Abjad

Writing system where each symbol stands for a consonant From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An abjad (/ˈæbæd/[1] or abgad[2][3]) 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.[4] Other terms for the same concept include partial phonemic script, segmentally linear defective phonographic script, consonantary, consonant writing, and consonantal alphabet.[5]

Impure abjads represent vowels with either optional diacritics, a limited number of distinct vowel glyphs, or both.

Etymology

The name abjad is based on the Arabic alphabet's first (in its original order) four letterscorresponding to a, b, j, and dto replace the more common terms "consonantary" and "consonantal alphabet" in describing the family of scripts classified as "West Semitic". It is similar to other Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Hebrew and Semitic proto-alphabets: specifically, aleph, bet, gimel, dalet.

Terminology

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According to the formulations of Peter T. Daniels,[6] abjads differ from alphabets in that only consonants, not vowels, are represented among the basic graphemes. Abjads differ from abugidas, another category defined by Daniels, in that in abjads, the vowel sound is implied by phonology, and where vowel marks exist for the system, such as nikkud for Hebrew and ḥarakāt for Arabic, their use is optional and not the dominant (or literate) form. Abugidas mark all vowels (other than the "inherent" vowel) with a diacritic, a minor attachment to the letter, a standalone glyph, or (in Canadian Aboriginal syllabics) by rotation of the letter. Some abugidas use a special symbol to suppress the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a syllabary, a grapheme denotes a complete syllable, that is, either a lone vowel sound or a combination of a vowel sound with one or more consonant sounds.

The contrast of abjad versus alphabet has been rejected by other scholars because abjad is also used as a term for the Arabic numeral system. Also, it may be taken as suggesting that consonantal alphabets, in contrast to e.g. the Greek alphabet, were not yet true alphabets.[7] Florian Coulmas, a critic of Daniels and of the abjad terminology, argues that this terminology can confuse alphabets with "transcription systems", and that there is no reason to relegate the Hebrew, Aramaic or Phoenician alphabets to second-class status as an "incomplete alphabet".[8] However, Daniels's terminology has found acceptance in the linguistic community.[9][10][11]

Origins

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A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script containing a phrase which may mean 'to Baalat'. The line running from the upper left to lower right reads mt l bclt.

The first abjad to gain widespread usage was the Phoenician abjad. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Phoenician script consisted of only a few dozen symbols. This made the script easy to learn, and seafaring Phoenician merchants took the script throughout the then-known world.

The Phoenician abjad was a radical simplification of phonetic writing, since hieroglyphics required the writer to pick a hieroglyph starting with the same sound that the writer wanted to write in order to write phonetically, much as man'yōgana (kanji used solely for phonetic use) was used to represent Japanese phonetically before the invention of kana.

Phoenician gave rise to a number of new writing systems, including the widely used Aramaic abjad and the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as Latin and Cyrillic, while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia.

Other sister scripts to Phoenician, that branched from Proto-Sinaitic script are the South Semitic scripts with its two main branches; the Ancient North Arabian scripts that were used in north and central Arabia, until it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet.[12] and Ancient South Arabian, which evolved later into the Geʽez script, still being used in Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Impure abjads

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Al-ʻArabiyya, meaning "Arabic": an example of the Arabic script, which is an impure abjad

Impure abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators.[13] However, most modern abjads, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Pahlavi, are "impure" abjads  that is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly approximants that sound similar to long vowels. A "pure" abjad is exemplified (perhaps) by very early forms of ancient Phoenician, though at some point (at least by the 9th century BC) it and most of the contemporary Semitic abjads had begun to overload a few of the consonant symbols with a secondary function as vowel markers, called matres lectionis.[14] This practice was at first rare and limited in scope but became increasingly common and more developed in later times.

Addition of vowels

In the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the guttural sounds represented by aleph, he, heth or ayin, so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters waw and yod were also adapted into vowel signs; along with he, these were already used as matres lectionis in Phoenician. The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants (as opposed to syllabaries such as Linear B which usually have vowel symbols but cannot combine them with consonants to form arbitrary syllables).

Abugidas developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the South Arabian abjad evolved into the Geʽez script of Ethiopia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly, the Brāhmī abugida of the Indian subcontinent developed around the 3rd century BC (from the Aramaic abjad, it has been hypothesized).

Abjads and the structure of Semitic languages

The abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the morphological structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from a root consisting of (usually) three consonants, the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. For instance, according to Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, from the Arabic root كتب K-T-B (to write) can be derived the forms كَتَبَ kataba (he wrote), كَتَبْتَ katabta (you (masculine singular) wrote), يَكْتُبُ⁩ yaktubu (he writes), and مَكْتَبَة⁩ maktabah (library). In most cases, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, allowing readers to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar roots (especially in conjunction with context clues) and improving word recognition[citation needed][dubious discuss] while reading for practiced readers.

