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An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent,
partial Partial may refer to: Mathematics *Partial derivative, derivative with respect to one of several variables of a function, with the other variables held constant ** ∂, a symbol that can denote a partial derivative, sometimes pronounced "partial d ...
, or optional (although in less formal contexts, all three types of script may be termed alphabets). The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels. Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term ) and
David Diringer David Diringer (16 June 1900 – 13 February 1975) was a British linguist, palaeographer and writer. He was the author of several well-known books about writing systems. Biography Diringer was born to Jacob Munzer and Mirl Diringer on 16 June ...
(using the term ''semisyllabary''), then in 1959 by
Fred Householder Fred Walter Householder, Jr. (February 1, 1913January 4, 1994) was an American linguist and professor of classics and linguistics at Indiana University. His best known works include ''Linguistic Speculations'' (Cambridge, 1971) and his contributions ...
(introducing the term ''pseudo-alphabet''). The Ethiopic term "abugida" was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. In 1992, Faber suggested "segmentally coded syllabically linear phonographic script", and in 1992 Bright used the term ''alphasyllabary'', and Gnanadesikan and Rimzhim, Katz, & Fowler have suggested ''aksara'' or ''āksharik''. Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of Tibet, South and Southeast Asia, Semitic Ethiopic scripts, and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. As is the case for syllabaries, the units of the writing system may consist of the representations both of syllables and of consonants. For scripts of the Brahmic family, the term '' akshara'' is used for the units.


Terminology

In several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, ''abugida'' traditionally meant letters of the Ethiopic or Ge‘ez script in which many of these languages are written. Ge'ez is one of several segmental writing systems in the world, others include Indic/Brahmic scripts and Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. The word abugida is derived from the four letters, ''ä, bu, gi,'' and ''da'', in much the same way that '' abecedary'' is derived from Latin letters ''a be ce de'', '' abjad'' is derived from the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
''a b j d'', and '' alphabet'' is derived from the names of the two first letters in the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...
, ''alpha'' and ''beta''. ''Abugida'' as a term in linguistics was proposed by Peter T. Daniels in his 1990 typology of writing systems. As Daniels used the word, an abugida is in contrast with a syllabary, where letters with shared consonants or vowels show no particular resemblance to one another, and also with an alphabet proper, where independent letters are used to denote both consonants and vowels. The term ''alphasyllabary'' was suggested for the Indic scripts in 1997 by William Bright, following South Asian linguistic usage, to convey the idea that "they share features of both alphabet and syllabary."


