Editing Writing (section)

=== Alphabets ===
{{See also|History of the alphabet}}
An [[alphabet]] is a set of written symbols that represent [[consonant]]s and [[vowel]]s.{{sfnp|Daniels|Bright|1996|p=56}} In a perfectly [[phonological]] alphabet, the letters would correspond perfectly to the language's [[phoneme]]s. Thus, a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. However, as languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}

==== Abjads ====
In most of the alphabets of the Middle East, it is usually only the consonants of a word that are written, although vowels may be indicated by the addition of various diacritical marks. Writing systems based primarily on writing just consonants phonemes date back to the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Such systems are called ''[[abjad]]s'' or ''consonantaries''.{{sfnp|Daniels|Bright|1996|p=56}}

==== Abugidas ====
In most of the alphabets of India and [[Southeast Asia]], vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are called ''[[abugida]]s''.{{sfnp|Daniels|Bright|1996|p=56}} Some abugidas, such as [[Geʽez script|Geʽez]] and the [[Canadian Aboriginal syllabics]], are learned by children as syllabaries, and so are often called "syllabics". However, unlike true syllabaries, there is not an independent glyph for each syllable.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}