Archivo 20239423527

UNIVERSIDAD TÉCNICA ESTATAL DE QUEVEDO
FACULTAD CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN

PEDAGOGY OF NATIONAL AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
SUBJECT:
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
PROFESSOR:
PhD. ALINA MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ
STUDENT:
SANDY CEDEÑO
KARINA ZAMBRANO
MILENA BARZOLA
CAMILA BUSTAMANTE
ANTHONY CASTILLO
LEANDRO VERA
MODERN WRITING SYSTEM
In the world there are different types of writing systems such as word or logographic
writing, syllabic writing, consonantal alphabet writing, and alphabetic writing, most of the
written languages in the world use alphabetic writing.
WORD WRITING
In a word writing or logographic writing system, a written character represents both the
meaning and pronunciation of each word or morpheme. These systems tend to be
cumbersome because they require thousands of different characters to represent the vast
vocabulary of a language.
For example
In the Chinese writing system, you have a word writing system in which the character
represents a single word or morpheme. Longer words can be formed by combining two
words or morphemes, as shown by the word meaning “business” maimu, which is formed
by combining the words meaning, “buy” and “sell”.
The use of Chinese characters is similar to the use of Arabic numerals, which in many
countries mean the same thing.
For example:
Character 5 represents a sequence of different sounds in English, French, and Finnish.
In English t is five /fajv/
French it is cinq / s æk/
Finnish it is viisi /vi:si/
In all these languages, 5, whatever its phonological form, means five.
In summary, the differences between word script and alphabetic writing systems focus on
the unique characteristics of the Chinese writing system and its historical importance in
China's linguistic diversity. It highlights how a unified writing system can facilitate
communication between speakers of different dialects, similar to how Arabic numerals are
universally understood despite language differences.
SYLLABIC WRITING
"Syllabic writing" is a writing system where each syllable is represented by an individual
character or symbol. Instead of individual letters representing individual sounds, in
"syllabic writing," characters represent larger sound units, syllables.
An example of "syllabic writing" is in the Cherokee syllabary, each character represents
a syllable, just like in the Japanese "kana." For instance, the syllable "ga" is written as
"Ꭶ" in Cherokee syllabics. This contrasts with the English alphabet, where individual
letters represent individual sounds, not entire syllables.
CONSONANTAL ALPHABETIC WRITING

The writing systems of Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic, which primarily
consist of consonants. In these languages, consonants form the basis of most words,
and inflectional and derivational processes are indicated by inserting different vowels
into triconsonantal roots. While speakers of these languages can often decipher vowels
based on context, English, on the other hand, heavily relies on vowels for
comprehension. Semiotic alphabets, used in languages like Hebrew, use diacritics to
express vowels to aid learners and preserve pronunciation accuracy in religious texts.
These systems are called consonantal alphabets, as consonants are fully developed
symbols, but they can appear as syllabaries to readers once vowels are discerned. In
contrast, true syllabaries, like Japanese, allow for phonetic pronunciation without the
need to understand the meaning, which is not possible in Arabic or Hebrew due to their
reliance on consonants.
Example 1: Semitic Consonantal Alphabet (Hebrew)
In Hebrew, the word "book" is written as "‫( "סֵ פֶ ר‬pronounced "sefer"). In the Hebrew
script, you see only the consonants "‫סֵ פֶ ר‬," but the vowels are indicated by diacritics
(dots and lines) placed around or within the consonants. Without these diacritics, you
might not know how to pronounce the word correctly, as "sfar" and "sofer" are other
possible pronunciations without vowel markings.
Example 2: True Syllabary (Japanese)

In Japanese, the word for "book" is written as "本" (pronounced "hon"). In this case,
each character in Japanese represents a syllable, so "本" directly corresponds to the
sound "hon." You don't need additional diacritics or context to pronounce it correctly. If
you learn the phonetic values of Japanese characters, you can read them aloud
accurately without knowing the meaning.
The key difference here is that in Hebrew (a Semitic language), vowels are typically
inferred based on context or marked with diacritics, making them crucial for
pronunciation and comprehension. In Japanese (a true syllabary), each character
represents a syllable, allowing for direct phonetic pronunciation without ambiguity.
ALPHABETIC WRITING
alphabetic writing systems and how they are designed based on phonemic principles.
He also mentions examples such as the Icelandic alphabet and Korean hangul, which
were created following these principles. In addition, we talk about the variation in
alphabetic writing in different languages, such as the use of diacritics in Spanish and the
existence of digraphs in English. Finally, he mentions that many languages adopt the
Latin alphabet or derive from other ancient systems such as Cyrillic and Semitic.
Example:
- Korean hangul was designed following the phonemic principle, using a letter to
represent sounds that were allophonic variants of the same phoneme, such as /l/ and
/r/.
- Spanish USES diacritics such as the tilde (~) in the letter "n" to represent the
palatalization of the nasal sound.
- Some languages, such as Turkish and Indonesian, adopted the Latin alphabet for
their writing.
- The writing systems of some languages, such as Arabic and Persian, were derived
from the ancient Semitic writing systems.

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UNIVERSIDAD TÉCNICA ESTATAL DE QUEVEDO

FACULTAD CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN

CONSONANTAL ALPHABETIC WRITING

Example 2: True Syllabary (Japanese)

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