Semitic's vowel-smuggling consonants - History of Writing Systems #9 (Pointing & Matres Lectionis)

Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic evolved a unique way to write vowels... with consonants! See how in this episode of Thoth's Pill: an Animated History of Writing.

You're back in the ancient Middle East, where seemingly everyone's been passing around the Phoenician consonant alphabet. There's a problem with this abjad - sometimes those missing vowels cause issues. Instead of inventing vowels (like the Greeks did in the last episode), Semitic speakers use some of their consonants for vowels, too! This is the birth of "matres lectionis".

But that's not nearly enough for pickier scribes. See bickering scribes come up with a more detailed system, a system of vowel marks - dots and dashes surrounding consonants. These vowel pointers (harakat in Arabic, niqqud in Hebrew) explicitly indicate which consonants are followed by which vowels.

Watch the whole story of Thoth's Pill:

Who created this?
Art, animation and music by NativLang
CC-BY and public domain credits:

[mr.alhusaini]

Here's an Arabic example ;

اللغة العربية » اللُّغَةُ العَرَبِيَّةُ
Both are read the same and have the same meaning, same goes with Hebrew, and I find it really useful actually it's not hard at all when you're used to it, we as natives are able to distinguish between different words without knowing the vouls, here's another example :
كتب
This is written without vouls at all and it can mean 3 things :
• كَتَبَ wrote (he)
• كُتِبَ written
• كُتُبْ books
But we can differentiate between these meaning from the context which the word came in :)

[doumahamigahila]

i can read arabic because i went to an islamic school for reading Quran but i cant read modern day arabic as i am extremely reliant on the vowels in it

[deeelmore]

"bandits take you" I almost shat myself. I was NOT expecting that whispering.

[shlomokallner]

I think you guys forgot about that semetic languages use triconsonantal roots and word class templates. therefore it's a whole lot easier to remember which vowels to use.

[sillyfly]

I find it funny that the wiki article in Hebrew was about Arabic. I wonder if that was by mistake, or done deliberately :P

[LionKing-ewrm]

Persian (even though it's an IndoEuropean Language) is written in Semitic (Arabic) script!

[ronshbl]

I am a native Hebrew speaker and this is the best explanation I've seen for this

[fadyelkady]

arabic was written without dots until the spread of islam were we added them for forigners to help read the quraan, an arab can still read without dots as long as the handwriting is good

[nitsanbenhanoch]

Is it harder to read Hebrew? No.

When you see the word "surrounding", you pretty much instantly know how to pronounce it, because you're familiar with it. You don't read it letter-by-letter like a child, but as a WHOLE instead.
You also know that "choir" is kwa-yer even though it seems more like cho-yir.

Reading Hebrew text (as an adult) is the same.
In fact, when the text is dotted, my eyes see the dots as strains... a visual burden. I do not pause to interpret them. they just make the text messy!

[rolyntrotter]

I think this is the first time "Major Moments in the History of Writing!" has been worked well into the sentence, at least in a long time. "What's that? It's a major moments in the history of writing." Stinking plurals.

Anyway, good video series. I like the Arabic system, since it has an obvious way to write quickly, but also a way to write more meticulously, that every reader *should* understand (I messed up my vowels every sentence I ever read aloud, I'm sure).

[arandomassspammer]

4:17 I like how they showed the Hebrew wikipedia page about arabic

[shishoeh]

the funniest thing is that the dots system in Hebrew is called - "nikud", aka DOTING.

[spiralcraft]

bandits take u hahaha and that blink from the scribe after i was taken priceless!! nice balance of comedy and info.

[yamtam]

I like how you looked up arabic in hebrew on wikipedia

[nathanielouzana]

What you failed to mention is that both Hebrew and Arabic are relying on "formulae" to make most of their words, thus making the reading and learning much easier even without putting dots and lines all over.

[alhadad]

It's not only about vowels in Arabic. What mentioned in this video is true for vowels in Arabic. But, Arabic writing system has also evolve to add dots above and below the same letter shape to distinguish between different consonants. Initially, Arab we're able to read undotted text without any issue, but with spread of Islam ready started to become difficult to be read by non-arabic Muslims. So dots and other concepts mentioned in this video were created.

[ArguingFromIgnorance]

I found this video quite helpful. Thanks NativLang!

[szilveszterforgo]

When i first watched this I was very confused. After I learned a few abjad scripts I understand everything in this video.

[reixiin_]

(Edit) I made a slightly wrong comment but the people replying have some good explanation, I think 😅

[smashOsmash]

4:21 "Bandits take you" That was so cute :p