Defective script: Difference between revisions

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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 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 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|/ǧd͡ʒ, 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>