Abugida

Not to be confused withAbjadorSemi-syllabary.

Anabugida(/ˌɑːbuːˈɡiːdə,ˌæb-/;fromGe'ez:አቡጊዳ) – sometimes also calledAlpha syllabary,neosyllabary,orpseudo- Alpha bet– is a segmentalwriting systemin which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on aconsonantletter, andvowelnotation is secondary, similar to adiacritical mark.This contrasts with a fullAlpha bet,in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with anabjad,in which vowel marking is absent,partial,or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of the script may be termed "Alpha bets".The terms also contrast them with asyllabary,in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel.

Comparison of various abugidas descended fromBrahmi script.Meaning:MayŚivaprotect those who take delight in the language of the gods.(Kalidasa)

Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 byJames Germain Février(using the termnéosyllabisme)andDavid Diringer(using the termsemisyllabary),then in 1959 byFred Householder(introducing the termpseudo- Alpha bet).TheEthiopicterm "abugida" was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 byPeter T. Daniels.In 1992, Faber suggested "segmentally coded syllabically linear phonographic script", and in 1992 Bright used the termAlpha syllabary,and Gnanadesikan and Rimzhim, Katz, & Fowler have suggestedaksaraorāksharik.

Abugidas include the extensiveBrahmic family of scriptsof Tibet, South and Southeast Asia,SemiticEthiopic scripts, andCanadian 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 termaksharais used for the units.

Etymology

In several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea,abugidatraditionally meant letters of the Ethiopic orGe‘ez scriptin which many of these languages are written. Ge'ez is one of several segmental writing systems in the world, others includeIndic/Brahmic scriptsandCanadian Aboriginal Syllabics.The word abugida is derived from the four letters,'ä, bu, gi,andda,in much the same way thatabecedaryis derived from Latin lettersa be ce de,abjadis derived from theArabica b j d,andAlpha betis derived from the names of the two first letters in theGreek Alpha bet,Alphaandbeta.Abugidaas a term in linguistics was proposed byPeter T. Danielsin his 1990typologyofwriting systems.

Terminology

As Daniels used the word, an abugida is in contrast with asyllabary,where letters with shared consonant or vowel sounds show no particular resemblance to one another. Furthermore, an abugida is also in contrast with anAlpha betproper, where independent letters are used to denote both consonants and vowels. The termAlpha syllabarywas suggested for the Indic scripts in 1997 byWilliam Bright,following South Asian linguistic usage, to convey the idea that, "they share features of both Alpha bet and syllabary."

The formal definitions given by Daniels and Bright for abugida and Alpha syllabary differ; some writing systems are abugidas but not Alpha syllabaries, and some are Alpha syllabaries 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 theinherentorimplicitvowel, as opposed to theexplicitvowels marked by the 'diacritics'.)

An Alpha syllabary 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 Alpha bet explicitly represent all vowels.ʼPhags-pais an example of an abugida because it has aninherent vowel,but it is not an Alpha syllabary because its vowels are written in linear order. ModernLaois an example of an Alpha syllabary that is not an abugida, for there is no inherent vowel and its vowels are always written explicitly and not in accordance to their temporal order in speech, meaning that a vowel can be written before, below or above a consonant letter, while the syllable is still pronounced in the order of a consonant-vowel combination (CV).

General description

The fundamental principles of an abugida apply to words made up of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The syllables are written as letters in a straight line, where 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. Letters can be modified either by means ofdiacriticsor 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 Alpha syllabary. 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). For some languages, azero consonantletter 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 asindependent vowels,and are found in most Indic scripts. These letters may be quite different from the corresponding diacritics, which by contrast are known asdependent vowels.As a result of the spread of writing systems, independent vowels may be used to represent syllables beginning with aglottal stop,even for non-initial syllables.

The next two complications areconsonant clustersbefore 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 letter representing just a consonant (C). Thisfinal consonantmay be represented with:

• a modification of the final letter that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel (virama),
• a lack of vowel marking on the letter (often with ambiguity between no vowel and a defaultinherent vowel),
• vowel marking on the letter for a short or neutral vowel such asschwa(with ambiguity between no vowel and that short or neutral vowel), or
• a visually unrelated letter.

In a true abugida, the lack of distinctive vowel marking of the letter may result from the diachronic loss of the inherent vowel, e.g. bysyncopeandapocopeinHindi.

