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Geoffrey Sampson | 294 pages | 31 Jan 2015 | Equinox Publishing Ltd | 9781781791042 | English | London, United Kingdom Writing - History of writing systems | Britannica

A writing system, technically referred to as a script or an Writing Systemsconsists of a set of visible marks, forms, or structures called characters or graphs that are related to some structure in the linguistic system. 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 phonemeit is called an alphabetic system. A phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet devised by the International Phonetic Association, is one designed to transcribe any oral language into a common script. Finally, a writing system such as Hangulbased upon the articulatory features that underlie the phoneme such as voicing and place of articulationis called a featural writing system. These relations may be Writing Systems as follows:. While relatively pure examples of these different types of script are known, most writing systems that have been used for general purposes combine properties of more than one type. Pictorial signssuch as the informational signs at an international airport insofar as they can properly be called writingcan bear Writing Systems linguistic messages only because of the extremely limited set of alternatives from which a reader must choose. Such writing is of little use for conveying new messages, since there is no convention for decoding them and to that extent it cannot be a general writing system. It can, however, serve a limited set of purposes efficiently. General writing systems all analyze the linguistic form Writing Systems constituents Writing Systems meaning or sound. Chinese script is primarily a logographic script; each word or morpheme is represented by a single graph or character. Two words, even if they sound exactly Writing Systems same, will be represented by entirely dissimilar characters. But, as the number of distinguishable words in a language can run into the tens of thousands written English has Writing Systems recorded vocabulary of more thanwordsthe number of logographic characters Writing Systems be memorized is extremely large. Syllabaries provide a distinctive symbol for each distinct syllable. A syllable is a unit of speech composed of a vowel sound or a combination of consonant and vowel sounds; the sounds papepipopu are different syllables and are easily distinguished in a word. The word paper has two syllables, pa-per. A syllabary such as Linear Bthe Mycenaean script dating from about bcewould have a graph for each of those syllables. Syllables are the most readily distinguishable units of speech; consequently, the Writing Systems of the sound-based, or phonographic, writing systems are syllabic. The number of syllables in a language, while differing considerably from language to language, is always quite large; hence, some hundreds of graphs may be Writing Systems to make a functioning syllabary. Even then, such writing systems are far from explicit, for any string of syllabic graphs may be read in a number of different ways. Consonantal writing systemsas the name implies, Writing Systems the consonantal value of a syllable while ignoring the vocalic element. Such a system, therefore, would represent the syllables papepipopu with a single character. Such scripts have graphs for consonant sounds but not for vowel sounds, with the result that a certain amount of guesswork is involved in determining which syllable is being represented. This ambiguityhowever, should not Writing Systems overemphasized. When a consonantal system is used to represent a language like Writing Systems, in which vowels differentiate root morphemes in English, patpetpitpotput are all different morphemesdiscarding the vowel results in a highly ambiguous written expression that can be understood only by a reader who already has a good idea of the content of the written message. But in Semitic languagessuch as Hebrew and Arabic, the absence of characters representing vowels is much less serious, because in these languages vowel differences generally do not distinguish morphemes. Vowel differences mark inflections, such as tense and aspect, that, while of some importance Writing Systems the Writing Systems of meaning, are both more readily recovered from context and less likely to change the overall meaning. The failure to notice the intimate Writing Systems between the morphophonemic structure of the language and the type of orthography has led some Writing Systems to underestimate the efficiency of Writing Systems writing systems and, perhaps, to overestimate the centrality of the invention of the alphabet to the evolution of Western culture. Alphabetic writing systems represent the phonological structure of the language. The smallest pronounceable segment of speech is a syllable, but a syllable may be analyzed into the distinctive underlying constituents called phonemes. The syllable pa is produced by passing a column of air through the vocal cords, an action that constitutes the vocalic element, bounded at the outset by sudden release of air through the lips, an action that constitutes the consonantal element. The achievement of the alphabet is to analyze the syllable into its underlying consonant and vowel constituents. The economy of representation comes from the fact that Writing Systems large number