Defective Orthographies
A defective orthography is one that is not capable of representing all the phonemes or phonemic distinctions in a language. An example of such a deficiency in English orthography is the lack of distinction between the voiced and voiceless "th" phonemes, occurring in words like then and thin respectively (both have to be written th). More systematic deficiency is found in orthographies based on abjadic writing systems like the Arabic and Hebrew scripts, which do not normally represent the short vowels (although methods are available for doing so in special situations).
Read more about this topic: Phonemic Orthography
Famous quotes containing the word defective:
“The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)