Adaptation for use as true alphabets

The Arabic abjad have been adapted to perform as true alphabets when used to write several languages, including Kurdish, Swahili, Malay, and Uyghur and historically Bosnian, Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, Spanish with some letters or letter combinations being repurposed to represent vowels. The Hebrew abjad has also been adapted to write Jewish languages like Ladino and Yiddish.

Comparative chart of abjads, extinct and extant

More information Name, In use ...
Name In use Cursive Direction # of letters Matres lectionis Area of origin Used by Languages Time period (age) Influenced by Writing systems influenced
Arabicyesyesright-left283Middle EastOver 400 million peopleArabic, Kashmiri, Persian, Pashto, Uyghur, Kurdish, Urdu, many others[15]512 CE[16][15]Nabataean AramaicThaana
Syriacyesyesright-left22 consonants3Middle EastSyriac Christianity, AssyriansAramaic: Syriac, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo, Mlahsoc.100 BCE[15]AramaicNabatean, Palmyran, Mandaic, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, Avestan and Manichean[15]
Hebrewyesyesright-left22 consonants + 5 final letters4Middle EastIsraelis, Jewish diaspora communities, Second Temple JudeaHebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Aramaic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Italian, Yiddish, Ladino, many others2nd century BCEPaleo-Hebrew, Early Aramaic
Aramaic (Imperial)nonoright-left223Middle EastAchaemenid, Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empiresImperial Aramaic, Hebrewc.500 BCE[15]PhoenicianLate Hebrew, Nabataean, Syriac
Aramaic (Early)nonoright-left22noneMiddle EastVarious Semitic Peoplesc.1000 – c.900 BCE
[citation needed]
PhoenicianHebrew, Imperial Aramaic.[15]
Nabataeannonoright-left22noneMiddle EastNabataean Kingdom[17]Nabataean200 BCE[17]AramaicArabic
Phoeniciannonoright-left, boustrophedon22noneByblos[15]CanaanitesPhoenician, Punic, Hebrewc.1500 – c.1000 BCE[15]Proto-Canaanite Alphabet[15]Punic (variant), Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew
Punicnonoright-left22noneCarthage (Tunisia), North Africa, Mediterranean[15]Punic CulturePunic, Neo-PunicPhoenician
[citation needed]
Ancient North Arabian no no right-left 29 yes Arabian Peninsula Northern Arabians Old Arabic,Ancient North Arabian languages 8th century BCE - 4th century CE Proto-Sinaitic
Ancient South Arabiannoyes (Zabūr - cursive form of the South Arabian script)right-left, Boustrophedon29yesSouth-Arabia (Yemen)D'mt KingdomAmharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Semitic, Cushitic, Nilo-Saharan
[citation needed]
900 BCE
[citation needed]
Proto-SinaiticGeʽez (Ethiopia and Eritrea)
Sabaeannonoright-left, boustrophedon29noneSouthern Arabia (Sheba)Southern ArabiansSabaeanc.500 BCE[15]Byblos[15]Ethiopic (Eritrea & Ethiopia)[15]
Parthiannonoright-left22yesParthia (modern-day equivalent of Northeastern Iran, Southern Turkmenistan and Northwest Afghanistan)[15]Parthian & Sassanian periods of Persian Empire[15]Parthianc.200 BCE[15]Aramaic
Ugariticnoyesleft-right30none, 3 characters for gs+vowelUgarit (modern-day Northern Syria)UgaritesUgaritic, Hurrianc.1400 BCE[15]Proto-Sinaitic
Proto-Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanitenonoleft-right24noneEgypt, Sinai, CanaanCanaanitesCanaanitec.1900 – c.1700 BCEIn conjunction with Egyptian Hieroglyphs
[citation needed]
Phoenician, Hebrew
Samaritanyes (700 people)noright-left22noneLevantSamaritans (Nablus and Holon)Samaritan Aramaic, Samaritan Hebrewc.100 BCE – c.1 CEPaleo-Hebrew Alphabet
Tifinaghyesnobottom-top, right-left, left-right,31yesNorth AfricaBerbersBerber languages2nd millennium BCE[18]Phoenician, ArabicNeo-Tifinagh
Middle Persian, (Pahlavi)nonoright-left223Middle EastSassanian EmpirePahlavi, Middle Persianc.200 BCE – c. 700 CEAramaicPsalter, Avestan[15]
Psalter Pahlavinoyesright-left21yesNorthwestern China[15]Persian Script for Paper Writing[15]0400 c.400 CE[19]Syriac
[citation needed]
Sogdiannono (yes in later versions)right-left, left-right (vertical)203parts of China (Xinjiang), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, PakistanBuddhists, ManichaensSogdian0400 c.400 CESyriacOld Uyghur alphabet[15]
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