of syllables can be generated from a small set of these constituents. An alphabet consisting of 21 consonants and 5 vowels can generate simple consonant-and-vowel syllables and more than 2, consonant-vowel- consonant syllables. In short, an alphabet can represent a full range Writing Systems phonological differences. It is a script particularly suited to representing a language in which morphological differences are marked in Writing Systems differences; it is less useful for a language like Chinese, in which one syllable represents a large number of morphemes. For the Chinese language a logographic system is more efficient. Featural writing Writing Systems exploit the fact that even phonemes are not the most fundamental units of analysis of speech. Rather, phonemes may be analyzed into sets of distinctive features. The phonemes represented by the letters n and d share the feature of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge above the upper teeth. Featural writing systems analyze the sounds described as consonants and vowels into their shared and distinguishing features. Examples of writing systems that employ a featural approach at least in part are the Korean Hangul script, created, according to tradition, by King Sejong in the 15th century, and Pitman shorthanda system for rapid writing invented in Britain in the 19th century. In Hangul, vowels are represented by long horizontal or vertical lines distinguished by small marks, while Writing Systems are represented by two-dimensional signs that suggest the articulations involved: pairs of lines representing lips together, tongue touching Writing Systems roof of the mouth, an open throat, and the like. As the phonological system Writing Systems organized around some dozen such features, an efficient script can be constructed out of 24 basic graphs. In addition, such a script makes syllables visually discriminable by organizing them into blocks to facilitate rapid reading. Such properties led the British linguist Geoffrey Sampson to say:. No orthography is a pure system. The clearest example of logographic writing, Chinese, consists not only of characters representing meanings but also of secondary characters based on sound similarity for representing meanings that were difficult to picture. It therefore relies upon both Writing Systems and sound-based principles. On the other hand, alphabets, which are primarily sound-based, also use fixed letter strings to represent the same meaningful unit even if the pronunciation of that unit varies in different contexts. So, for example, the common spelling for the root photo is preserved in the words photograph and photography even though they are pronounced somewhat differently. Conversely, alphabets often provide different graphic representations for homophones words that Writing Systems identical but have different meanings the more clearly to distinguish their meanings, as in meatmeetmete ; painpane ; bebee. The morphemic unit is so fundamental to the reading process that some linguists have concluded that, for an orthography to be practical and efficient, it is more important to provide an invariant visual form for each meaningful unit than for each sound Writing Systems. The shaping of a Writing Systems system to make it suitable for a wide range of cultural purposes required other developments besides the invention of a system of characters for representing linguistic form. To facilitate fast and accurate recognition, the form of writing was improved by introducing spaces between the words, developing conventions for punctuation and paragraphing, and Writing Systems graphic forms. This evolution continued through the invention of printing and the invention of type fonts see history of typography. And to exploit the aesthetic properties of the writing system, artistic Writing Systems of writing were developed see calligraphy. Writing Writing Systems Media Additional Info. Article Contents. Load Previous Page. Types Writing Systems writing systems Writing Systems writing system, technically referred to as a script or an orthographyconsists of a set of visible marks, forms, or Writing Systems called characters or graphs that are related to some structure in the linguistic system. These relations may be depicted as follows: While relatively pure examples of these different types of script are known, most writing systems that have been used for general purposes combine properties of more Writing Systems one type. Load Next Page. Writing - Types of writing systems | Britannica

A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communicationbased on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both Writing Systems and speech are useful in conveying messageswriting differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer. Writing is usually recorded onto a durable mediumWriting Systems as paper Writing Systems electronic storagealthough non-durable methods may also be used, such as writing Writing Systems a computer displayon a blackboard, in sand, or by skywriting. Reading a text can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, or expressed orally. Writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabetssyllabariesor logographiesalthough any particular system may have attributes of more than one category. In the alphabetic category, a standard set of letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora. In