semitic languase, such as Hebrew and arabic, are written wtih alphabets that consist only of consonant. Such an alphabet works for these languages because consonants from the roof of most words. For example, the consonants ktb in Arabic from the root of words associated with' write' thus katab means 'to write' aktib means ' i write , ' kitab means 'a book'' and so on. Inflectional and derivational processes can be expressed by different vowels inserted into the triconsonantal roots. Because of this structure, vowels, hence meaning and pronunciation, can be inferred by a person who knows the spoken language, jst lk y cn rd ths phrs, prvdng y knw nglsh. In contrast to semitic languages like arabic and hebrew, however, in english both vowels and consonants are usually crucial, as the dilbert cartoon illustrates.