Writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

s are used to record human language, and may be classified according to certain common features. The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

s in which the script is written follows (in brackets), particularly in the case where the language name differs from the script name. Other informative or qualifying annotations for the script may also be provided.

Proto-writing and ideographic systems

Ideographic scripts (in which graphemes are

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'idea' + 'to write') is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonogram (linguistics), phono ...

s representing concepts or ideas rather than a specific word in a language) and pictographic scripts (in which the graphemes are iconic pictures) are not thought to be able to express all that can be communicated by language, as argued by the linguists John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger. Essentially, they postulate that no ''true'' writing system can be completely pictographic or ideographic; it must be able to refer directly to a language in order to have the full expressive capacity of a language. Unger disputes claims made on behalf of Blissymbols in his 2004 book ''Ideogram''. Although a few pictographic or ideographic scripts exist today, there is no single way to read them because there is no one-to-one correspondence between symbol and language. Hieroglyphs were commonly thought to be ideographic before they were translated, and to this day, Chinese is often erroneously said to be ideographic. In some cases of ideographic scripts, only the author of a text can read it with any certainty, and it may be said that they are ''interpreted'' rather than read. Such scripts often work best as mnemonic aids for oral texts or as outlines that will be fleshed out in speech. There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language:

Logographic systems

In logographic writing systems,

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

s represent

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

s or

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

s (meaningful components of words, as in ''mean-ing-ful'') rather than phonetic elements. No logographic script is composed solely of

logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...

s. All contain graphemes that represent

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

(sound-based) elements as well. These phonetic elements may be used on their own (to represent, for example, grammatical inflections or foreign words), or may serve as

phonetic complement A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters (logograms) that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Akkadian cuneiform, Linear B, Japanese, and Mayan. O ...

s to a logogram (used to specify the sound of a logogram that might otherwise represent more than one word). In the case of Chinese, the phonetic element is built into the logogram itself; in Egyptian and Mayan, many glyphs are purely phonetic, whereas others function as either logograms or phonetic elements, depending on context. For this reason, many such scripts may be more properly referred to as logosyllabic or complex scripts; the terminology used is largely a product of custom in the field, and is to an extent arbitrary.

Consonant-based logographies

* Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic – the writing systems of

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

Egyptian language The Egyptian language, or Ancient Egyptian (; ), is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world ...

Syllable-based logographies

* Anatolian hieroglyphs – Luwian. *

Cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

– Sumerian, Akkadian, other

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Urartian. * Aegean scripts – Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A ( Minoan language) and

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

(

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...

). *

Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...

s – Chinese, Japanese (called

Kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

), Korean (called

Hanja Hanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period. () ...

), Vietnamese (called

Chữ Hán ( , ) are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese in Vietnam, Literary Chinese (; ) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese language, Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region ...

, obsolete). ** Sawndip – Zhuang **

Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...

- Vietnamese ** Khitan large script – Khitan ** Khitan small script – Khitan ** Jurchen script – Jurchen ** Tangut script – Tangut * Sui script – Sui language * Yi (classical) – various Yi/Lolo languages * Pau Cin Hau logographic script – Tedim * Eghap (or Bagam) script – Məgaka * Mi'kmaw hieroglyphs – originally a pictorial system, transformed into a logographic system by French priest Father Le Clerq. * Maya script – Ch'olan, Yucatecan and Tzeltalan, especially Epigraphic Ch'olti'. *Mixteca-Puebla script –

Nahuan languages The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan languages, Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone a sound change, known as Whorf's law, that changed an original *t to before *a. Subsequently, some Nahuan languages ...

, especially

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl, also known simply as Aztec or Codical Nahuatl (if it refers to the variants employed in the Mesoamerican Codices through the medium of Aztec Hieroglyphs) and Colonial Nahuatl (if written in Post-conquest documents in the Lat ...

( Aztec script), Mixtecan languages ( Mixtec script), ''others''.

Syllabaries

In a

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

, graphemes represent

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s or moras. (The 19th-century term ''syllabics'' usually referred to ''

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

s'' rather than true syllabaries.) * Afaka Ndyuka * Alaska or Yugtun script Central Yup'ik * Bété *

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

* Cypro-Minoan – Cypro-Minoan (probably ancestral to Eteocypriot). * Cypriot

Arcadocypriot Greek Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese, and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, indicates that they are closely related ...