a logography, each character represents a semantic unit such as a word or morpheme. Abjads differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, and in abugidas or alphasyllabaries each character represents a consonant—vowel pairing. Writing Systems typically use a set of less than symbols to Writing Systems express a language, whereas syllabaries can have several hundred, and logographies can have thousands of symbols. Many writing systems also include a special set of symbols known as punctuation which is used to aid interpretation and help capture nuances and variations in the message's meaning that are communicated verbally by cues in timingtoneaccentinflection or intonation. Writing systems were preceded by proto-writingwhich used pictogramsWriting Systems and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a full range of thoughts and ideas. The invention of writing systems, which dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic Era of the late 4th millennium BCenabled the accurate durable recording of human history in a manner that was not Writing Systems to the same types of error to which oral history is vulnerable. Soon after, writing provided a reliable form Writing Systems long distance communication. With the advent of publishingit provided the medium for an early form of mass communication. Writing systems Writing Systems distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a writing system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as Writing Systems lines, are not language- related. Some symbols on information signs, such as the symbols for male and female, are also not language related, but can grow to become part Writing Systems language if they are often used in conjunction with other language elements. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersandare not directly linked to any specific language, Writing Systems are often used in writing and thus must be considered part of writing systems. Every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, Writing Systems been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no longer current in the spoken language. One of the great benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines. Thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field. The generic term text [3] refers to an instance of written or spoken material with the latter having been transcribed in some way. The act of composing and recording a text may be Writing Systems to as writing[4] and the act of viewing and interpreting the text as reading. A grapheme is Writing Systems specific base unit of a writing system. Graphemes are the minimally Writing Systems elements which taken Writing Systems comprise the set of "building blocks" out of which texts made up of one or more writing systems may be constructed, along with rules of correspondence and use. Writing Systems concept is similar to that of the phoneme used in the study of spoken languages. Writing Systems example, in the Latin -based writing system of standard contemporary English, examples of graphemes include the majuscule and minuscule forms of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet corresponding to various phonemesmarks of punctuation mostly non-phonemicand a few other symbols such as those for numerals logograms for numbers. An individual grapheme may be represented in a wide variety of ways, where each variation is visually distinct in some regard, but all are interpreted as representing the "same" grapheme. These individual variations are known as allographs of a grapheme compare with the term allophone used in linguistic study. For example, the minuscule letter a has different allographs when written as a cursiveblockor typed letter. The choice of a particular allograph may be influenced by the medium used, the writing instrumentthe stylistic choice of the writer, the preceding and following graphemes in the text, the time available for writing, the intended audience, and the largely unconscious features of an individual's handwriting. The terms glyphsign and character are sometimes used to refer to a grapheme. Common usage varies from Writing Systems to discipline; compare cuneiform signMaya glyphWriting Systems character. The glyphs of most writing systems are made up of lines or strokes and are therefore called linear Writing Systems, but there Writing Systems glyphs in non-linear writing systems made up of other types of marks, such as Cuneiform and Braille. Writing systems may be regarded as complete according to the extent to which they are able to represent all that may be expressed in the spoken language, while a partial writing system is limited in what it can convey. Writing systems can be independent from languages, one can have multiple writing systems for a language, e. Chinese characters were also borrowed by other Writing Systems as their early writing systems, e. To represent a conceptual systemone uses one or more languages, e. The best-known examples are:. The Writing Systems of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age following the late Neolithic in the late 4th millennium BC. The Writing Systems archaic cuneiform script closely followed by the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems Writing Systems to BC with earliest coherent texts from about BC. It is generally agreed that the historically Writing Systems Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffusion. A similar debate exists for the Chinese scriptWriting Systems developed around BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems including among others Olmec and Maya scripts are generally believed to have had independent origins. A hieroglyphic writing system used by pre-colonial Mi'kmaqwhich was observed by missionaries from the 17th to 19th centuries, is thought to have developed independently. There is some debate over whether or not this was a Writing Systems formed system or just a series of mnemonic pictographs. It is thought that the first consonantal alphabetic writing appeared before BC, as a representation of language developed by Semitic tribes in the Sinai Peninsula see History of the alphabet. Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one innovation, many via the Phoenician alphabetor were directly inspired by its design. The first true alphabet is the Greek script which consistently represents Writing Systems since BC. Several approaches have been taken to classify Writing Systems systems, the most common and basic one is a broad division into three categories: logographicsyllabicand alphabetic or segmental ; however, all three may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often Writing Systems it difficult to categorise a system uniquely. The term complex system is sometimes used Writing Systems describe those where the admixture makes classification problematic. Modern linguists regard such approaches, including Diringer's [20]. Hill [21] split Writing Systems into three major categories of linguistic analysis, one of which covers discourses and is not Writing Systems considered writing proper:. Sampson draws a distinction between semasiography and Writing Systems. DeFrancis, [22] criticizing Sampson's [23] introduction of Writing Systems writing and featural alphabets stresses the phonographic quality of writing proper. Faber [24] categorizes phonographic writing by two levels, linearity and coding:. A logogram is a single written character which represents a Writing Systems grammatical word. Most traditional Chinese characters are classified as logograms. As each character represents a single word or, more precisely, a morphememany Writing Systems are required to write all the words of language. The vast array of logograms and the Writing Systems of what they mean are major disadvantages of logographic systems over alphabetic systems. However, since the meaning is inherent to the symbol, the same logographic system can theoretically be used to represent different languages. In practice, the ability to communicate across languages only works for the closely related Writing Systems of Chineseas differences in syntax reduce the crosslinguistic portability of Writing Systems given logographic system. Japanese uses Chinese logograms extensively in its writing systems, with most of the symbols carrying the same or similar meanings. However, the grammatical differences between Japanese and Chinese are significant enough that a long Chinese text is not readily understandable to a Japanese reader without any knowledge of basic Chinese grammarthough short and Writing Systems phrases such as those on signs and newspaper headlines are much easier to comprehend. While most languages do not use wholly logographic writing systems, many languages use some logograms. A good example of modern western logograms are the Arabic numerals : everyone who uses those symbols understands what 1 means whether they call it oneeinsunoyiichiehadenaor jedan. Logograms are sometimes called ideogramsa word that refers to symbols which graphically represent abstract ideas, but linguists avoid this use, as Chinese characters are often semantic — phonetic compounds, symbols which include an element that represents the meaning and a phonetic complement element that represents the pronunciation. Some nonlinguists distinguish between lexigraphy and ideography, where symbols in lexigraphies represent words and symbols in ideographies represent words or morphemes. The most important and, to a degree, the only surviving modern logographic writing system is the Chinese one, whose characters have been used with varying degrees of modification in varieties of ChineseJapaneseKoreanVietnameseand other east Asian languages. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Mayan writing system are also systems with certain logographic features, although they have marked phonetic features as well and are no longer in current use. Vietnamese speakers switched to the Writing Systems alphabet in the 20th century and the use of Chinese characters in Korean is increasingly rare. The Japanese writing system includes several distinct forms of writing including logography. Another type of writing system with systematic syllabic linear symbols, the abugidasis discussed below as well. As logographic writing systems use a single symbol for an entire word, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that Writing Systems or approximate syllableswhich make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents a consonant sound followed by a vowel sound, or just a vowel alone. In a "true syllabary", there is no systematic graphic similarity between phonetically related characters though some do have graphic similarity for the vowels. More recent creations such as the Cree syllabary embody a system of varying signs, which can best be seen when arranging the syllabogram set Writing Systems an onset — coda or onset— rime table. Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Writing Systems. The English languageon the other hand, allows complex syllable structures, with a relatively large inventory of vowels and complex consonant clustersmaking it cumbersome to write English words with a syllabary. To write English using a syllabary, every possible syllable in English would have to have a separate Writing Systems, and whereas the number Writing Systems possible syllables in Japanese is aroundin English there are approximately 15, to 16, However, syllabaries with much larger inventories do exist. The Yi scriptfor example, contains different symbols or 1, if symbols with a particular tone diacritic are counted as separate syllables, as in Unicode. Writing Systems Chinese scriptwhen used to write Middle Chinese and the modern varieties of Chinesealso represents syllables, and Writing Systems separate glyphs for nearly all of the many thousands of syllables in Middle Writing Systems ; however, because it primarily represents morphemes and includes different characters to represent homophonous morphemes with different meanings, it is normally considered a logographic script rather than a syllabary. Several languages of the Ancient Near East used forms of cuneiformwhich is a syllabary with some non-syllabic elements. An alphabet is a small set of letters basic written symbolseach of which roughly represents or represented historically a segmental phoneme of a spoken language. The word alphabet is derived from alpha and betaWriting Systems first two symbols of the Greek alphabet. The first type of alphabet that was developed was the abjad. An abjad is an alphabetic writing system where there is one symbol per consonant. Abjads differ from other alphabets in that they have characters only for consonantal sounds. Vowels are not usually marked in abjads. All known abjads except maybe Tifinagh belong to the Semitic family of scripts, and derive from the original Northern Linear Abjad. The reason for this is Writing Systems Semitic languages and the related Berber languages have a morphemic structure Writing Systems makes the denotation of vowels redundant in most cases. Some abjads, like Arabic and Writing Systems, have markings for vowels as well. Writing system - Wikipedia Illustration by Barbara Ott. The origin of writing is the story of religious myth, archaeological fact and Writing Systems dispute. Plato recounts the Egyptian-origin myth of writing in Phaedrusone of his famous Dialogues. Whether one finds the myth an accurate description of our current educational system or an ancient manifestation of luddite reactions, the need Writing Systems writing surfaced precisely because pieces of crucial information needed to be recorded in detail for practical purposes. Few individuals would be able or willing to memorize such tedious details, let alone pass them on to other people. The first drawn representations of the natural world date backyears ago in the upper Paleolithicwhen humans started painting and graffitiing rocks and cave walls. In order to take stock of land, grain and cattle, early farmers used shaped clay tokens with incised carvings to describe property owned or transacted. Soon Writing Systems, humans found themselves at a crossroads. Abstract concepts like numbers and transactions began to take shape in the form of Writing Systems. Since their meaning has not yet been discovered, we can only accurately date the first systems of writing with the following examples. Systematized writing originally appeared in different Writing Systems parts of the world: Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, c. The famous Egyptian writing system, surfacing around BC, might have been influenced by the Sumerian one through merchants and commercial contactbut the evidence is inconclusive. The Sumerian writing system is a good place to start. As a cuneiform system, it consisted of wedge-shaped marks inscribed with styluses on clay tablets. It evolved from pictographs small images representing objects in language and eventually adopted the rebus principlewhich is when specific shapes are read as objects or a sound. It eventually matured into a full blown writing system of word-signs and phonograms after B. The Egyptian writing system had no vowels we had to wait for the Greeks Writing Systems that and some hieroglyphs could have two or three different meanings. The system Writing Systems based on an alphabet of consonants rather Writing Systems a group of syllables. Replace the latin letters in this example with images, and you Writing Systems the functional writing system of the ancient Egyptians! Writing Systems what if there were a language that had Writing Systems image for every concept? Pushed to its limit, one would have thousands or theoretically limitless morphemes representing a myriad objects and ideas, instead of phonemes representing a sound. However, Chinese characters can be ambiguous, too. Hence Writing Systems categorization of a semanto-phonetic writing system. If you feel like this system is absurd, think of the emojis we use to give meaning to the words we write — modern humans are often incapable of understanding humor or irony without these indicators. The first known civilization to create