cowan@... wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > Yiddish uses an alphabet, based on German, but with Hebrew shapes.
>
> In what way is Yiddish writing derived from German writing?
> It seems to me a natural development from scriptio plena Hebrew writing.

The Hebrew and Aramaic components of the Yiddish lexicon take over the
historical spelling (though not the pronunciation) of the words, but the
majority of the vocabulary is spelled quite phonemically. Every vowel is
written, unlike with scriptio plena of Semitic languages.

Yiddish doesn't have consonant letters and vowel points; it has lots of
letters, some of which look a lot like consonants with vowel points
under them, but that's not what they are or how they're counted. (See
Aronson in WWS.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...