When not separating syllables containing consonant clusters (CCV) into C + CV, these syllables are often written by combining the two consonants. In the Indic scripts, the earliest method was simply to arrange them vertically, writing the second consonant of the cluster below the first one. The two consonants may also merge asconjunct consonantletters, where two or more letters are graphically joined in aligature,or otherwise change their shapes. Rarely, one of the consonants may be replaced by a gemination mark, e.g. theGurmukhiaddak.

When they are arranged vertically, as inBurmeseorKhmer,they are said to be 'stacked'. Often there has been a change to writing the two consonants side by side. In the latter case, this 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. thehalf formsof Devanagari. Generally, the reading order of stacked consonants is top to bottom, or the general reading order of the script, but sometimes the reading order can be 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 theTibetan,KhmerandTai Thamscripts. 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 inBaybayinandMakasar script,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.

Examples using theDevanagariscript

• K= /ka/ =
• Ki= /ki/ =
• K*= /k/ =(with aHalantunder the character)
• K*M= /kma/ =
• İK= /ika/ =
• İK*= /ik/ =
• İKi= /iki/ =
• etc.

Family-specific features

There are three principal families of abugidas, depending on whether vowels are indicated by modifying consonants bydiacritics, distortion,ororientation.

• The oldest and largest is theBrahmicfamily of India and Southeast Asia, in which vowels are marked withdiacriticsand syllable-final consonants, when they occur, are indicated withligatures,diacritics, or with a specialvowel-canceling mark.
• In theEthiopic family,vowels are marked by modifying the shapes of the consonants, and one of the vowel-forms serves additionally to indicate final consonants.
• InCanadian 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.

LaoandTānahave dependent vowels and a zero vowel sign, but no inherent vowel.

Feature	North Indic	South Indic	Tāna	Ethiopic	Canadian Aboriginal
Vowel representation after consonant	Dependent sign (diacritic) in distinct position per vowel			Fused diacritic	Rotate/reflect
Initial vowel representation	Distinct inline letter per vowel	Glottal stoporzero consonant plus dependent vowel		Glottal stop plus dependent	Zero consonant plus dependent
Inherent vowel (value of no vowel sign)	[ə],[ɔ],[a],or[o]		No	[ɐ]	N/A
Zero vowel sign (sign for no value)	Often	Always used when no final vowel		Ambiguous with ə ([ɨ])	Shrunk or separate letter
Consonant cluster	Conjunct	Stacked or separate	Separate
Final consonant (not sign)	Inline		Inline		Inline
Distinct final sign	Only forṃ,ḥ		No		Only inWestern
Final sign position	Inline or top	Inline, top or occasionally bottom	N/A		Raised or inline
Exceptions

Indic (Brahmic)

See also:Brahmic scripts

Indic scripts originated inIndiaand spread toSoutheast Asia,Bangladesh,Sri Lanka,Nepal,Bhutan,Tibet,Mongolia,andRussia.All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of theBrahmi Alpha bet.Today they are used in most languages ofSouth Asia(although replaced byPerso-ArabicinUrdu,Kashmiriand some other languages ofPakistanandIndia), mainlandSoutheast Asia(Myanmar,Thailand,Laos,Cambodia,andVietnam),Tibet(Tibetan),Indonesianarchipelago (Javanese,Balinese,Sundanese,Batak,Lontara,Rejang,Rencong,Makasar,etc.),Philippines(Baybayin,Buhid,Hanunuo,Kulitan,andAborlan Tagbanwa),Malaysia(Rencong).

The primary division is with North Indic scripts, used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Russia; and Southern Indic scripts, used inSouth India,Sri LankaandSoutheast Asia.South Indic letter forms are more rounded than North Indic forms, thoughOdia,GolmolandLitumolof Nepal script are rounded. Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, withGujaratiandOdiaas 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 isDevanagari,shared byHindi,Bihari,Marathi,Konkani,Nepali,and oftenSanskrit.A basic letter such asकin Hindi represents a syllable with the default vowel, in this caseka([kə]). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this casek.The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark (diacritics), producing syllables such as किki,कुku,केke,कोko.

