Defective script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:50, 28 November 2016

Revision as of 19:40, 1 December 2016

Line 1:

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=0-8047-1756-7}}</ref>{{rp|36-38}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|year=1996|title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems|publisher=Blackwell|isbn=0-631-21481-X}}</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 differences between {{IPA|/e, ɛ/}} and {{IPA|/o, ɔ/}} are simply ignored, though when stress marks are used they 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>

<ref>{{cite book|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|year=1996|title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems|publisher=Blackwell|isbn=0-631-21481-X}}</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 differences between {{IPA|/e, ɛ/}} and {{IPA|/o, ɔ/}} are simply ignored, though when stress marks are used they 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 imperfections are nothing new. The [[Greek alphabet]] was defective during its early history. [[Ancient Greek language|Classical 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 acrophonically to represent vowels. These were ''[[alpha (letter)|alpha]]'', ''e'' (later called ''[[epsilon (letter)|e psilon]]''), ''[[iota (letter)|iota]]'', ''o'' (later called ''[[omicron (letter)|o micron]]''), and ''u'' (later called ''[[upsilon (letter)|u psilon]]'') &ndash; {{lang|grc|α, ε, ι, ο, υ}} &ndash; 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)|omega]]'', probably by writing ''omicron'' with an underline, that was used for {{IPA|/ɔː/}}. [[Digraph (orthography)|Digraph]]s ''ei'' and ''ou'' were devised for {{IPA|/eː/}} and {{IPA|/oː/.}} Thus Greek entered its classical era with seven letters and two digraphs &ndash; {{lang|grc|α, ε, ι, ο, υ, η, ω, ει, ου}} &ndash; 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>

Line 6 ⟶ 5:

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/.

A famouslybroadly defective script is the [[Arabic abjad|Arabic]].<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 consonants 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|/ǧ, 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>

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>