Everything about Semi-syllabary totally explained
A
semi-syllabary is a kind of
writing system that partly behaved as an
alphabet, and partly as a
syllabary.
Most
writing systems can be broadly divided into three categories:
logographic, in which each character represents a
morpheme as in
Chinese,
syllabic, in which each character represents a
syllable as in
Japanese hiragana, and
alphabetic, in which each character represents a
phoneme. Alphabets are in turn classified according to how they indicate
vowels. Full
alphabets: if they indicate
vowels as equal to
consonants, as in
Greek.
Abugidas: If they indicate vowels as modifications of consonants, as in
Hindi.
Abjads: If they not indicate vowels at all, as in
Arabic. However, all three main categories (logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic) may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a system uniquely. The term complex system is sometimes used to describe those where the admixture makes classification problematic.
The term semi-syllabary has been traditionally applied to
abugidas, as in this
writing systems each basic
character represents a
consonant accompanied by an inherent
vowel and other vowels are indicated by modification of the consonant sign, either by means of
diacritics or through a change in the form of the consonant.
But there are also a family of scripts developed in the
Iberian Peninsula at least from the 5th century BCE — possibly from the 7th century: The
Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries. Some researchers conclude that their origin lies solely with the
Phoenician alphabet, while others believe the
Greek alphabet also had a role.
Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries are typologically unusual because in them the syllabic and the alphabetic components are equilibrated: They behaved as a
syllabary for the
stop consonants and as an
alphabet for the rest of consonants and vowels. In the syllabic portions of the scripts, each stop-consonant sign stood for a different combination of consonant and vowel, so that the written form of
ga displayed no resemblance to
ge. In addition, the southern original format didn't distinguish
voicing in these stops, so that
ga stood for both /ga/ and /ka/, but one variant of the
northeastern Iberian script, the older one according the archaeological contexts, distinguished
voicing in the stop consonants by adding a stroke to the glyphs for the
alveolar (/d/~/t/) and
velar (/g/~/k/) syllables. The Tartessian or Southwestern script had a special behaviour, although the letter used to write a stop consonant was determined by the following vowel, the following vowel was also written. Some scholars treat Tartessian as a redundant semi-syllabary, others treat it as a redundant alphabet.
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