Syllabic glyphs . A glyph (from the Greek glýfō, γλύφω, to carve or carve) is an engraved sign or, by extension, written or painted. For example, the glyphs of Mayan writing. The graphic signs used in Ancient Egypt are called hieroglyphs (from the Greek sacred carvings).
Summary
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- 1 Syllabary_ (writing_system)
- 2 Types
- 3 Languages that use syllabaries
- 4 Other languages with syllabic writing
- 5 Sources
Syllabary_ (writing_system)
A syllabary is a set of written characters or symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables that make up words. A symbol in a syllabary usually represents a consonant sound followed by a vowel sound. In a true syllabary, there are no graphic similarities between phonetically related characters, although some do have graphic similarities for vowels. This means that the characters representing “ke”, “ka” and “ko” do not have a graphic similarity to indicate the “k” sound they share.
Types
A writing system that uses a syllabary is complete when it covers all the syllables that are present in the corresponding spoken language without resorting to complex spelling rules such as silent vowels, echo vowels or implicit codas. True syllabi are those that manage to cover all parts of a syllable, for example, beginning, middle core, and ending ending. However, while beginning and ending are optional in at least some languages, there are true middle (kernel), beginning (beginning-kernel), final (kernel-ending), and complete (beginning-kernel-ending) syllabograms. Most syllables only show one or two types of syllables and form other syllables using spelling rules.
Syllabus ____ syllabaries are pure, analytical, or arbitrary if they do not share graphical similarities that correspond to phonic similarities, for example, the symbol for ka does not in any predictable way reflect the symbol for ki or the symbol for a. On the other hand, they are synthetic if they vary by beginning, ___, nucleus or coda, and they are systematic if they vary by all of them.
Languages that use syllabaries
Languages that use syllabaries include Mycenaean Greek (linear B), the Cherokee language (from North America), the Vai language (from Africa), Ndyuka (written with the syllabary afaka), and the Yi language (from China). Furthermore, Cretan Linear A, not yet deciphered, is believed to have been a syllabic script. Chinese, Mayan writing and cuneiform are highly syllabic systems in nature, although based on logograms, therefore they are also called logosyllabic. The Japanese writing uses two syllabaries together called kana, which are hiragana and katakana. They are mainly used to write grammatical words as well as foreign words, for example, hotel is ho-te-ru and is written with three kanas ホ テ ル. Since the typical Japanese syllable is CV (consonant + vowel), the syllabary is well adapted to writing the language.
On the other hand, Spanish admits more complex syllabic structures, making it difficult to write using a syllabary. The characters for “ba”, “be”, “bi”, “bo”, “bu”, “bla” ~ “blu”, “bra” ~ “bru”, “bar” ~ “bur”, should be different. etc. Thus, the syllabary is only a reasonable option in languages that have simple syllables of type CV or similar. However, it is often argued that Japanese writing is not purely syllabic, but “moraic”, since each character corresponds to a mora.
Other languages with syllabic writing
Other languages that use syllable writing include Chinese, Archaic Greek with Linear B, and Cypriot syllabary; Native American languages such as Cherokee, Ojibwa, Cree, or Eskimo, and African languages such as Vai and Mende (or Kikaku). The cuneiform , made up of many different systems representing a variety of languages very diverse and not always related, also makes use of syllabic systems, albeit with certain abundance of logographic elements in languages extinct such as the Sumerian and Akkadian; however, some cuneiform scripts, such as Ugaritic, are alphabets. The Maya writing, for its part, it also makes a complex use of fusion between syllabary and logographic elements in its glyphs where polyvalent relationships of both polyphony and homophony abound . Ethiopian and many languages of the Indian subcontinent have alphabets known as abugidas which may appear syllabary to a Westerner, but are not. They both use different symbols for consonants and vowels. Frequently the symbol for the vowel is added to that of the consonant, creating the impression of a syllabic unit.
