A defective script is a script that does not represent all the phonemic distinctions of a language. In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ...

For example, Italian has seven vowels, but only five vowel letters to represent them; in general, the differences between /e, ɛ/ and /o, ɔ/ are ignored. Among the consonants, both /s/ and /z/ are written <s>, and both /ʦ/ and /ʣ/ are written <z>, though not many words are distinguished by the latter. Stress is not reliably distinguished. In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word. ...

Such imperfections are nothing new. The Greek alphabet has been defective for its entire history. Classical Greek had distinctive vowel length: 5 short vowels, /i e a o u/, and 7 long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. When the Phoenician alphabet was adapted to Greek, the names of five letters were pronounced with initial vowels by the Greeks and used to represent vowels. These were alpha , e (later called e psilon), iota , o (later called o micron, and u (later called u psilon): five letters for twelve vowel sounds. Later the [h] dropped from the Eastern Greek dialects, and the letter heta (now pronounced eta) became available; it was used for /ɛː/. About the same time the Greeks created an additional letter, omega, probably by writing omicron with an underline, that was used for /ɔː/. Digraphs ei and ou were devised for /eː oː/. Thus Greek entered its classical era with seven letters and two digraphs for twelve vowel sounds. Long /iː aː uː/ were never distinguished from short /i a u/, even though the distinction was meaningful. Although the Greek alphabet was a good match to the consonants of the language, it was defective when it came to the vowels. Note: This article contains special characters. ... The History of Greece extends back to the arrival of the Greeks in Europe some time before 1500 BC, even though there has only been an independent state called Greece since Turkey, Italy and Libya. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the duration of a vowel sound. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Epsilon (upper case Ε, lower case ε) is the 5th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Iota (upper case Ι, lower case ι) is the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Omicron (upper case Ο, lower case ο) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Upsilon (upper case Υ, lower case υ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... For other uses, see Eta. ... Omega (Ω ω) (literally, big O) is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Digraph has several meanings: Directed graph, or digraph Digraph (orthography) Digraph (computing) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

A famously defective alphabic is the Arabic. The modern script does not generally write short vowels, but for the first few centuries of the Islamic era, many consonant letters were ambiguous as well. The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic, and not only did the Aramaic language have fewer phonemes than Arabic, but several originally distinct Aramaic letters had conflated (become indistinguishable in shape), so that in the early Arabic writings 18 letters had to do duty for 28 consonant phonemes — and in the middle of words, only 15 were distinct! For example, medial <ﯩ> represented /b, t, θ, n, j/, and <ﺡ>, /g, ħ, x/. A system of diacritic marks, or pointing, was later developed to resolve the ambiguities, and over the centuries became nearly universal. However, even today unpointed texts of a style called mašq are found. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing in the Arabic language. ... Islam (Arabic: ; ( â–¶ (help· info)), the submission to God) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the worlds second-largest religion. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, sometimes called an accent mark, is a mark added to a letter to alter a words pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

Without short vowels or geminate consonants being written, Arabic نظر nżr could represent /nażara/ 'he saw', /nażżara/ 'he compared', /nużira/ 'he was seen', /nużżira/ 'he was compared', /nażar/ 'a glance', or /niżr/ 'similar'. However, in practice there is little ambiguity, as the vowels are more easily predictable in Arabic than they are in a language like English. Moreover, the defective nature of the script has its benefits: The stable shape of the root words, despite grammatical inflection, results in quicker word recognition and therefore faster reading speeds; and the lack of short vowels, the sounds which vary the most between Arabic dialects, makes texts more widely accessible to a diverse audience. Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... Inflection or inflexion refers to a modification or marking of a word (or more precisely lexeme) so that it reflects grammatical (i. ...

However, in mašq and those styles of kufic writing which lack consonant pointing, the ambiguities are more serious, for here different roots are written the same. ﯨطر could represent the root nżr 'see' as above, but also nţr 'protect', bţr 'pride', bżr 'clitoris' or 'with flint', as well as several inflections and derivations of each of these root words.