third strategy, least familiar to most readers of this book, uses a sign for each syllable. In practice, most such writing systems (termed syllabaries) provide distinct signs just for syllables of one consonant followed by one vowel (like the syllables of the word “fa-mi-ly”), and resort to various tricks in order to write other types of syllables by means of those signs. Syllabaries were common in ancient times, as exemplified by the Linear B writing of Mycenaean Greece. Some syllabaries persist today, the most important being the kana syllabary that the Japanese use for telegrams, bank
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