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Syllabaries: Consonant-Based Logographies

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes rather than sounds. While no logographic script uses only logograms, as all contain phonetic elements. These phonetic elements may be used on their own or with logograms to specify pronunciation. For example, in Chinese the phonetic element is part of the logogram, while in Egyptian and Mayan some glyphs are purely phonetic and others are logograms or phonics depending on context. As a result, some scripts are better described as logosyllabic rather than solely logographic.

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158 views

Syllabaries: Consonant-Based Logographies

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes rather than sounds. While no logographic script uses only logograms, as all contain phonetic elements. These phonetic elements may be used on their own or with logograms to specify pronunciation. For example, in Chinese the phonetic element is part of the logogram, while in Egyptian and Mayan some glyphs are purely phonetic and others are logograms or phonics depending on context. As a result, some scripts are better described as logosyllabic rather than solely logographic.

Uploaded by

Rotaru Cristian
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© © All Rights Reserved
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In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes (meaningful components of

words, as in mean-ing-ful), rather than phonetic elements.


Note that no logographic script is composed solely of logograms. All contain graphemes that
represent phonetic (sound-based) elements as well. These phonetic elements may be used on their
own (to represent, for example, grammatical inflections or foreign words), or may serve as phonetic
complements to a logogram (used to specify the sound of a logogram that might otherwise represent
more than one word). In the case of Chinese, the phonetic element is built into the logogram itself; in
Egyptian and Mayan, many glyphs are purely phonetic, whereas others function as either logograms
or phonetic elements, depending on context. For this reason, many such scripts may be more
properly referred to as logosyllabic or complex scripts; the terminology used is largely a product of
custom in the field, and is to an extent arbitrary.

Consonant-based logographies[edit]
 Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic – the writing systems of Ancient Egypt
 Egyptian hieroglyphs (List)
Syllable-based logographies[edit]
 Anatolian hieroglyphs – Luwian
 Cuneiform – Sumerian, Akkadian, other Semitic languages, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian,
and Urartian
 Chinese characters (Hanzi) – Chinese, Japanese (Kanji), Korean (Hanja(occasionally
used)), Vietnamese (Chu Nom (obsolete)), Zhuang Sawndip,Cantonese (Written Cantonese)
 Khitan large script – Khitan
 Tangut script – Tangut
 Eghap (or Bagam) script
 Mayan – Chorti, Yucatec, and other Classic Maya languages
 Yi (classical) – various Yi/Lolo languages
 Shui script – Shui language

Syllabaries[edit]
In a syllabary, graphemes represent syllables or moras. (Note that the 19th-century
term syllabics usually referred to abugidas rather than true syllabaries.)

 Afaka – Ndyuka
 Alaska script – Central Yup'ik
 Bété
 Cherokee – Cherokee
 Cypriot – Arcadocypriot Greek
 Geba – Naxi
 Iban – Iban
 Kana – Japanese (although primarily based on moras rather than syllables)
 Hiragana
 Katakana
 Man'yōgana
 Kikakui – Mende
 Kpelle – Kpelle
 Linear B – Mycenean Greek
 Loma – Loma
 Nü Shu – Chinese
 Nwagu Aneke script – Igbo
 Vai – Vai
 Woleaian – Woleaian (a likely syllabary)
 Yi (modern) – various Yi/Lolo languages
Semi-syllabaries: Partly syllabic, partly alphabetic scripts[edit]
In most of these systems, some consonant-vowel combinations are written as syllables, but others
are written as consonant plus vowel. In the case of Old Persian, all vowels were written regardless,
so it was effectively a true alphabet despite its syllabic component. In Japanese a similar system
plays a minor role in foreign borrowings; for example, [tu] is written [to]+[u], and [ti] as [te]+[i].
Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries behaved as a syllabary for the stop consonants and as
an alphabet for the rest of consonants and vowels. The Tartessian or Southwestern script is
typologically intermediate between a pure alphabet and the Paleohispanic full semi-syllabaries.
Although the letter used to write a stop consonant was determined by the following vowel, as in a
full semi-syllabary, the following vowel was also written, as in an alphabet. Some scholars treat
Tartessian as a redundant semi-syllabary, others treat it as a redundant alphabet. Zhuyin is semi-
syllabic in a different sense: it transcribes half syllables. That is, it has letters for syllable
onsets and rimes (kan = "k-an") rather than for consonants and vowels (kan = "k-a-n").

 Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries – Paleohispanic languages


 Tartessian or Southwestern script – Tartessian or Southwestern language
 Southeastern Iberian script – Iberian language
 Northeastern Iberian script – Iberian language
 Celtiberian script – Celtiberian language
 Old Persian Cuneiform – Old Persian
 Zhuyin fuhao – phonetic script for the different varieties of Chinese.
 Eskayan – Eskayan language (a syllabary apparently based on an alphabet; some alphabetic
characteristics remain)
 Bamum script – Bamum (a defective syllabary, with alphabetic principles used to fill the gaps)

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