General description

The formal definitions given by Daniels and Bright for abugida and alphasyllabary differ; some writing systems are abugidas but not alphasyllabaries, and some are alphasyllabaries but not abugidas. An abugida is defined as "a type of writing system whose basic characters denote consonants followed by a particular vowel, and in which diacritics denote other vowels". (This 'particular vowel' is referred to as the ''inherent'' or ''implicit'' vowel, as opposed to the ''explicit'' vowels marked by the 'diacritics'.) An alphasyllabary is defined as "a type of writing system in which the vowels are denoted by subsidiary symbols not all of which occur in a linear order (with relation to the consonant symbols) that is congruent with their temporal order in speech". Bright did not require that an alphabet explicitly represent all vowels. ʼPhags-pa is an example of an abugida that is not an alphasyllabary, and modern Lao is an example of an alphasyllabary that is not an abugida, for its vowels are always explicit. This description is expressed in terms of an abugida. Formally, an alphasyllabary that is not an abugida can be converted to an abugida by adding a purely formal vowel sound that is never used and declaring that to be the inherent vowel of the letters representing consonants. This may formally make the system ambiguous, but in practice this is not a problem, for then the interpretation with the never-used inherent vowel sound will always be a wrong interpretation. Note that the actual pronunciation may be complicated by interactions between the sounds apparently written just as the sounds of the letters in the English words ''wan, gem'' and ''war'' are affected by neighbouring letters. The fundamental principles of an abugida apply to words made up of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The syllables are written as a linear sequences of the units of the script. Each syllable is either a letter that represents the sound of a consonant and its inherent vowel or a letter modified to indicate the vowel, either by means of diacritics or by changes in the form of the letter itself. If all modifications are by diacritics and all diacritics follow the direction of the writing of the letters, then the abugida is not an alphasyllabary. However, most languages have words that are more complicated than a sequence of CV syllables, even ignoring tone. The first complication is syllables that consist of just a vowel (V). This issue does not arise in some languages because every syllable starts with a consonant. This is common in Semitic languages and in languages of mainland SE Asia; for such languages this issue need not arise. For some languages, a zero consonant letter is used as though every syllable began with a consonant. For other languages, each vowel has a separate letter that is used for each syllable consisting of just the vowel. These letters are known as ''independent vowels'', and are found in most Indic scripts. These letters may be quite different from the corresponding diacritics, which by contrast are known as ''dependent vowels''. As a result of the spread of writing systems, independent vowels may be used to represent syllables beginning with a glottal stop, even for non-initial syllables. The next two complications are sequences of consonants before a vowel (CCV) and syllables ending in a consonant (CVC). The simplest solution, which is not always available, is to break with the principle of writing words as a sequence of syllables and use a unit representing just a consonant (C). This unit may be represented with: *a modification that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel ( virama), *a lack of vowel marking (often with ambiguity between no vowel and a default inherent vowel), *vowel marking for a short or neutral vowel such as '' schwa'' (with ambiguity between no vowel and that short or neutral vowel), or *a visually unrelated letter. In a true abugida, the lack of distinctive marking may result from the diachronic loss of the inherent vowel, e.g. by syncope and apocope in Hindi. When not handled by decomposition into C + CV, CCV syllables are handled by combining the two consonants. In the Indic scripts, the earliest method was simply to arrange them vertically, but the two consonants may merge as a
conjunct consonant Conjunct consonants are a type of letters, used for example in Brahmi or Brahmi derived modern scripts such as Balinese, Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, etc to write consonant clusters such as or . Although most of the time, letters are forme ...
letters, where two or more letters are graphically joined in a ligature, or otherwise change their shapes. Rarely, one of the consonants may be replaced by a gemination mark, e.g. the Gurmukhi '' addak''. When they are arranged vertically, as in Burmese or Khmer, they are said to be 'stacked'. Often there has been a change to writing the two consonants side by side. In the latter case, the fact of combination may be indicated by a diacritic on one of the consonants or a change in the form of one of the consonants, e.g. the half forms of Devanagari. Generally, the reading order is top to bottom or the general reading order of the script, but sometimes the order is reversed. The division of a word into syllables for the purposes of writing does not always accord with the natural phonetics of the language. For example, Brahmic scripts commonly handle a phonetic sequence CVC-CV as CV-CCV or CV-C-CV. However, sometimes phonetic CVC syllables are handled as single units, and the final consonant may be represented: *in much the same way as the second consonant in CCV, e.g. in the
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
, Khmer and Tai Tham scripts. The positioning of the components may be slightly different, as in Khmer and Tai Tham. *by a special dependent consonant sign, which may be a smaller or differently placed version of the full consonant letter, or may be a distinct sign altogether. *not at all. For example, repeated consonants need not be represented, homorganic nasals may be ignored, and in Philippine scripts, the syllable-final consonant was traditionally never represented. More complicated unit structures (e.g. CC or CCVC) are handled by combining the various techniques above.


