Writing Systems of the World 8, Exercise 3: shape and system Canadian syllabics: each consonant has a fixed base shape, and rotating it marks the vowel (the consonant p is a chevron pointing up, down, left or right). The shape of a symbol encodes the vowel, but nothing in the shape describes how the consonant is produced. Tengwar: the shapes correspond to distinctive features of the sounds. Most letters have a stem and one or two bows; doubling the bow voices a stop, raising the stem makes a fricative, shortening it makes a nasal (Tengwar article). The shape of a symbol encodes how the sound is made. Closer to "featural" (Chapter 1: symbols for sub-phonetic elements): Tengwar, because its shapes track phonetic features. The Writing system article cites Hangul as the main featural example and notes its status is disputed, so the label depends on how strictly "features" is read.