An abjad is a type of Writing system in which there is one symbol per consonantal Phoneme, sometimes also called a consonantary. Abjads differ from alphabets, in that in an abjad, each basic Grapheme represents a consonant, although vowels may be indicated by vowel marks on the basic graphemes. An alphabet has basic graphemes for both consonants and vowels. Abjads also differ from abugidas. In an abjad, each basic grapheme represents only a consonant. In an abugida, each basic grapheme represents a syllable consisting of a consonant and a vowel; the same consonant with a different vowel -- or with no vowel -- is represented by a modified or marked form of the same basic grapheme.
The system takes its name from the first nonsense 'word' of the mnemonic sequence for the letters of the Arabic alphabet in the older abjadi order. It has been suggested that the word 'Abjad' may have earlier roots in Phoenician or Ugaritic.
All known abjads belong to the Semitic family of scripts, and derive from the original Northern Linear Abjad. The reason for this is that Semitic languages have a morphemic structure which makes the denotation of vowels redundant or unnecessary in most cases.
"Impure" abjads (such as Arabic) may have characters for some vowels as well (called Matres lectionis, 'mothers of reading', singular Mater lectionis), or optional vowel diacritics, or both; however, the term's originator, Peter T. Daniels, insists that it should be applied only to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators, thus excluding Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac.
Impure abjads develop when, due to phonetic change, a previous Consonant or Diphthong becomes a vowel. Later generations, who receive their Orthography without knowing that letter originally signified a consonant there, understand it to mean a Vowel as it is in their spoken language. They then use that letter as a vowel in other places where it was never a consonant. For example, the Hebrew word ירוהשׁ probably underwent the following pronunciation change: *hiwriʃ >> *howriʃ >> horiʃ . The ו, which was originally the consonant w, became the vowel o. Later, probably in the Second Temple period, the vowel use of ו was expanded to places where no consonant ever existed.
Many scripts derived from abjads have been extended with vowel symbols to become full alphabets. This has mostly happened when the script was adapted to a non-Semitic language, the most famous case being the derivation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician abjad. The Greeks did not need the letters for the guttural (א, ה, ח, ע) and co-articulated (ט, צ, ק) consonants. They dropped some of them and turned others into vowels.
In other cases, the vowel signs come in the form of little points or hooks attached to the consonant letters, producing an Abugida such as the system of writing Amharic.
Surprisingly, many non-Semitic languages such as English can be written without vowels and read with little difficulty. (For example, the previous sentence could be written Srprsngly, mny nn-Smtc lnggs sch `s `nglsh cn b wrttn wtht vwls `nd rd wth lttl dffclty.)
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