Family-specific features

There are three principal families of abugidas, depending on whether vowels are indicated by modifying consonants by ''diacritics, distortion,'' or ''orientation.'' *The oldest and largest is the
Brahmic The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient In ...
family of India and Southeast Asia, in which vowels are marked with diacritics and syllable-final consonants, when they occur, are indicated with ligatures, diacritics, or with a special vowel-canceling mark. *In the Ethiopic family, vowels are marked by modifying the shapes of the consonants, and one of the vowel-forms serves additionally to indicate final consonants. *In Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, vowels are marked by rotating or flipping the consonants, and final consonants are indicated with either special diacritics or superscript forms of the main initial consonants.
Tāna Thaana, Taana or Tāna (  ) is the present writing system of the Maldivian language spoken in the Maldives. Thaana has characteristics of both an abugida (diacritic, vowel-killer strokes) and a true alphabet (all vowels are written), w ...
of the
Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...
has dependent vowels and a zero vowel sign, but no inherent vowel.


Indic (Brahmic)

Indic scripts originated in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
and spread to Southeast Asia,
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet,
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...
, and
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
. All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of the
Brahmi alphabet Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
. Today they are used in most languages of
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...
(although replaced by
Perso-Arabic The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...
in
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
and some other languages of
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
and
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
), mainland Southeast Asia (
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), Tibet (
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
),
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
n archipelago ( Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese),
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
( Baybayin, Buhid, Hanunuo, Kulitan, and Aborlan Tagbanwa),
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
( Rencong, etc.). The primary division is with North Indic scripts, used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Russia; and Southern Indic scripts, used in South India,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
and Southeast Asia. South Indic letter forms are more rounded than North Indic forms, though
Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
, Golmol and Litumol of Nepal script are rounded. Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, with
Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
and
Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
as exceptions; South Indic scripts do not. Indic scripts indicate vowels through dependent vowel signs (diacritics) around the consonants, often including a sign that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel. If a consonant has no vowel sign, this indicates a default vowel. Vowel diacritics may appear above, below, to the left, to the right, or around the consonant. The most widely used Indic script is
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
, shared by
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
, Bihari, Marathi, Konkani,
Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...
, and often Sanskrit. A basic letter such as in Hindi represents a syllable with the default vowel, in this case ''ka'' (). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this case ''k''. The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark ( diacritics), producing syllables such as कि ''ki,'' कु ''ku,'' के ''ke,'' को ''ko.'' In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so a vowel marker like ि ''-i,'' falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced. For example, the game cricket in
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
is क्रिकेट ''cricket;'' the diacritic for appears before the consonant cluster , not before the . A more unusual example is seen in the
Batak alphabet The Batak script (natively known as ''surat Batak'', ''surat na sampulu sia'' ("the nineteen letters"), or ''si-sia-sia'') is a writing system used to write the Austronesian languages, Austronesian Batak languages spoken by several million pe ...
: Here the syllable ''bim'' is written ''ba-ma-i-(virama)''. That is, the vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable. In many abugidas, there is also a diacritic to suppress the inherent vowel, yielding the bare consonant. In
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
, क् is ''k,'' and ल् is ''l''. This is called the '' virāma'' or ''halantam'' in Sanskrit. It may be used to form consonant clusters, or to indicate that a consonant occurs at the end of a word. Thus in Sanskrit, a default vowel consonant such as क does not take on a final consonant sound. Instead, it keeps its vowel. For writing two consonants without a vowel in between, instead of using diacritics on the first consonant to remove its vowel, another popular method of special conjunct forms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari: क्ल ''kla.'' (Note that some fonts display this as क् followed by ल, rather than forming a conjunct. This expedient is used by ISCII and South Asian scripts of Unicode.) Thus a closed syllable such as ''kal'' requires two ''aksharas'' to write. The
Róng The Lepcha script, or Róng script, is an abugida used by the Lepcha people to write the Lepcha language. Unusually for an abugida, syllable-final consonants are written as diacritics. History Lepcha is derived from the Tibetan script, and ma ...
script used for the Lepcha language goes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a single ''akshara'' can represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example, the syllable okwould be written as something like s̥̽, here with an underring representing and an overcross representing the diacritic for final . Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as or , if they can indicate any at all.