, Eteocypriot * Geba Naxi * Iban or Dunging script Iban * Kana Japanese (although primarily based on moras rather than syllables). **

Hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

** Man'yōgana * Kikakui – Mende * Kpelle Kpelle * Lisu Bamboo script * Loma Loma * Masaba – Bambara * Nüshu Chinese * Nwagu Aneke script Igbo * Vai Vai * Woleaian Woleaian (a likely syllabary) * Yi (modern) various Yi/Lolo languages

Semi-syllabaries

In most of these systems, some consonant-vowel combinations are written as syllables, but others are written as consonant plus vowel. In the case of Old Persian, all vowels were written regardless, so it was ''effectively'' a true alphabet despite its syllabic component. In Japanese a similar system plays a minor role in foreign borrowings; for example, uis written o and ias e Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries behaved as a

for the

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

s and as an

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

for the rest of consonants and vowels. The Tartessian or Southwestern script is typologically intermediate between a pure alphabet and the Paleohispanic full semi-syllabaries. Although the letter used to write a stop consonant was determined by the following vowel, as in a full semi-syllabary, the following vowel was also written, as in an alphabet. Some scholars treat Tartessian as a redundant semi-syllabary, others treat it as a redundant alphabet. Other scripts, such as Bopomofo, are semi-syllabic in a different sense: they transcribe half syllables. That is, they have letters for

syllable onset A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s and rimes ''(kan = "k-an")'' rather than for consonants and vowels ''(kan = "k-a-n").''

Consonant-vowel semi-syllabaries

* Bamum script Bamum (a defective syllabary, with alphabetic principles used to fill the gaps) * Eskayan

Bohol Bohol (), officially the Province of Bohol (; ), is an island province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas Regions of the Philippines, region, consisting of the island itself and 75 minor surrounding islands. It is home to Bohola ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

(a syllabary apparently based on an alphabet; some alphabetic characteristics remain) * Linear Elamite

Elamite language Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...

* Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries Paleo-Hispanic languages ** Celtiberian script

Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the ...

** Northeastern Iberian script Iberian language ** Southeastern Iberian script Iberian language ** Southwest Paleohispanic script Tartessian * Old Persian cuneiform

Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...

Onset-rime semi-syllabaries

Bopomofo Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao ( ; ), or simply Zhuyin, is a Chinese transliteration, transliteration system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is the principal method of teaching Chinese Mandarin pronunciation in Taiwa ...

phonetic script for different

varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...

. * Khom script Bahnaric languages, including Alak and Jru'. * Quốc Âm Tân Tự Vietnamese

Segmental systems

A segmental script has

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

s which represent the

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s (basic unit of sound) of a language. Note that there need not be (and rarely is) a one-to-one correspondence between the graphemes of the script and the phonemes of a language. A phoneme may be represented only by some combination or string of graphemes, the same phoneme may be represented by more than one distinct grapheme, the same grapheme may stand for more than one phoneme, or some combination of all of the above. Segmental scripts may be further divided according to the types of phonemes they typically record:

Abjads

abjad An abjad ( or abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introd ...

is a segmental script containing symbols for

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s only, or where vowels are ''optionally'' written with

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

("pointing") or only written word-initially. *

Ancient North Arabian Languages and scripts in the 1st Century Arabia Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic that were used in north and central Ara ...

Dadanitic Dadanitic is the script and possibly the language of the oasis of Dadān (modern Al-'Ula) and the kingdom of Lihyan, Liḥyān in northwestern Arabia, spoken probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BCE. Nomenclature Dad ...

, Dumaitic, Hasaitic,

Hismaic Hismaic () is a variety of the Ancient North Arabian script and the language most commonly expressed in it. The Hismaic script may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaiti ...

, Safaitic, Taymanitic, and

Thamudic Thamudic, named for the Thamud tribe, is a group of Epigraphy, epigraphic scripts known from large numbers of inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) alphabets, which have not yet been properly studied. These texts are found over a huge area f ...

* Ancient South Arabian Old South Arabian languages including Himyaritic, Hadhramautic, Minaean, Sabaean and Qatabanic; also the Ethiopic language

Geʽez Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical langu ...

