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{{short description|Writing system which does not represent all sounds of a language}}
A '''defective script''' is a [[writing system]] that does not represent all the [[phoneme|phonemic]] distinctions of a language.<ref name="Sampson">{{cite book|last=Sampson|first=Geoffrey|year=1985|title=Writing Systems|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-1756-4}}</ref>{{rp|36-38}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|year=1996|title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems|publisher=Blackwell|isbn=978-0-631-21481-6}}</ref>{{rp|118}} For example, [[Italian language|Italian]] has seven [[vowel]]s, but the [[Italian alphabet]] has only five vowel [[letter (alphabet)|letter]]s to represent them; in general, the difference between [[Vowel#height|close]] {{IPA|/e, o/}} and [[Vowel#height|open]] {{IPA|/ɛ, ɔ/}} is simply ignored, though stress marks, if used, may distinguish them. Among the [[consonant]]s, both {{IPA|/s/}} and {{IPA|/z/}} are written {{angbr|{{lang|it|s}}}}, and both {{IPA|/ts/}} and {{IPA|/dz/}} are written {{angbr|{{lang|it|z}}}}, though not many words are distinguished by the latter. [[Stress (linguistics)|Stress]] and [[hiatus (linguistics)|hiatus]] are not reliably distinguished.<ref>{{cite book|last=Danesi|first=Marcel|year=1996|title=Italian the Easy way|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_RuiM7-I7ScC|isbn=9780812091465}}</ref>▼
▲
Such shortcomings are not uncommon. The [[Greek alphabet]] was defective during its early history. [[Ancient Greek language|Ancient Greek]] had distinctive [[vowel length]]: five short vowels, {{IPA|/i e a o u/}}, and seven long vowels, {{IPA|/iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/}}. When the [[Phoenician alphabet]] was adapted to Greek, the names of five letters were pronounced by the Greeks with initial consonants made silent, and were then used [[acrophony|acrophonically]] to represent vowels. These were ''[[alpha (letter)|alpha]]'', ''e'' (later called ''[[epsilon|e psilon]]''), ''[[iota (letter)|iota]]'', ''o'' (later called ''[[omicron (letter)|o micron]]''), and ''u'' (later called ''[[upsilon (letter)|u psilon]]'') – <{{lang|grc|α, ε, ι, ο, υ}}> – five letters for twelve vowel sounds. Later the [h] dropped from the Eastern Greek dialects, and the letter ''heta'' (now pronounced ''[[eta (letter)|eta]]'') became available; it was used for {{IPA|/ɛː/}}. About the same time the Greeks created an additional letter, ''[[omega (letter)|o mega]]'', probably by writing ''o micron'' with an underline, that was used for {{IPA|/ɔː/}}. [[Digraph (orthography)|Digraph]]s ''ei'' and ''ou'' were adopted for {{IPA|/eː/}} and {{IPA|/oː/.}} Thus Greek entered its classical era with seven letters and two digraphs – <{{lang|grc|α, ε, ι, ο, υ, η, ω, ει, ου}}> – for twelve vowel sounds. Long {{IPA|/iː aː uː/}} were never distinguished from short {{IPA|/i a u/}}, even though the distinction was meaningful. Although the Greek alphabet was a good match to the consonants of the language, it was defective when it came to some vowels.<ref>{{cite book|author=Pierre Swiggers|editor=P.T. Daniels & W. Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|chapter=Transmission of the Phoenician Script to the West}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Leslie Threatte|editor=P.T. Daniels & W. Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|chapter=The Greek Alphabet}}</ref>▼
==Ancient examples of defective script==
Other ancient scripts were also defective. Egyptian [[hieroglyphs]] had no vowel representation at all, while the [[cuneiform script]] frequently failed to distinguish among a consonant triad like /t/, /d/ and /t'/ (emphatic /t/), or between the vowels /e/ and /i/. ▼
▲Such shortcomings are not uncommon. The [[Greek alphabet]] was defective during its early history. [[Ancient Greek language|Ancient Greek]] had distinctive [[vowel length]]: five short vowels, {{IPA|/i e a o u/}}, and seven long vowels, {{IPA|/iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/}}. When the [[Phoenician alphabet]] was adapted to Greek, the names of five letters were pronounced by the Greeks with initial consonants made silent, and were then used [[acrophony|acrophonically]] to represent vowels. These were ''[[alpha (letter)|alpha]]'', ''e'' (later called ''[[epsilon|e psilon]]''), ''[[iota (letter)|iota]]'', ''o'' (later called ''[[omicron (letter)|o micron]]''), and ''u'' (later called ''[[upsilon (letter)|u psilon]]'') – <{{lang|grc|α, ε, ι, ο, υ}}> – five letters for twelve vowel sounds. (The lost initial consonants were {{IPA|/ʔ, h, j, ʕ, w/}}.) Later the [h] (from {{IPA|/ħ/}}) dropped out from the Eastern Greek dialects, and the letter ''heta'' (now pronounced ''[[eta (letter)|eta]]'') became available; it was used for {{IPA|/ɛː/}}. About the same time, the Greeks created an additional letter, ''[[omega (letter)|o mega]]'', probably by writing ''o micron'' with an underline, that was used for {{IPA|/ɔː/}}. [[Digraph (orthography)|Digraph]]s