Ethiopic

In Ethiopic or Ge'ez script, ''fidels'' (individual "letters" of the script) have "diacritics" that are fused with the consonants to the point that they must be considered modifications of the form of the letters. Children learn each modification separately, as in a syllabary; nonetheless, the graphic similarities between syllables with the same consonant are readily apparent, unlike the case in a true syllabary. Though now an abugida, the Ge'ez script, until the advent of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
(''ca.'' AD 350), had originally been what would now be termed an '' abjad''. In the Ge'ez abugida (or ''fidel''), the base form of the letter (also known as ''fidel'') may be altered. For example, ሀ ''hä'' (base form), ሁ ''hu'' (with a right-side diacritic that doesn't alter the letter), ሂ ''hi'' (with a subdiacritic that compresses the consonant, so it is the same height), ህ ''hə'' or (where the letter is modified with a kink in the left arm).


Canadian Aboriginal syllabics

In the family known as Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, which was inspired by the Devanagari script of India, vowels are indicated by changing the orientation of the syllabogram. Each vowel has a consistent orientation; for example, Inuktitut ᐱ ''pi,'' ᐳ ''pu,'' ᐸ ''pa;'' ᑎ ''ti,'' ᑐ ''tu,'' ᑕ ''ta''. Although there is a vowel inherent in each, all rotations have equal status and none can be identified as basic. Bare consonants are indicated either by separate diacritics, or by superscript versions of the ''aksharas''; there is no vowel-killer mark.


Borderline cases


Vowelled abjads

Consonantal scripts (" abjads") are normally written without indication of many vowels. However, in some contexts like teaching materials or scriptures,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and Hebrew are written with full indication of vowels via diacritic marks (''
harakat The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...
'', '' niqqud'') making them effectively alphasyllabaries. The Brahmic and Ethiopic families are thought to have originated from the Semitic abjads by the addition of vowel marks. The Arabic scripts used for Kurdish in Iraq and for Uyghur in Xinjiang, China, as well as the Hebrew script of Yiddish, are fully vowelled, but because the vowels are written with full letters rather than diacritics (with the exception of distinguishing between /a/ and /o/ in the latter) and there are no inherent vowels, these are considered alphabets, not abugidas.


Phagspa

The imperial Mongol script called Phagspa was derived from the Tibetan abugida, but all vowels are written in-line rather than as diacritics. However, it retains the features of having an inherent vowel /a/ and having distinct initial vowel letters.


Pahawh

Pahawh Hmong is a non-segmental script that indicates syllable onsets and rimes, such as consonant clusters and vowels with final consonants. Thus it is not segmental and cannot be considered an abugida. However, it superficially resembles an abugida with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. Most syllables are written with two letters in the order rime–onset (typically vowel-consonant), even though they are pronounced as onset-rime (consonant-vowel), rather like the position of the vowel in Devanagari, which is written before the consonant. Pahawh is also unusual in that, while an inherent rime (with mid tone) is unwritten, it also has an inherent onset . For the syllable , which requires one or the other of the inherent sounds to be overt, it is that is written. Thus it is the rime (vowel) that is basic to the system.


Meroitic

It is difficult to draw a dividing line between abugidas and other segmental scripts. For example, the Meroitic script of ancient Sudan did not indicate an inherent ''a'' (one symbol stood for both ''m'' and ''ma,'' for example), and is thus similar to Brahmic family of abugidas. However, the other vowels were indicated with full letters, not diacritics or modification, so the system was essentially an alphabet that did not bother to write the most common vowel.


Shorthand

Several systems of shorthand use diacritics for vowels, but they do not have an inherent vowel, and are thus more similar to Thaana and Kurdish script than to the Brahmic scripts. The
Gabelsberger shorthand Gabelsberger shorthand, named for its creator, is a form of shorthand previously common in Germany and Austria. Created c. 1817 by Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, it was first fully described in the 1834 textbook ''Anleitung zur deutschen Redezeichen ...
system and its derivatives modify the ''following'' consonant to represent vowels. The Pollard script, which was based on shorthand, also uses diacritics for vowels; the placements of the vowel relative to the consonant indicates tone. Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle marks in different orientations as the principal "alphabet" of consonants; vowels are shown as light and heavy dots, dashes and other marks in one of 3 possible positions to indicate the various vowel-sounds. However, to increase writing speed, Pitman has rules for "vowel indication" using the positioning or choice of consonant signs so that writing vowel-marks can be dispensed with.


