Editing Abjad (section)

==Impure abjads==
[[File:Arabic_Language.svg|thumb|''Al-ʻArabiyya'', meaning "Arabic": an example of the Arabic script, which is an impure abjad]]

Impure abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators.{{sfn|Daniels|2013}} However, most modern abjads, such as [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]], and [[Pahlavi alphabet|Pahlavi]], are "impure" abjads{{snd}}that is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly [[Approximant consonant|approximants]] that sound similar to long vowels. A "pure" abjad is exemplified (perhaps) by very early forms of ancient [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]], though at some point (at least by the 9th century BC) it and most of the contemporary Semitic abjads had begun to overload a few of the consonant symbols with a secondary function as vowel markers, called ''[[mater lectionis|matres lectionis]]''.{{sfn|Lipiński|1994}} This practice was at first rare and limited in scope but became increasingly common and more developed in later times.

===Addition of vowels===
{{Main|Greek alphabet}}

In the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the [[guttural consonant|guttural]] sounds represented by ''[[aleph]]'', ''[[he (letter)|he]]'', ''[[Heth (letter)|heth]]'' or ''[[ayin]]'', so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters ''[[Waw (letter)|waw]]'' and ''[[Yodh|yod]]'' were also adapted into vowel signs; along with ''he'', these were already used as ''[[Mater lectionis|matres lectionis]]'' in Phoenician. The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants (as opposed to syllabaries such as [[Linear B]] which usually have vowel symbols but cannot combine them with consonants to form arbitrary syllables).

[[Abugida]]s developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the [[South Arabian script|South Arabian abjad]] evolved into the [[Geʽez script]] of Ethiopia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly, the [[Brāhmī script|Brāhmī abugida]] of the Indian subcontinent developed around the 3rd century BC (from the [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic abjad]], it has been hypothesized).