. * Libyco-Berber –

Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, ...

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, including Khwarezmian ( Chorasmian), Elymaic, Palmyrene, and Hatran *

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Azeri, Bengali (historical occasion), Chittagonian (historical occasion), Punjabi, Baluchi, Kashmiri,

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

, Persian, Kurdish (vowels ''obligatory''), Sindhi, Uighur (vowels ''obligatory''),

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, Malay (as Jawi) and many other languages spoken in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and Western, Central, and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, *

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and other

Jewish languages Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian capti ...

* Manichaean script * Nabataean the

Nabataeans The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ) were an ancient Arabs, Arab people who inhabited northern Arabian Peninsula, Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city o ...

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

* Pahlavi script

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

** Parthian ** Psalter * Phoenician Phoenician and other

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite languages *

Proto-Canaanite Proto-Canaanite is the name given to: # The Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. # A hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BC, with an undefin ...

and Proto-Sinaitic –

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Canaanites. * Sogdian –

Sogdian language The Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhst ...

* Samaritan (Old Hebrew)

, and

* Syriac Classical Syriac, Sureth, Turoyo and other Neo-Aramaic dialects * Tifinagh Tuareg *

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...

, Hurrian

True alphabets

A true

contains separate letters (not

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

marks) for both

s and

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

Linear nonfeatural alphabets

''Linear'' alphabets are composed of lines on a surface, such as ink on paper. * Adlam Fula *

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

* Ariyaka script

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

Isan Northeast Thailand or Isan (Isan language, Isan/, ; ; also written as Isaan, Isarn, Issarn, Issan, Esan, or Esarn; from Pāli ''isāna'' or Sanskrit ईशान्य ''īśānya'' "northeast") consists of 20 provinces in northeastern Thai ...

, Lao *

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

* Avoiuli

Raga A raga ( ; , ; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. It is central to classical Indian music. Each raga consists of an array of melodic structures with musical motifs; and, fro ...

Borama Borama (, ) is the largest city of the northwestern Awdal region of Somaliland. The commercial seat of the province, it is situated near the border with Ethiopia. During the Middle Ages, Borama was ruled by the Adal Sultanate. It later formed a ...

Somali * Bosančica – Bosnian * Carian Carian * Caucasian Albanian Caucasian Albanian * Coorgi–Cox alphabet Kodava * Coptic Egyptian *

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

Eastern South Slavic languages ( Bulgarian and Macedonian), the Western South Slavic Serbian,

Eastern Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Sibe ...

( Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian), the other languages of Russia,

Kazakh language Kazakh is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia ...

, Kyrgyz language, Tajik language,

Mongolian language Mongolian is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), principal language of the Mongolic languages, Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are nati ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, and

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

are changing to the Latin alphabet but still have considerable use of Cyrillic. See Languages using Cyrillic. *

Deseret alphabet The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phoneme, phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second President of t ...

– proposed for English but never adopted * Eclectic shorthand English * Elbasan Albanian *

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal ...

Lisu * Gabelsberger shorthand German * Garay Wolof and Mandinka * Georgian Georgian and other

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

Gjirokastër Gjirokastër (, sq-definite, Gjirokastra) is a List of cities and towns in Albania, city in Southern Albania, southern Albania and the seat of Gjirokastër County and Gjirokastër Municipality. It is located in a valley between the Gjerë moun ...

(also called Veso Bey) Albanian *

Glagolitic The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...

* Gothic Gothic * Greek Greek, historically a variety of other languages * Hanifi Rohingya *

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

* Kaddare Somali * Latin Roman originally

Latin language Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

; most current western and central

European languages There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three larges ...

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

, sub-Saharan African languages,

indigenous languages of the Americas The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...