Development

As the term ''alphasyllabary'' suggests, abugidas have been considered an intermediate step between alphabets and
syllabaries In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
. Historically, abugidas appear to have evolved from abjads (vowelless alphabets). They contrast with syllabaries, where there is a distinct symbol for each syllable or consonant-vowel combination, and where these have no systematic similarity to each other, and typically develop directly from logographic scripts. Compare the examples above to sets of syllables in the Japanese hiragana syllabary: か ''ka'', き ''ki'', く ''ku'', け ''ke'', こ ''ko'' have nothing in common to indicate ''k;'' while ら ''ra'', り ''ri'', る ''ru'', れ ''re'', ろ ''ro'' have neither anything in common for ''r'', nor anything to indicate that they have the same vowels as the ''k'' set. Most Indian and Indochinese abugidas appear to have first been developed from abjads with the Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī scripts; the abjad in question is usually considered to be the Aramaic one, but while the link between Aramaic and Kharosthi is more or less undisputed, this is not the case with Brahmi. The Kharosthi family does not survive today, but Brahmi's descendants include most of the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. Ge'ez derived from a different abjad, the Sabean script of Yemen; the advent of vowels coincided with the introduction or adoption of Christianity about AD 350. The Ethiopic script is the elaboration of an abjad. The Cree syllabary was invented with full knowledge of the Devanagari system. The Meroitic script was developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs, within which various schemes of 'group writing' had been used for showing vowels.


