ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Carrier syllabics

Imagine you're playing with blocks and your mom wants to teach you words by putting letters on them. Now, let's say there's a special way of saying words in a certain language that your mom wants to teach you. This special way is called "carrier syllabics".

In this way, instead of putting letters on the blocks, your mom puts little pictures or symbols on them to represent sounds. But wait, there's another special rule: the symbols also have a special shape that tells you how to say them based on the vowels in the word.

So when you put together the blocks with the symbols on them, it creates the sounds of the special way of speaking the language. This is like building a puzzle with special pieces that help you say words in a different way.

That's basically what carrier syllabics are - a system of using symbols to represent sounds in a certain language, with rules about how to say them based on vowel shapes.