Languages with a long literary history have a tendency to freeze spelling at an early stage, leaving subsequent pronunciation shifts unrecorded. Such is the case with English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, and Thai, among others. By contrast, some writing systems have been periodically respelled in accordance with changed pronunciation, such as Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Irish Gaelic, and Japanese hiragana. ▼
▲Other ancient scripts were also defective. Egyptian [[hieroglyphs]] had no vowel representation at all, while the [[cuneiform script]] frequently
A broadly defective script is the [[Arabic abjad]].<ref name="DB">{{cite book|author1=Peter T. Daniels|author2=William Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7}}</ref>{{rp|561-3}} The modern script does not normally write short vowels, but for the first few centuries of the [[Islam]]ic era, long vowels were not written and many consonant letters were ambiguous as well. The Arabic script derives from the Aramaic, and not only did the [[Aramaic language]] have fewer [[phoneme]]s than Arabic, but several originally distinct Aramaic letters had conflated (become indistinguishable in shape), so that in the early Arabic writings 28 consonant phonemes were represented by only 18 letters—and in the middle of words, only 15 were distinct. For example, medial {{angbr|{{lang|ar|ـٮـ}}}} represented {{IPA|/b, t, θ, n, j/}}, and {{angbr|{{lang|ar|ح}}}} represented {{IPA|/d͡ʒ, ħ, x/}}. A system of [[diacritic]] marks, or ''pointing,'' was later developed to resolve the ambiguities, and over the centuries became nearly universal. However, even today unpointed texts of a style called ''{{transl|ar|DIN|mašq}}'' are found, where these consonants are not distinguished.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard Bell|author2=William Montgomery Watt|title=Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ān|year=1970|publisher=University Press|___location=Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-85224-171-4}}</ref>▼
With only 16 characters, the [[Younger Futhark]] was an even more defective form of the [[Elder Futhark]], from which it had evolved by the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. At the same time, phonetic changes that led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when [[Proto-Norse]] evolved into [[Old Norse]]. As an example, the Younger Futhark no longer had separate signs for [[voiced stop]]s and [[voiceless stop]]s, so a rune like [[Tiwaz (rune)|Týr (ᛏ)]] could represent all of /d/, /t/, /nd/ or /nt/.
Without short vowels or [[Gemination|geminate]] consonants being written, modern Arabic {{lang|ar|نظر}} ''{{transl|ar|DIN|nẓr}}'' could represent {{lang|ar|نَظَرَ}} {{IPA|/naðˤara/}} 'he saw', {{lang|ar|نَظَّرَ}} {{IPA|/naðˤːara/}} 'he compared', {{lang|ar|نُظِرَ}} {{IPA|/nuðˤira/}} 'he was seen', {{lang|ar|نُظِّرَ}} {{IPA|/nuðˤːira/}} 'he was compared', {{lang|ar|نَظَر}} {{IPA|/naðˤar/}} 'a glance', or {{lang|ar|نِظْر}} {{IPA|/niðˤr/}} 'similar'. However, in practice there is little ambiguity, as the vowels are more easily predictable in Arabic than they are in a language like English. Moreover, the defective nature of the script has its benefits: the stable shape of the root words, despite grammatical [[inflection]], results in quicker word recognition and therefore faster reading speeds; and the lack of short vowels, the sounds which vary the most between [[Varieties of Arabic|Arabic dialects]], makes texts more widely accessible to a diverse audience.<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Bauer|editor=P.T. Daniels & W. Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|chapter=Arabic Writing}}</ref>▼
==Modern examples of defective script==
However, in ''{{transl|ar|DIN|mašq}}'' and those styles of ''[[kufic]]'' writing which lack consonant pointing, the ambiguities are more serious, for here different roots are written the same. {{lang|ar|ٮطر}} could represent the root ''{{transl|ar|DIN|nẓr}}'' 'see' as above, but also ''{{transl|ar|DIN|nṭr}}'' 'protect', ''{{transl|ar|DIN|bṭr}}'' 'pride', ''{{transl|ar|DIN|bẓr}}'' 'clitoris' or 'with flint', as well as several inflections and derivations of each of these root words.▼
▲Languages with a long literary history have a tendency to freeze spelling at an early stage, leaving subsequent pronunciation shifts unrecorded. Such is the case with English, French, Greek, Hebrew
