Turkish was written using a Turkish form of the Arabic script for over 1,000 years. It was well suited to write Ottoman Turkish which incorporated a great deal of Arabic and Persian vocabulary. However, it was poorly suited to the Turkish part of the vocabulary. Whereas Arabic is rich in consonants but poor in vowels, Turkish is the opposite; the script was thus inadequate at representing Turkish phonemes. Some could be expressed using four different Arabic signs, while others could not be expressed at all. The introduction of the telegraph and printing press in the 19th century exposed further weaknesses in the Arabic script.