a purely phonetic system, completely independent of a pictographic or syllabic system, was the Phoenicians. Around the 15th century BC, Phoenicians created an alphabet made purely of consonants, an abjadin which one symbol represented one consonantal sound. It consisted of 22 letters and was written from right to left, occasionally in boustrophedon right to left, then left to right on the following line, and so on. Its origin can Writing Systems traced to Egyptian hieroglyphs and its influences can be seen in the Writing Systems alphabet, which adopted the Phoenician method of writing. But Writing Systems the Greeks added vowels to constitute their own alphabet, a number of writing systems made purely of consonants surfaced in different cultures, such as the ancient Hebrew and the Aramaic alphabets which, in turn, influenced the Arabic alphabet. What all of these had in common was the absence of vowels. Well, not completely, since Semitic languages such as Hebrew or Arabic include matres lectionis mothers of Writing Systemssymbols that may mark the presence of a vowel or Writing Systems as a consonant, depending on context. Hebrew and Arabic did use diacritic Writing Systems around consonants to indicate vowels, but they were never consistently used to the point where they standardized. So when did we first arrive at a purely phonetic alphabet, with one letter representing one sound? With the Greeks, who took the Phoenician consonantal Writing Systems, adapted it and included vowels, triggering not only clarity but also economy in writing. What if your language is a clear mix of consonant sounds ending in a vowel sound, organized in sound blocks that we call syllables? Ma-mi-mu-me-mo, for instance — how would you represent these syllables elegantly? Well, just like the phonetic specificities of Egyptian influenced its writing system, a language composed purely of discrete syllables is ripe for Writing Systems syllabic system of writing. Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese are perfect examples of a syllabary. But other writing systems use both the Writing Systems and syllabary system, such as the Devanagari Writing Systems, a script used to write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and dozens of other languages. Consonant letters have a vowel attached that can be changed or silenced using matra or diacritics written above, below, before or after Writing Systems consonant. Devanagari Writing Systems possesses independent vowels, but this common coupling of consonants with vowels in one phoneme creates an alpha-syllabary. This system is certainly not as economical Writing Systems the phonetic Greek alphabet, but it became so popular that it spread throughout Asia in the south and south east, and is still being Writing Systems to this day. If one considers the development of writing systems to indicate progress a debate for another articlewhat would Writing Systems next step after phonetic alphabets be? What if a writing system were created that graphically indicated the phonetics it was meant to represent? This thought motivated King Sejong the Great of Korea to create Hangul ina featural script, where each letter represents its phonetic expression and is grouped with similar ones. Hangul is written in blocks, making it visually similar to Chinese, but different in everything else. Promulgated in Writing Systems, it was immediately successful due to its simplicity and elegance. Unfortunately, elitist resistance Writing Systems from aristocrats and academics hampered its success soon after; until recently Hangul was still being mixed with Chinese characters Hanja. Hanja are still used in less popular literature. Other featural writing systems are the Tengwarinvented by J. Tolkien as a script Writing Systems in his novels, and Pitman shorthanda system of shorthand for English created by Sir Isaac Pitman Writing Systems who debuted it in Understanding different writing systems of the world is a mental workout for anyone who has grown used to the Latin alphabet. Writing Systems writing systems are vessels of history, art and phonetics that cannot be reduced to a mere translation. They can also be strangely motivating when learning a new language! Writing Systems the demo! Try Babbel. Toggle Search. Toggle Menu. Learning Tips. Culture and Travel. Inside Babbel. Ready to learn? Pick a language to get started! Writing Systems by Writing Systems Ott The origin of writing is the story of religious myth, archaeological fact and academic dispute. Cave Drawings And Tokens For Farms The first drawn representations of the natural world date backyears ago in the upper Paleolithicwhen humans started painting and graffitiing rocks and cave walls. Semanto-Phonetic Writing Systems Systematized writing originally appeared in different unconnected Writing Systems of the world: Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, c. The First Alphabet — Phoenician Abjad The first known civilization to create a purely phonetic system, completely independent of a pictographic or syllabic system, was Writing Systems Phoenicians. Alpha-Syllabaries Or Abugidas What if your Writing Systems is a clear mix of consonant sounds ending in a vowel sound, organized in sound blocks that we call syllables? Not ready to learn a whole new alphabet? You can still learn Writing Systems new language today. Speak a new language Try the demo!