You are here: Home » Languages » Why Written Languages Sound Highly Un-phonetic?

Why Written Languages Sound Highly Un-phonetic?

An alphabet as a set of written symbol is the drawing of sounds a human mouth can emanate. It is an attempt to maintain a relationship between sound and symbols. Yet, why most of alphabetically written languages sound highly un-phonetic? Please read on to know.

The word alphabet is an offshoot of two words alpha and beta; the first two letters of Greek alphabet. I would say alphabet as a set of written symbol is the drawing of sounds a human mouth can emanate. Each alphabet represents a given sound or sounds; in combination the alphabet form words; words in combination form sentences; and sentences form a language.

Every alphabet indicates a separate sound with a separate symbol; but only to some extent it is able to do so. Only Korean and to some end Japanese language are the two most perfect known phonetic systems.

Alphabets are not same as syllabic script. In syllabic scripts characters represent syllables. It is also not same as pictographic and ideographic systems. For an example in a pictographic system drawing of the sun represents the spoken word sun. Ideographic system is a combination of pictographs to indicate non-pictographic ideas. In Chinese language if they have to represent the spoken word east they would combine the pictographs of sun and tree both.

Cuneiform scripts seen in the writings of ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians were of the pictographic-ideographic variety.

Image via Wikipedia

Letter sent by the high-priest Lu’enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son’s death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Ngirsu).

Non Semitic alphabet had first developed along the eastern Mediterranean coastal region around 1700 and 1500 BC. It had evolved from combination of cuneiform and hieroglyphic symbols.

Greek and Roman alphabets are the variant of Semitic alphabet. It had 24 consonant symbols or more in some dialects. Later due to Roman conquests the Roman alphabets had become the basic alphabet of all languages in Western Europe.

Cyrillic alphabets are the derivatives of the Greek alphabet. Russian; Bulgarian; Serbian; Ukrainian; and some other Slavic languages still use Cyrillic alphabets in its writings. The Polish; Czech; Slovak; or Slovenian employs modern Roman alphabet.

The Arabic alphabet is the derivative of early Semitic language; but the modern Arabic writing had originated in the 7th century from Naskhi. It is the language of the whole of Islamic world.

Though alphabet is an attempt to maintain a relationship between sound and symbols, yet most of alphabetically written languages sound highly un-phonetic. Maybe it is because while spoken languages evolve the writings remain static.

Image via Wikipedia

Should we see Shorthand, and the language today’s youngster use in writing SMS as a spelling reform in English?

2
Liked it
User Comments
  1. GodsGrace

    On September 17, 2010 at 12:05 am


    Amazing StufF

  2. achilles2010

    On September 17, 2010 at 12:09 am


    Thank you GodsGrace for your appreciation.

  3. PSingh1990

    On September 17, 2010 at 2:13 am


    Nice Share.

    :-)

  4. Que serasera

    On September 17, 2010 at 4:00 am


    Its a real good artricle , I tell you! Very informative. Thanks for sharing it here.

  5. shelpeare

    On September 21, 2010 at 7:31 pm


    Interesting. I realized some time ago that the eight letter of the Hebrew alphabet in its earliest form is identical to our digital; eight although it represented a fence.

Post Comment
Powered by Powered by Triond