, languages of

maritime Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor. The terms Island Southeast Asia and Insular Southeast Asia are sometimes given the same meaning as ...

and

languages of Oceania Native languages of Oceania fall into three major geographic groups: * The large Austronesian language family, with such languages as Malay ( Indonesian), Tagalog ( Filipino), and Polynesian languages such as Māori and Hawaiian * The var ...

use developments of it. Languages using a non-Latin writing system are generally also equipped with

Romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

for

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

or secondary use. * Lycian Lycian * Lydian Lydian *

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

* Mandaic Mandaic dialect of

* Medefaidrin also called Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ; used for the religious language of the same name * Mongolian Mongolian * Mundari Bani Mundari * Mru script Mru * Neo-Tifinagh

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

* Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong Hmong *

N'Ko NKo (ߒߞߏ), also spelled N'Ko, is an alphabetic script devised by Solomana Kante, Solomana Kanté in 1949, as a modern writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa. The term ''NKo'', which means ''I say'' in all Manding languages, i ...

Maninka language Maninka (also known as Malinke), or more precisely Eastern Maninka, is the name of several closely related languages and dialects of the southeastern Manding subgroup of the Mande language family (itself, possibly linked to the Niger–Congo ...

, Bambara, Dyula language * Oduduwa script Yoruba * Ogham Gaelic, Britannic, Pictish * Ol Chiki Ol Cemet' or Ol Chemet' Santali * Old Hungarian (in Hungarian ''magyar rovásírás'' or ''székely-magyar rovásírás'') Hungarian * Old Italic a family of connected alphabets for the Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Messapian, South Picene, Raetic, Venetic, Lepontic, Camunic languages * Old Permic (also called ''Abur'') Komi * Old Turkic Old Turkic * Old Uyghur Old Uyghur * Ol Onal Bhumij Language * Osmanya Somali * Pau Cin Hau alphabetic script Paite and other Northeastern Kuki-Chin languages *

Runes Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

* Sayaboury (also called Eebee Hmong or ''Ntawv Puaj Txwm'') Hmong Daw * Sorang Sompeng Sora * Tai Lue Lue * Tangsa Tangsa language * Todhri Albanian * Tolong Siki Kurukh * Toto Toto * Unifon – proposed for English, never adopted * Vah Bassa * Vellara Albanian * Vithkuqi Beitha Kukju Albanian * Wancho Wancho * Yezidi Kurmanji * Zaghawa Zaghawa * Zoulai Zou (also has alphasyllabic characteristics)

Featural linear alphabets

A featural script has elements that indicate the components of articulation, such as

bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

, or

back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...

s. Scripts differ in how many features they indicate. * ASL-phabet * Ditema tsa Dinoko IsiBheqe SoHlamvu for Southern Bantu languages *

Duployan Shorthand The Duployan shorthand, or Duployan stenography (), was created by Father Émile Duployé in 1860 for writing French. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English, German, Spanish, Romanian, and Chinook Jargon. The Dupl ...

Gregg Shorthand Gregg shorthand is a system of shorthand developed by John Robert Gregg in 1888. Distinguished by its phonemic basis, the system prioritizes the sounds of speech over traditional English spelling, enabling rapid writing by employing elliptical f ...

Hangul The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...

Korean * Osage Osage *

Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet ( ; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a Constructed writing system, constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficultie ...

– proposed for English, never adopted *

SignWriting Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a system of written sign languages. It is highly featural and visually iconic: the shapes of the characters are abstract pictures of the hands, face, and body; and unlike most written words, which ...

and its descendants si5s and ASLwrite for sign languages * Stokoe notation for

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...

, and its descendant, the Hamburg Notation System or HamNoSys *

Tengwar The Tengwar () script is an artificial script, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the ...

(a fictional script) * Visible Speech (a phonetic script)

Linear alphabets arranged into syllabic blocks

Korean * Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics Fox, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk,

Ojibwe The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

* IsiBheqe SoHlamvu Southern Bantu languages * ʼPhags-pa script Mongolian, Chinese, Persian,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

Manual alphabets

Manual alphabets are frequently found as parts of

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with #Non-manual elements, no ...

s. They are not used for writing ''per se'', but for spelling out words while signing. * American manual alphabet (used with slight modification in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

) * British manual alphabet (used in some of the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an International organization, international association of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 56 member states, the vast majo ...

