut and the Nunavik and Nunatsiavut regions of Quebec and Labrador, respectively. In 1976, the Language Commission of the Inuit Cultural Institute made it the co-official script for the Inuit languages, along with the Latin script.
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot refers to the glyphs "combining dot above", and "combining dot below" which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in a variety of languages. Similar marks are used with other scripts.
Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of writing systems used in a number of Indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan language families. These languages had no formal writing system previously. They are valued for their distinctiveness from the Latin script and for the ease with which literacy can be achieved. For instance, by the late 19th century the Cree had achieved what may have been one of the highest rates of literacy in the world.
Cree syllabics are the versions of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Cree dialects, including the original syllabics system created for Cree and Ojibwe. There are two main varieties of syllabics for Cree: Western Cree syllabics and Eastern Cree syllabics. Syllabics were later adapted to several other languages. It is estimated that over 70,000 Algonquian-speaking people use the script, from Saskatchewan in the west to Hudson Bay in the east, the US border to Mackenzie and Kewatin in the north.
Western Cree syllabics are a variant of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Plains Cree, Woods Cree and the western dialects of Swampy Cree. It is used for all Cree dialects west of approximately the Manitoba–Ontario border in Canada, as opposed to Eastern Cree syllabics. It is also occasionally used by a few Cree speakers in the United States.
An inherent vowel is part of an abugida script. It is a vowel sound which is used with each unmarked or basic consonant symbol. For example, if the Latin alphabet used 'i' as an inherent vowel, "Wikipedia" could be rendered as "Wkpeda" [w(I)+k(I)+p+e+d(I)+a].
Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics is a writing system for several Algonquian languages that emerged during the nineteenth century and whose existence was first noted in 1880. It was originally used near the Great Lakes: Fox, Sac, and Kickapoo, in addition to Potawatomi. Use of the script was subsequently extended to the Siouan language Ho-Chunk. Use of the Great Lakes script has also been attributed to speakers of the Ottawa dialect of the Ojibwe language, but supporting evidence is weak.
Ojibwe is an indigenous language of North America from the Algonquian language family. Ojibwe is one of the largest Native American languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers and is characterized by a series of dialects, some of which differ significantly. The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada from southwestern Quebec, through Ontario, Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in Alberta and British Columbia, and in the United States from Michigan through Wisconsin and Minnesota, with a number of communities in North Dakota and Montana, as well as migrant groups in Kansas and Oklahoma.
In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to describe the Korean alphabet and Pitman shorthand.
A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The main group of semi-syllabic writing are the Paleohispanic scripts of ancient Spain, a group of semi-syllabaries that transform redundant plosive consonants of the Phoenician alphabet into syllabograms.
Syllabic alphabet may refer to:
Ṭa is a consonant of Indic abugidas. It is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As with the other retroflex consonants, ṭa is absent from most scripts not used for a language of India.
Pa is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Pa is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .
E is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, E is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As an Indic vowel, E comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a vowel sign for modifying a base consonant. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the inherent "A" vowel.
