Glossary

Abjad	a script which represents only the consonants of a language. Classic examples are Phoenician, Hebrew and Arabic. The term was popularized by Daniels (1990) from the Arabic word for the original order of the Arabic script.
Abudiga	a script which systematically modifies a consonant symbol to indicate the vowel (or lack of one). The base glyph in a series represents not only the consonant, but also an inherent vowel. Most often, the glyph represents a CV combination. Classic examples are the scripts of Ge'ez and Sanskrit. Daniels (1990) derived the term from an Ethiopian word for one ordering of the script.
Alphabet	a script which represents both consonants and vowels with distinct symbols. The terms derive from the Greek letters for the first vowel (alpha) and the first consonant (beta). Greek was the first alphabet, which has apparently been invented only once.
Logogram	a script which uses a single glyph to represent a word or morpheme. Some examples include much of Sumerian and Chinese.
Logosyllabary	a script which uses a single glyph to represent the word, as well as the word's phonetic value in syllabic format.
Morphogram	a glyph which represents a single morpheme (often a free word).
Syllabary	a script in which each glyph represents a syllable, most often a CV combination. Classic examples are the Japanese kana and Cherokee. The syllable is a natural unit of speech, and thus syllabaries have been invented independently numerous times.