, such as

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

) * Catalan manual alphabet * Chilean manual alphabet * Chinese manual alphabet * Dutch manual alphabet * Ethiopian manual alphabet (an abugida) * French manual alphabet * Greek manual alphabet * Icelandic manual alphabet (also used in

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

) * Indian manual alphabet (a true alphabet?; used in

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

and Gujarati areas) * International manual alphabet (used in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

) * Iranian manual alphabet (an abjad; also used in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

) * Israeli manual alphabet (an abjad) * Italian manual alphabet * Korean manual alphabet * Latin American manual alphabets * Polish manual alphabet * Portuguese manual alphabet * Romanian manual alphabet * Russian manual alphabet (also used in

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

and ex-

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

states) * Spanish manual alphabet (

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

) * Swedish manual alphabet * Yugoslav manual alphabet

Other non-linear alphabets

These are other alphabets composed of something other than lines on a surface. * Braille (Unified) an embossed alphabet for the visually impaired, used with some extra letters to transcribe the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabets, as well as Chinese * Braille (Korean) * Braille (American) (defunct) * New York Point a defunct alternative to Braille *

International maritime signal flags International maritime signal flags are various flags used to communicate with ships. The principal system of flags and associated codes is the International Code of Signals. Various navies have flag systems with additional flags and codes, and ...

(both alphabetic and ideographic) * Morse code (International) a trinary code of dashes, dots, and silence, whether transmitted by electricity, light, or sound) representing characters in the Latin alphabet. * American Morse code (defunct) * Optical telegraphy (defunct) *

Flag semaphore Flag semaphore (from the Ancient Greek () 'sign' and - (-) '-bearer') is a semaphore system conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands. Informa ...

(made by moving hand-held flags)

Abugidas

, or ''alphasyllabary'', is a segmental script in which

sounds are denoted by

diacritical mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s or other systematic modification of the

s. Generally, however, if a single letter is understood to have an inherent unwritten vowel, and only vowels other than this are written, then the system is classified as an abugida regardless of whether the vowels look like diacritics or full letters. The vast majority of abugidas are found from India to Southeast Asia and belong historically to the Brāhmī family, however the term is derived from the first characters of the abugida in Ge'ez: አ (a) ቡ (bu) ጊ (gi) ዳ (da) — (compare with ''

''). Unlike abjads, the diacritical marks and systemic modifications of the consonants are not optional.

Brahmi family

Manuscripts in the Yunnan Nationalities Museum - DSC03945

* Ahom * Balinese * Batak Toba and other Batak languages *

Baybayin Baybayin (,), also sometimes erroneously referred to as alibata, is a Suyat, Philippine script widely used primarily in Luzon during the 16th and 17th centuries and prior to write Tagalog language, Tagalog and to a lesser extent Visayan lang ...

Formerly used for Ilokano, Pangasinan, Tagalog, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other

Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...

* Bengali — Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri * Bhaiksuki * Brahmi

Prakrit Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...

Buda Buda (, ) is the part of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, that lies on the western bank of the Danube. Historically, “Buda” referred only to the royal walled city on Castle Hill (), which was constructed by Béla IV between 1247 and ...

Old Sundanese and

Old Javanese Old Javanese or Kawi is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language and the oldest attested phase of the Javanese language. It was natively spoken in the central and eastern part of Java Island, what is now Central Java, Special Region o ...

* Buhid * Burmese Burmese, Karen languages, Mon, and Shan * Cham * Chakma *

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, Marathi, Nepali, and many other languages of northern India * Dhives Akuru * Grantha

* Gujarati Gujarati, Kutchi, Vasavi,

* Gurmukhi script Punjabi * Hanuno’o * Javanese *

Kaithi Kaithi (), also called Kayathi (), Kayasthi (), or Kayastani, is a Brahmic script historically used across parts of Northern and Eastern India. It was prevalent in regions corresponding to modern-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The s ...

*Kannada script, Kannada Kannada, Tulu language, Tulu, Konkani language, Konkani, Kodava *Kawi script, Kawi *Khema scriptKhojki, Gurung language, Gurung *Khojki *Khudabadi script, Khudabadi *Khmer alphabet, Khmer *Kirat Rai, Kirat Rai Khambu Rai Bantawa language, Bantawa *Kulitan alphabet *Lai Tay script, Lai Tay Tai Yo language, Tai Yo *Lampung language#Writing system, Lampung *Lao alphabet, Lao *Leke script, Leke Eastern Pwo language, Eastern Pwo, Western Pwo language, Western Pwo, and Karen language, Karen *Lepcha alphabet, Lepcha *Limbu alphabet, Limbu *Lontara alphabet, Lontara’ Buginese language, Buginese, Makassar language, Makassar, and Mandar language, Mandar *Mahajani *Makasar script, Makasar Formerly used for Makassar language, Makassar *Malayalam script, Malayalam *Marchen script, Marchen – Zhang-Zhung *Meitei script, Meitei Mayek – Meitei language, Meitei *Modi alphabet, Modi Marathi *Multani alphabet, Multani – Saraiki dialect, Saraiki *Nandinagari –

