In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by

Geoffrey Sampson Geoffrey Sampson (born 1944) is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics (academic field), Informatics, University of Sussex.

Korean alphabet The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...

and Pitman shorthand. Joe Martin introduced the term featural notation to describe

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

s that include symbols to represent individual features rather than phonemes. He asserts that "alphabets have no symbols for anything smaller than a

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

". A ''featural'' script represents finer detail than an

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

. Here, symbols do not represent whole phonemes, but rather the elements (features) that make up the phonemes, such as voicing or its

place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

. In the Korean alphabet, the featural symbols are combined into alphabetic letters, and these letters are in turn joined into syllabic blocks, so the system combines three levels of phonological representation. Some scholars (e.g.

John DeFrancis John DeFrancis (August 31, 1911January 2, 2009) was an American linguist, sinologist, author of Chinese language textbooks, lexicographer of Chinese dictionaries, and professor emeritus of Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ...

) reject this class or at least labeling the Korean alphabet as such. Other featural writing systems include stenographies and constructed scripts of hobbyists and fiction writers (such as

Tengwar The Tengwar () script is an artificial script, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the ...

), many of which feature advanced graphic designs corresponding to phonologic properties. It has been shown that even the Latin script has sub-character "features".See .

Examples of featural systems

This is a small list of examples of featural writing systems by date of creation. The languages for which each system was developed are also shown.

15th century

Hangul The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...

Korean

19th century

Canadian Aboriginal syllabics Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of writing systems used in a number of indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian languages, Algonquian, Eskimo–Aleut languages, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan languages, A ...

several Algonquian,

Eskimo-Aleut The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...

and Athabaskan languages *

Gregg shorthand Gregg shorthand is a system of shorthand developed by John Robert Gregg in 1888. Distinguished by its phonemic basis, the system prioritizes the sounds of speech over traditional English spelling, enabling rapid writing by employing elliptical f ...

many languages from different families *

Duployan shorthand The Duployan shorthand, or Duployan stenography (), was created by Father Émile Duployé in 1860 for writing French. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English, German, Spanish, Romanian, and Chinook Jargon. The Dupl ...

originally French, later English, German, Spanish, Romanian,

Chinook Jargon Chinook Jargon (' or ', also known simply as ''Chinook'' or ''Jargon'') is a language originating as a pidgin language, pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to othe ...

and others * Visible Speech (a phonetic script) no specific language. Developed to aid the deaf and teach them to speak properly *

Deseret alphabet The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phoneme, phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second President of t ...

- phonetic script used to write English by the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Vowels and voicing pairs of consonants are similar in shape.

20th century

Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet ( ; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a Constructed writing system, constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficultie ...

, Quikscript English *

(an artificial script invented by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

) fictional languages from Tolkien's novels; Tolkien's invented languages and English *

SignWriting Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of written sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic: the shapes of the characters are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body; and unlike most written words, which ...

sign languages; featural notation * Mandombe several

Bantu Languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

21st century

Ditema tsa Dinoko Ditema tsa Dinoko (), also known as isiBheqe soHlamvu (), and sometimes known as Xiyinhlanharhu xa Mipfawulo or Xifungho xa Manungu in Tsonga language, xiTsonga and Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo or Vhuga ha Madungo in Venda language, tshiVen� ...

/ Isibheqe Sohlamvu Sotho and other Southern Bantu languages

Semi-featural systems

Other scripts may have limited featural elements. Many languages written in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

make use of

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s, and those letters using diacritics are sometimes considered separate letters within the language's alphabet. The

Polish alphabet The Polish alphabet ( Polish: , ) is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters (9) with diacritics: the stroke (acute accent or bar) ...

, for example, indicates a palatal articulation of some consonants with an acute accent. The

Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet () is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements o ...

uses the presence of one or two dots above a vowel to indicate that it is a

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...

. The Japanese

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

syllabaries indicate

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refe ...

consonants with marks known as dakuten. The

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

(IPA) also has some featural elements, for example in the hooks and tails that are characteristic of implosives, , and retroflex consonants, . The IPA

s are also featural. The Fraser alphabet used for Lisu rotates the letters for the

tenuis consonant In linguistics, a tenuis consonant ( or ) is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized. In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish ''p, t, ...

s ꓑ , ꓔ , ꓝ , ꓚ , and ꓗ 180° to indicate aspiration.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Featural Alphabet Writing systems