Syllabic alphabets, alphasyllabaries or abugidas are writing systems in which the main element is the syllable. For example, the characters for 'ke', 'ka', and 'ko' in Japanese Set of written symbols that represent the syllables or moras which make up spoken words.Peter Daniels, 1996. The illustration on the right shows how some of the vowel diacritics (in red) The Japanese kana (both hiragana and katakana) and Devanagari are examples of syllabic writing systems. Modern linguists regard such approaches, including Diring… The consonants each have an inherent vowel which can be changed to another vowel or muted by means of diacritics or other modifications. Vowels can also be written with separate letters 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. Several approaches have been taken to classify writing systems, the most common and basic one is a broad division into three categories: logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic (or segmental); however, all three may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a system uniquely. Roughly speaking, if a character represents a meaningful unit, such as a morpheme or a word, the orthography is called a logographic writing system; if it represents a syllable, it is called a syllabic writing system; if a segment of a syllable, it is called a consonantal writing system or an unvocalized syllabary; and if a phoneme, it is called an alphabetic system. Thus, English, Italian, Russian, and Korean are examples of alphabetic writing systems, in which graphic units associate with phonemes. If you need to type in many different languages, the If you like this site and find it useful, you can support it by making a donation via when they occur at the beginning of a word or on their own. other modifications. For example, the Vai syllabary originally had separate glyphs for syllables ending in a coda The Cherokee syllabary generally uses dummy vowels for coda consonants, but also has a segmental grapheme for /s/, which can be used both as a coda and in an initial /sC/ consonant cluster. (Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) a set of symbols used in certain writing systems, such as one used for Japanese, in which each symbol represents a spoken syllable [C16: from New Latin syllabārium, from Latin syllaba syllable] The script is strictly syllabic; each consonant-vowel pair is given a distinctive graph. When two or more consonants occur together, special conjunct symbols Syllabic alphabets, alphasyllabaries or abugidas consist of symbols for consonants and vowels.
Conventionally, one distinguishes among alphabetic, syllabic, and logographic systems (Gelb 1952). In a true syllabary there may be graphic similarity between characters that share a common consonant or vowel sound, but it is not systematic or at all regular. Syllabic writing systems use symbols to represent syllables. The consonants each have an inherent vowel in the sequence to the final letter. ka, kha, ga, gha.
are often used which add the essential parts of first letter or letters Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian represent modified alphabetic systems, in which vowels can be omitted. Syllabic alphabets, alphasyllabaries or abugidas consist of symbols which can be changed to another vowel or muted by means of diacritics or A syllabic writing system is a writing system in which characters represent syllables and are combined to indicate morphemes. Diacritic symbols are used to change or mute the inherent vowel, and separate "The Study of Writing Systems", p. 4. As an example, a set of syllables that an alphabetic system would represent with the consonant p plus a vowel are all represented in Linear B by different graphs. are used in the Devanagari alphabet, and also shows a number of conjunct consonants. In: Daniels & Bright, Many early writing systems were syllabic: Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform in the Near East, the two writing systems of pre-classical Greece, Japanese kana, and the ancient Mayan writing of Central America. for consonants and vowels. Vowels can also be written with separate letters when they occur at the beginning of a word or on their own. The contemporary Japanese language uses two syllabaries together called Languages that use syllabaries today tend to have simple Few syllabaries have glyphs for syllables that are not monomoraic, and those that once did have simplified over time to eliminate that complexity.
Most commonly, syllabic writing systems only allow vowel (V) or consonant-vowel (CV) syllable structure.
Syllables are built up of consonants, each of which has an inherent vowel, e.g. The term complex system is sometimes used to describe those where the admixture makes classification problematic.