List of abugidas

* Brahmic family, descended from Brāhmī (c. 6th century BC) ** Ahom ** Assamese ** Balinese ** Batak Toba and other Batak languages ** Baybayin Ilocano, Pangasinan,
Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Taga ...
, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other Philippine languages **
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
** Bhaiksuki ** Brahmi Sanskrit, Prakrit ** Buhid ** Burmese Burmese, Karen languages,
Mon Mon, MON or Mon. may refer to: Places * Mon State, a subdivision of Myanmar * Mon, India, a town in Nagaland * Mon district, Nagaland * Mon, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India * Mon, Switzerland, a village in the Canton of Grisons * A ...
, and Shan **
Chakma Chakma may refer to: *Chakma people, a Tibeto-Burman people of Bangladesh and Northeast India *Chakma language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them **Chakma script The Chakma Script (''Ajhā pāṭh''), also called Ajhā pāṭh, Ojhapath, O ...
** Cham **
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
, Sanskrit, Marathi,
Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...
, Konkani and other languages of northern India ** Dhives Akuru ** GranthaSanskrit **
Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
Gujarāti, Kachchi ** Gurmukhi script
Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...
** Hanunó’o ** Javanese **Kaganga Lampung, Rencong, Rejang ** Kaithi Bhojpuri and other languages of northern and eastern India ** Kannada Kannada,
Tulu Tulu may refer to: People *Derartu Tulu (born 1972), Ethiopian long-distance runner *Walid Yacoubou (born 1997), Togolese footballer nicknamed "Tulu" India *Tulu calendar, traditional solar calendar generally used in the regions of southwest Kar ...
, Konkani, Kodava ** Kawi ** Khmer **
Khojki Khojkī, Khojakī, or Khwājā Sindhī ( sd, خوجڪي (Arabic script) खोजकी (Devanagari)), is a script used formerly and almost exclusively by the Khoja community of parts of the Indian subcontinent, including Sindh, Gujarat, and P ...
** Khotanese ** Khudawadi ** Kolezhuthu
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
,
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
** Kulitan ** Lao **
Leke Leke is a town in Diksmuide, a part of Belgium in the province of West Flanders ) , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of West Flanders.svg , flag_size = , image_shield ...
** Lepcha ** Limbu ** Lontara' Buginese, Makassar, and Mandar ** Mahajani **
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
**
Malayanma Malayanma script was a writing system used in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala. It was used to write the Malayalam language. Malayanma belongs to the same script family like Kolezhuthu Koleḻuttu, popularly romanised as Kolezhuthu (ക� ...
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
** Marchen
Zhang-Zhung Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies ...
**
Meetei Mayek ) , altname = , type = Abugida , languages = Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) , region = * Manipur , sample = "Meitei Mayek" (literally meaning "Meitei script" in Meitei language) written ...
** Meroitic ** Modi Marathi ** Multani Saraiki ** NandinagariSanskrit ** Newar
Nepal Bhasa Newar (), or Newari and known officially in Nepal as Nepal Bhasa, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Newar people, the indigenous inhabitants of Nepal Mandala, which consists of the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions in Nep ...
, Sanskrit ** New Tai Lue **
Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
** Pallava scriptTamil, Sanskrit, various Prakrits ** Phags-pa Mongolian, Chinese, and other languages of the Yuan dynasty Mongol Empire ** Ranjana
Nepal Bhasa Newar (), or Newari and known officially in Nepal as Nepal Bhasa, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Newar people, the indigenous inhabitants of Nepal Mandala, which consists of the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions in Nep ...
, Sanskrit ** Sharada Sanskrit ** Siddham Sanskrit ** Sinhala **
Sourashtra Saurashtra (Saurashtra script: , Tamil script: சௌராட்டிர மொழி, Devanagari script: सौराष्ट्र भाषा) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily by the Saurashtrians of Southern India who migrated ...
** Soyombo ** Sundanese ** Sylheti Nagri Sylheti language **
Tagbanwa The Tagbanwa people ( Tagbanwa: ) are one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Philippines, and can be mainly found in the central and northern Palawan. Research has shown that the Tagbanwa are possible descendants of the Tabon Man, thus making th ...
Palawan languages The Palawanic languages are a subgroup in the Greater Central Philippine-family spoken on the island of Palawan and nearby islets. Languages The Palawanic languages are: * Palawano (a dialect cluster) * Aborlan Tagbanwa * Central Tagbanwa (no ...
**
Tai Dam The Tai Dam ( Tai Dam: , lo, ໄຕດຳ, th, ไทดำ) are an ethnic minority predominantly from China, northwest Vietnam, Laos, Thailand. They are part of the Tai peoples and ethnically similar to the Thai from Thailand, the Lao fro ...
** Tai Le ** Tai Tham Khün, and Northern Thai **
Takri The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu/Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada script formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister script ...
**
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
**
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...
** Thai **
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
** Tigalari Sanskrit,
Tulu Tulu may refer to: People *Derartu Tulu (born 1972), Ethiopian long-distance runner *Walid Yacoubou (born 1997), Togolese footballer nicknamed "Tulu" India *Tulu calendar, traditional solar calendar generally used in the regions of southwest Kar ...
** Tirhuta Maithili ** Tocharian ** Vatteluttu
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
,
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
** Zanabazar Square **
Zhang zhung Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies ...
scripts * Kharoṣṭhī, from the 3rd century BC * Ge'ez, from the 4th century AD * Canadian Aboriginal syllabics ** Cree Ojibwe syllabics ** Blackfoot syllabics ** Carrier syllabics ** Inuktitut syllabics * Pollard script * Pitman shorthand


Fictional

* Tengwar *Ihathvé Sabethired


Abugida-like scripts

* Meroitic (an alphabet with an inherent vowel) – Meroitic, Old Nubian (possibly) * Thaana (abugida with no inherent vowel)


References


External links


Syllabic alphabets

Omniglot's
list of abugidas, including examples of various writing systems

– list of abugidas and other scripts (in Spanish)

{{list of writing systems