A 19th-century manuscript in theDevanagari script

Diacritic placement in Brahmic abugidas

position	syllable	pronunciation	base form	script
above	के	/keː/	क/k(a)/	Devanagari
below	कु	/ku/
left	कि	/ki/
right	को	/koː/
around	கௌ	/kau̯/	க/ka/	Tamil
within	கி	/ki/
surround	កៀ	/kie/	ក/kɑː/	Khmer
within	ಕಿ	/ki/	ಕ/ka/	Kannada
within	కి	/ki/	క/ka/	Telugu
below and extend to the right	ꦏꦾ	/kja/	ꦏ/ka/	Javanese
below and extend to the left	ꦏꦿꦸ	/kru/

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 gamecricketinHindiis क्रिकेटkrikeṭ;the diacritic for/i/appears before theconsonant cluster/kr/,not before the/r/.A more unusual example is seen in theBatak Alpha bet:Here the syllablebimis writtenba-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. InDevanagari,क् isk,and ल् isl.This is called thevirāmaorhalantamin Sanskrit. It may be used to formconsonant 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 specialconjunctforms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari: क्लkla.(Some fonts display this as क् followed by ल, rather than forming a conjunct. This expedient is used byISCIIand South Asian scripts ofUnicode.) Thus a closed syllable such askalrequires twoaksharasto write.

TheRóngscript used for theLepcha languagegoes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a singleaksharacan represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example, the syllable [sok] would be written as something like s̥̽, here with an underring representing/o/and an overcross representing the diacritic for final/k/.Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as/ŋ/or/r/,if they can indicate any at all.

Ethiopic

TheGe'ez script,an abugida ofEritreaandEthiopia

InEthiopic 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 truesyllabary.

Though now an abugida, theGe'ez script,until the advent ofChristianity(ca.AD350), had originally been what would now be termed anabjad.In theGe'ez abugida(orfidel), the base form of the letter (also known asfidel) may be altered. For example, ሀhä[hə](base form), ሁhu(with a right-side diacritic that does not alter the letter), ሂhi(with a subdiacritic that compresses the consonant, so it is the same height), ህhə[hɨ]or[h](where the letter is modified with a kink in the left arm).

Canadian Aboriginal syllabics

In the family known asCanadian Aboriginal syllabics,which was inspired by theDevanagari scriptof India, vowels are indicated by changing the orientation of thesyllabogram.Each vowel has a consistent orientation; for example,Inuktitutᐱpi,ᐳpu,ᐸpa;ᑎti,ᑐtu,ᑕta.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 theaksharas;there is no vowel-killer mark.

Borderline cases

Vowelled abjads

Abjads are typically written without indication of many vowels. However, in some contexts like teaching materials orscriptures,ArabicandHebreware written with full indication of vowels via diacritic marks (harakat,niqqud) making them effectively Alpha syllabaries.

The Arabic scripts used forKurdishin Iraq and forUyghurinXin gian g,China, as well as the Hebrew script ofYiddish,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 Alpha bets, not abugidas.

The Arabic script used forSouth Azerbaijanigenerally writes the vowel /æ/ (written as ə in North Azerbaijani) as a diacritic, but writes all other vowels as full letters (similarly to Kurdish and Uyghur). This means that when no vowel diacritics are present (most of the time), it technically has an inherent vowel. However, like the Phagspa and Meroitic scripts whose status as abugidas is controversial (see below), all other vowels are written in-line. Additionally, the practice of explicitly writing all-but-one vowel does not apply to loanwords from Arabic and Persian, so the script does not have an inherent vowel for Arabic and Persian words. The inconsistency of its vowel notation makes it difficult to categorize.

Phagspa

The imperial Mongol script calledPhagspawas 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 Hmongis a non-segmental script that indicatessyllable onsetsandrimes,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/i/vowel in Devanagari, which is written before the consonant. Pahawh is also unusual in that, while an inherent rime/āu/(with mid tone) is unwritten, it also has an inherent onset/k/.For the syllable/kau/,which requires one or the other of the inherent sounds to be overt, it is/au/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 othersegmentalscripts. For example, theMeroitic scriptof ancientSudandid not indicate an inherenta(one symbol stood for bothmandma,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 Alpha bet that did not bother to write the most common vowel.