*Naoriya Phulo script – Meitei *New Tai Lue alphabet, New Tai Lue *Odia script, Odia *Pracalit script , Pracalit script Newa Nepal Bhasa,

*Pyu script, Pyu Pyu language (Burma), Pyu *Ranjana script, Ranjana Nepal Bhasa,

*Rejang alphabet, Rejang *Rencong script, Rencong *Saurashtra script, Saurashtra *Sharada script, Sharada

, Kashmiri *Siddham script, Siddham

*Sinhala script, Sinhala *Sirmauri language#Script, Sirmauri *Soyombo script, Soyombo *Sundanese script, Sundanese *Sylheti Nagri – Sylheti language, Sylheti *Tagbanwa alphabet, Tagbanwa Ethnic Groups of Palawan, Languages of Palawan *Tai Le script, Tai Le Dehong Dai Tai Nuea language, Tai Nuea *Tai Tham script, Tai Tham Khün language, Khün, and Northern Thai language, Northern Thai *Tai Viet script, Tai Viet *Takri alphabet, Takri *Tamil script, Tamil *Telugu script, Telugu *Thai alphabet, Thai *Tibetan alphabet, Tibetan *Tigalari alphabet, Tigalari

, Tulu language, Tulu *Tirhuta used to write Maithili language, Maithili *Tocharian script, Tocharian *Vatteluttu *Horizontal square script, Zanabazar Square *Zhang-Zhung language, Zhang zhung scripts

Other abugidas

*Canadian Aboriginal syllabics Cree syllabics (for Cree language, Cree), Inuktitut syllabics (for Inuktitut language, Inuktitut), Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, Ojibwe syllabics (for Ojibwe language, Ojibwe), and various systems for other languages of Canada. Derived scripts with identical operating principles but divergent character repertoires include Carrier syllabics, Carrier and Blackfoot language#Syllabic writing system, Blackfoot syllabics. *Dham script, Dham Dhimal language, Dhimal *Geʽez script, Ge'ez Amharic language, Amharic, Ge'ez language, Ge’ez, Tigrigna language, Tigrigna *Kharoṣṭhī Gandhari language, Gandhari,

*Kurukh language#Writing systems, Kurukh Banna Kurukh *Lontara Bilang-bilang script Buginese language, Buginese *Mandombe *Masaram GondiGondi language, Gondi *Meroitic script, Meroitic Meroë *Mwangwego script, Mwangwego Chichewa, Chewa and other Bantu languages of Malawi *Pitman Shorthand *Pollard script Hmong language, Miao *Oromo language#Writing systems, Sapalo script Oromo language, Oromo *Qiang language#Writing system, Rma script Qiang language, Qiang *Sunuwar alphabet, Sunuwar Jenticha *Thaana Dhivehi language, Dhivehi *Sunwar language#Tikamuli native abugida (since 2005), Tikamuli Sunwar language, Sunuwar *Thomas Natural Shorthand

Final consonant-diacritic abugidas

In at least one abugida, not only the vowel but any syllable coda, syllable-final consonant is written with a diacritic. That is, if representing [o] with an under-ring, and final [k] with an over-cross, [sok] would be written as . *Róng Lepcha language, Lepcha

Vowel-based abugidas

In a few abugidas, the vowels are basic, and the consonants secondary. If no consonant is written in Pahawh Hmong, it is understood to be /k/; consonants are written after the vowel they precede in speech. In Japanese Braille, the vowels but not the consonants have independent status, and it is the vowels which are modified when the consonant is ''y'' or ''w''. *Boyd's Syllabic Shorthand *Japanese Braille Japanese *Pahawh Hmong Hmong

List of writing systems by adoption

The following list contains writing systems that are in active use by a population of at least 50,000.

