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Syllabic and Alphabetic Writing

This document covers the characteristics and distinctions between syllabic and alphabetic writing systems. It explains that syllabic writing represents each syllable with its own symbol, while alphabetic writing uses symbols to represent individual sounds. The document also outlines the historical development of these writing systems and their significance in language representation.

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24 views2 pages

Syllabic and Alphabetic Writing

This document covers the characteristics and distinctions between syllabic and alphabetic writing systems. It explains that syllabic writing represents each syllable with its own symbol, while alphabetic writing uses symbols to represent individual sounds. The document also outlines the historical development of these writing systems and their significance in language representation.

Uploaded by

moisesfelix631
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Faculty of Education

Degree in English Language Teaching


Course material for Mocuba 1st Year - 2023 Lecturer: Contact:
General Linguistics Centre (19th - 25th June) José Pires, MA jpires@unilicungo.ac.mz
Week 8

Unit III: The history of Writing (Language and Writing Systems)


Topic: Syllabic and Alphabetic Writing
By the end of the lesson you are expected to identify and describe the characteristics of the syllabic
and the alphabetic writing systems and also distinguish the syllabic and the alphabetic writing
systems.

The Syllabic writing system

"In a syllabic writing system, each syllable in the language is represented by its own symbol, and
words are written syllable by syllable" (Fromkin and Rodman, 1993:267).

Yule, (1993: 12) "When a writing system employs a set of symbols which represent the
pronunciations of syllables, it is described as syllabic writing".

There are no purely syllabic writing systems in use today, but modern Japanese can be written
with a set of single symbols representing spoken syllables, called “hiragana,” and is consequently
often described as having a (partially) syllabic writing system, or a syllabary.

In the early nineteenth century, a Cherokee named Sequoyah, living in North Carolina, invented
a syllabic writing system that was widely used within the Cherokee community to create written
messages from the spoken language. Papers with writing were described as “talking leaves.” In
the Cherokee examples below, we can see that the written symbol in each case does not
correspond to a single consonant (C) or a single vowel (V), but to a syllable (CV).

Both the ancient Egyptian and the Sumerian writing systems evolved to the point where some of
the earlier logographic symbols were being used to represent spoken syllables.

However, it is not until the time of the Phoenicians, inhabiting what is modern Lebanon between
3,000 and 4,000 years ago, that we find the full use of a syllabic writing system.

Many of the symbols that the Phoenicians used were taken from earlier Egyptian writing.

By about 3,000 years ago, the Phoenicians had stopped using logograms and had a fully developed
syllabic writing system.
The Alphabetic Writing

According to Yule (1996:13) "If you have a set of symbols being used to represent syllables
beginning with, for example, a b sound or an m sound, then you are actually very close to a
situation in which the symbols can be used to represent single sound types in a language. This is
the basis of alphabetic writing. An alphabet is essentially a set of written symbols which each
represent a single type of sound."

When you write Portuguese or English you employ a set of symbols (a, b, c, d, etc.), which
represent sounds in Portuguese or English. For example, from these set of symbols p, t, o and s,
you can produce the words spot, stop; and each letter represents a single type of sound like p /p/;
t /t/, etc.

As a summary, you should remember that the more-picture like is a symbol, is a pictogram; the
more abstract, derived form, is an ideogram; when the symbol represents words of a language, it
is a logogram; when it represents the sounds of a language, it is Rebus writing; when the symbol
represents the pronunciations of syllables, it is described as syllabic writing; when the symbols
can be used to represent single sound types in a language, it is alphabetic writing.

In this unit you learned that:

 If we want to trace the development of writing we have to bear in mind that a large number
of languages found in the world today are used only in the spoken form. They do not have
written forms;
 We may trace human attempt to represent information visually back to cave drawing,
which were made at least 20,000 years ago;
 There are six writing systems;
 Pictograms are more picture-like and ideograms are more abstract, derived forms from
pictograms and they are both language independent;
 When a symbol represents words in a language that is a logogram; when it represents
sounds of the spoken word, that is Rebus writing; when the symbol represents the
pronunciations of syllables, it is a syllabic writing; when symbols represent single sound
types in a language, it is the alphabetic writing.

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