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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}}
▲is a [[writing system]] that does not represent all the [[phoneme|phonemic]] distinctions of a language. 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]]'') – {{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)|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 – {{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>
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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>
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
==References==
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