Undeciphered and possible writing systems

These systems have not been deciphered. In some cases, such as Meroitic script, Meroitic, the sound values of the glyphs are known, but the texts still cannot be read because the language is not understood. Several of these systems, such as Isthmian script and Indus script, are claimed to have been deciphered, but these claims have not been confirmed by independent researchers. In many cases it is doubtful that they are actually writing. The Vinča symbols appear to be proto-writing, and quipu may have recorded only numerical information. There are doubts that the Indus script is writing, and the Phaistos Disc has so little content or context that its nature is undetermined. *Byblos syllabary the city of Byblos *Indus script Indus Valley civilization *Isthmian script (apparently logosyllabic). *Neolithic signs in China, including: **Banpo symbols Yangshao culture (perhaps proto-writing) **Jiahu symbols Peiligang culture (perhaps proto-writing) **Sawveh Western Guangxi (disputed; perhaps proto-writing) *Olmec hieroglyphs, Olmec Olmec, Olmec civilization (possibly the oldest Mesoamerican script) *Alphabets of Asia Minor#Alphabets, Para-Lydian script Unknown language of Asia Minor; script appears related to the Lydian alphabet. *Phaistos Disc (a unique text). *Proto-Elamite script, Proto-Elamite Elam (nearly as old as Sumerian). *Quipu Andean civilizations, Andean Civilisation (possibly numerical only, though some expert assert it may have partly been logosyllabic). *Rongorongo Rapa Nui language, Rapa Nui (perhaps a logosyllabary) *Trojan script Trojan language *Zapotec writing, Zapotec script Zapotec language, Zapotec (another old Mesoamerican script).

Undeciphered manuscripts

Comparatively recent manuscripts and other texts written in undeciphered (and often unidentified) writing systems; some of these may represent ciphers of known languages or hoaxes. *Voynich manuscript *Rohonc Codex *James Hampton (artist), Hamptonese *Dorabella cipher

Phonetic alphabets

This section lists alphabets used to transcribe phonetics, phonetic or phoneme, phonemic sound; not to be confused with spelling alphabets like the ICAO spelling alphabet. Some of these are used for transcription purposes by linguists; others are pedagogical in nature or intended as general orthographic reforms. *

** X-SAMPA (and original SAMPA while not covering all of IPA), is an encoding of a phonetic alphabet, i.e. IPA, using just ASCII. * Americanist phonetic notation * Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

Special alphabets

Alphabets may exist in forms other than visible symbols on a surface. Some of these are:

Tactile alphabets

* Braille * Moon type * New York Point * Night writing

Manual alphabets

* Fingerspelling *

* American manual alphabet * Korean manual alphabet * Cued speech

Long-distance signaling

* Morse code *

* Optical telegraphy

Alternative alphabets

* Initial Teaching Alphabet * Pitman Shorthand * Quikscript

Fictional writing systems

See List of constructed scripts for an expanded version of this table.

Notes

References

External links

Ancient Scripts: Home
(Site with some introduction to different writing systems and group them int

* Michael Everson'
Alphabets of Europe

The World’s Writing Systems
catalogue of 294 writing systems, each with a typographic reference glyph and Unicode status
Deseret Alphabet

ScriptSource
– a dynamic, collaborative reference to the writing systems of the world {{DEFAULTSORT:Writing systems, List of Lists of writing systems, * Encodings

Proto-writing and ideographic systems

Logographic systems

Consonant-based logographies

Syllable-based logographies

Syllabaries

Semi-syllabaries

Consonant-vowel semi-syllabaries

Onset-rime semi-syllabaries

Segmental systems

Abjads

True alphabets

Linear nonfeatural alphabets

Featural linear alphabets

Linear alphabets arranged into syllabic blocks

Manual alphabets

Other non-linear alphabets

Abugidas

Brahmi family

Other abugidas

Final consonant-diacritic abugidas

Vowel-based abugidas

List of writing systems by adoption

Undeciphered and possible writing systems

Undeciphered manuscripts

Phonetic alphabets

Special alphabets

Tactile alphabets

Manual alphabets

Long-distance signaling

Alternative alphabets

Fictional writing systems

See also

Notes

References

External links