Shorthand

Several systems ofshorthanduse diacritics for vowels, but they do not have an inherent vowel, and are thus more similar toThaanaandKurdish scriptthan to the Brahmic scripts. TheGabelsberger shorthandsystem and its derivatives modify thefollowingconsonant to represent vowels. ThePollard script,which was based on shorthand, also uses diacritics for vowels; the placements of the vowel relative to the consonant indicatestone.Pitman shorthanduses straight strokes and quarter-circle marks in different orientations as the principal "Alpha bet" 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 termAlpha syllabarysuggests, abugidas have been consideredan intermediate step between Alpha bets andsyllabaries.Historically, abugidas appear to have evolved fromabjads(vowelless Alpha bets).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 fromlogographic scripts.Compare the examples above to sets of syllables in the Japanesehiraganasyllabary: かka,きki,くku,けke,こkohave nothing in common to indicatek;while らra,りri,るru,れre,ろrohave neither anything in common forr,nor anything to indicate that they have the same vowels as thekset.

Most Indian and Indochinese abugidas appear to have first been developed from abjads with theKharoṣṭhīandBrāhmī scripts;the abjad in question is usually considered to be theAramaicone, 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 ofSouthandSoutheast Asia.

Ge'ez derived from a different abjad, theSabean scriptofYemen;the advent of vowels coincided with the introduction or adoption of Christianity about AD 350.The Ethiopic script is the elaboration of an abjad.

TheCree syllabarywas invented with full knowledge of the Devanagari system.

TheMeroitic scriptwas developed fromEgyptian hieroglyphs,within which various schemes of 'group writing'had been used for showing vowels.

List of abugidas

See also:List of writing systems

• Brahmic family,descended fromBrāhmī(c. 4th century BC)
  • Ahom
  • Assamese
  • Balinese
  • Batak–Tobaand otherBataklanguages
  • Baybayin–Ilocano,Pangasinan,Tagalog,Bikol languages,Visayan languages,and possibly otherPhilippine languages
  • Bengali–Bengali
  • Bhaiksuki
  • Brahmi–Sanskrit,Prakrit
  • Buhid
  • Burmese–Burmese,Karen languages,Mon,andShan
  • Chakma
  • Cham
  • Devanagari–Hindi,Sanskrit,Marathi,Nepali,Konkaniand other languages of northern India
  • Dhives Akuru
  • Grantha– Sanskrit
  • Gujarati–Gujarāti,Kachchi
  • Gurmukhi script–Punjabi
  • Hanunó’o
  • Javanese
  • Kaganga –Lampung,Rencong,Rejang
  • Kaithi–Bhojpuriand other languages of northern and eastern India
  • Kannada–Kannada,Tulu,Konkani,Kodava
  • Kawi
  • Khmer
  • Khojki
  • Khotanese
  • Khudawadi
  • Kolezhuthu–Tamil,Malayalam
  • Kulitan
  • Lao
  • Leke
  • Lepcha
  • Limbu
  • Lontara'–Buginese,Makassar,andMandar
  • Mahajani
  • Malayalam–Malayalam
  • Malayanma–Malayalam
  • Marchen–Zhang-Zhung
  • Meetei Mayek
  • Modi–Marathi
  • Multani–Saraiki
  • Nandinagari– Sanskrit
  • Newar–Nepal Bhasa,Sanskrit
  • New Tai Lue
  • Odia
  • Pallava script– Tamil, Sanskrit, variousPrakrits
  • Phags-pa–Mongolian,Chinese,and other languages of the Yuan dynastyMongol Empire
  • Ranjana–Nepal Bhasa,Sanskrit
  • Sharada–Sanskrit
  • Siddham–Sanskrit
  • Sinhala
  • Sourashtra
  • Soyombo
  • Sundanese
  • Sylheti Nagri–Sylheti language
  • Tagbanwa–Palawan languages
  • Tai Dam
  • Tai Le
  • Tai Tham–Khün,andNorthern Thai
  • Takri
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Tibetan
  • Tigalari–Sanskrit,Tulu
  • Tirhuta–Maithili
  • Tocharian
  • Vatteluttu–Tamil,Malayalam
  • Zanabazar Square
  • Zhang zhungscripts
• Kharoṣṭhī,from the 3rd century BC
• Meroitic
• 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 Alpha bet with an inherent vowel) –Meroitic,Old Nubian(possibly)
• Thaana(abugida with no inherent vowel)