Re: "Motherless" abjads?

Marco Cimarosti wrote:

>
> Good day, qalamites.
>
> I am seeking for an example of an abjad which uses vowel diacritics
> (optionally, of course) but does *not* use matres lectionis.
>
> Did such a thing ever exist?
>
> As far as I understand, none of the modern abjads (Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac)
> fits the description: they all use consonant letters to spell vowels.
>
> Thanks everybody in advance.

The only language whose abjad didn't use matres was Phoenician, and
Phoenician was long gone before vowel pointing was invented.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...