The Arabic alphabet has been adopted by many Muslim peoples to write their languages. In them, new consonant letters have been devised for sounds lacking in Arabic (e.g. {{IPA|/p/}}, {{IPA|/g/}}, {{IPA|/tʃ/}}, and {{IPA|/ʒ/}} in [[Persian language|Persian]];<ref name="DB" />{{rp|747}} all the aspirate and retroflex stops in [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]]<ref name="DB" />{{rp|757}}). But rarely have the full set of vowels been represented in those new alphabets: [[Ottoman Turkish language|Ottoman Turkish]] had eight vowels, but used only three letters to notate them.<ref name="DB" />{{rp|758}} However, some adaptions of the Arabic alphabet do unambiguously mark all vowels: those for [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]], [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]],<ref name="DB" />{{rp|753}} [[Kurdish language|Kurdish]], [[Kyrgyz alphabets|Kyrgyz]], and [[Uyghur language|Uyghur]].<ref name="DB" />{{rp|748}}▼
=== Non-Latin scripts ===
When a defective script is written with diacritics or other conventions to indicate all phonemic distinctions, the result is called ''plene'' writing.<ref>{{cite book|author=Werner Weinberg|title=The History of Hebrew Plene Spelling|year=1985|publisher=Hebrew Union College Press|isbn=978-0-87820-205-8}}</ref>▼
▲A broadly defective script is the [[Arabic abjad]].<ref name="DB">{{cite book|author1=Peter T. Daniels|author2=William Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937}}</ref>{{rp|
▲Without short vowels or
Defectiveness is a [[cline (linguistics)|cline]]: the Semitic ''[[abjad]]s'' do not indicate all vowels, but there are also alphabets which mark vowels but not [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] (e.g. many [[Writing systems of Africa|African languages]]), or vowel quality but not vowel length (e.g. [[Latin spelling and pronunciation|Latin]]). Even if English orthography were regularized, the English alphabet would still be incapable of unambiguously conveying [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]], though since this is not expected of scripts, it is not normally counted as defectiveness.<ref name="Sampson" />▼
▲
▲The Arabic alphabet has been adopted by many Muslim peoples to write their languages. In them, new consonant letters have been devised for sounds lacking in Arabic (e.g. {{IPA|/p/}}, {{IPA|/g/}}, {{IPA|/
▲When a defective script is written with diacritics or other conventions to indicate all phonemic distinctions, the result is called ''plene'' writing.<ref>{{cite book|author=Werner Weinberg|title=The History of Hebrew Plene Spelling|year=1985|publisher=Hebrew Union College Press|isbn=978-0-87820-205-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofhebrewp0000wein}}</ref>
===Latin script===
Some otherwise [[phonemic orthography|phonemic orthographies]] based on the [[Latin script]] are slightly defective:{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}
* [[Malay alphabet|Malay]] (incl. [[Malaysian language|Malaysian]] and [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] where /e/ and /ə/ are written as <e>).
* [[Italian alphabet|Italian]] does not distinguish open-mid and close-mid vowels in stressed syllables; /s/ and /z/; /ts/ and /dz/.
* [[Maltese alphabet|Maltese]] and [[Welsh orthography|Welsh]] do not distinguish most vowel length.
* [[Kazakh alphabets|Kazakh]]
* [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]] and [[Serbo-Croatian#Writing systems|Serbo-Croatian]] do not distinguish [[pitch accent|tone and vowel length]] (also additional vowels for Lithuanian).
* [[Latvian language|Latvian]] does not distinguish tone and some of its vowels.
* [[Somali alphabet|Somali]] does not distinguish vowel [[phonation]] and tone.
==Stenography systems==
[[Shorthand|Stenography]] systems are normally defective writing systems, leaving away redundant information for the sake of writing speed. [[Pitman shorthand]], for instance, can be written while distinguishing only three vowel symbolizations for the first vowel of a word (high vowel, mid vowel, or low vowel), though there are optional diacritical methods for distinguishing more vowel qualities. [[Taylor shorthand]], which was widely used in the first half of the 19th century, does not distinguish any vowels at all – there is just a dot when a word begins or ends with any vowel.
==Considerations==
▲Defectiveness is a [[cline (linguistics)|cline]]: the Semitic ''[[abjad]]s'' do not indicate all vowels, but there are also alphabets which mark vowels but not [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] (e.g. many [[Writing systems of Africa|African languages]]), or vowel quality but not vowel length (e.g. [[Latin spelling and pronunciation|Latin]]). Even if English orthography were regularized, the English alphabet would still be incapable of unambiguously conveying [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]]
==See also==
* [[Phonemic orthography]]{{snd}}Orthography in which there is an exact one-to-one correspondence between the graphemes and the phonemes of the language
==References==
{{Reflist}}
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