unvoweled

Unvoweled refers to text or script in which vowel sounds are not indicated by letters. In linguistics and writing systems, the term can describe a form that omits vowels in ordinary orthography, or a style in which vowels are not marked or are removed for practical reasons. In abjads such as Arabic and Hebrew, the basic writing system primarily records consonants, while vowel sounds may be supplied by context or by diacritical marks (diacritics) that are often omitted in everyday writing, producing unvoweled text.

In wider usage, unvoweled can describe shorthand, text messaging, or puzzle contexts where vowels are deleted to save space or create a consonant skeleton. Some English examples are used in demonstrations of vowel omission, and there exist words like rhythms that commonly appear without standard vowel letters; however, such cases may still rely on the vowel-like role of letters such as y, depending on the definition used.

The concept is relevant in linguistic analysis, information retrieval, and cryptography, where vowel omission can affect ambiguity, search behavior, or encoding schemes. Reconstructing intended pronunciations or full words from unvoweled strings typically requires contextual information or specialized algorithms for vowel restoration.

See also: Abjad, Consonant, Diacritics, Niqqud, Harakat, Vowel.