What is Abjad?
An '''abjad''' ([[Pashto]]: ابْجِدْ) is a [[writing system]] in which all of the [[Letter|letters]] are [[Consonant|consonants]]. Although [[Vowel|vowels]] can be added in some abjads as [[Diacritic|diacritics]], they are not needed to write a word correctly. Abjad are commonly written from right to left, rather than left to right, like in other [[writing system|writing systems]]. Well-known examples of abjads are the [[Arabic alphabet]] and the [[Hebrew language#Alphabet|Hebrew alphabet]]. == History == Abjads were the first phonetic writing systems: made to show only a word's pronunciation (instead of its meaning like [[Ideogram|ideographs]] or [[Logogram|logograms]]). They would later inspire the creation of [[Alphabet|alphabets]], such as the [[Greek alphabet]], which have letters for both consonants and vowels. The earliest known abjad in the world is the [[Phoenician alphabet]]. Since in [[Afroasiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic languages]], the root meaning of a word is found in its consonants, abjads are widely used in those languages. There are also languages without consonant roots that use abjads, such as [[Persian language|Persian]] and [[Urdu]], both of which use the Arabic alphabet. == Related pages == * [[Writing system]] {{stub}}{{Writing systems}} [[Category:Alphabet]] [[Category:Writing systems]]