James Germain Février (January 1895, in Clérac – 15 July 1976, in Paris) was a 20th-century French historian and philologist. A specialist of the Semitic world, his thesis was on the archaeological site of Palmyra and he wrote numerous studies on the history of Carthage and the Phoenicians.
He was editor-in-chief of the Journal Asiatique from 1967 to 1972.
An abugida (/ˌɑːbuːˈɡiːdə, ˌæb-/ ; from Geʽez: አቡጊዳ, 'äbugīda)—sometimes also called an alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabet—is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, like a diacritical mark. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional. In less formal contexts, all three types of script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which a single symbol denotes the combination of a consonant and a vowel.
Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term néosyllabisme) and David Diringer (using the term semisyllabary), and in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term pseudo-alphabet). The Ethiopic term "abugida" was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. Faber suggested "segmentally coded syllabically linear phonographic script"; William O. Bright used the term alphasyllabary; and Gnanadesikan and Rimzhim, Katz, & Fowler suggested aksara or āksharik.
Clérac (French pronunciation: [kleʁak]) is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department in southwestern France.
The historian and philologist James Germain Février (1895–1976) was born in Clérac.