List of writing systems

This is a list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features. There are at least 3,866
[1]
languages that make use of an established writing system.

The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the language(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.

Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts

[A]lphabetic [L]ogographic, [S]yllabic Abjad Abugida
and [A]rtificially created
Latin Hanzi [L] Arabic North Indic
Cyrillic / Pinyin (Latin script) [A] Hebrew South Indic
Greek Kana [S] / Kanji [L] Ethiopic
Chosŏn'gŭl/Hangul [A] / Hanja [L]
Armenian Thaana
Georgian Canadian syllabic
a Featural-alphabetic. b Limited.

Writing systems of the world today.

Contents
 Pictographic/ideographic writing systems
Logographic writing systems
Consonant-based logographies
Syllable-based logographies
Syllabaries
Semi-syllabaries: Partly syllabic, partly alphabetic scripts
Segmental scripts
Abjads
True alphabets
Linear nonfeatural alphabets
Featural linear alphabets
Linear alphabets arranged into syllabic blocks
Manual alphabets
Other non-linear alphabets
Alphasyllabary
Alphasyllabary of the Brāhmī family
Other abugidas
Final consonant-diacritic abugidas
Vowel-based abugidas

List of writing scripts by adoption

Undeciphered systems that may be writing
Undeciphered manuscripts
Other
Phonetic alphabets
Special alphabets
Tactile alphabets
Alternative alphabets
Fictional writing systems
For animal use
See also
Notes
References
External links

Pictographic/ideographic writing systems

Ideographic scripts (in which graphemes are ideograms 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 full 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 ofBlissymbols 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.[2] 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.

Aztec – Nahuatl – Although some proper nouns have phonetic components. [3]

Mixtec – Mixtec
Dongba – Naxi – Although this is often supplemented with syllabicGeba script.
 Ersu Shābā – Ersu
Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing– Míkmaq – Does have phonetic components, however
.
Nsibidi – Ekoi, Efik/Ibibio, Igbo
Testerian – used for missionary work in Mexico
Other Mesoamerican writing systemswith the exception of Maya Hieroglyphs.
There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language, or to represent constructed languages. Some of these are

Blissymbols – A constructed ideographic script used primarily inAugmentative and Alternative Communication
(AAC).
iConji – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
Emoji - Used to communicate feelings and thoughts on theworld wide web
Isotype (picture language)
Sona
A wide variety of notations
Linear B and Asemic writing also incorporate ideograms.

Logographic writing systems

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes (meaningful components of words, as in mean-ing-ful), rather
than phonetic elements.

Note that no logographic script is composed solely of logograms. All contain graphemes that represent phonetic (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 asphonetic complements 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 ofAncient Egypt

Egyptian hieroglyphs (List)

Syllable-based logographies
Anatolian hieroglyphs – Luwian
Cuneiform – Sumerian, Akkadian, other Semitic languages, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Urartian
Chinese characters (Hanzi) – Chinese, Japanese (Kanji), Korean (Hanja (occasionally used)), Vietnamese (Chu Nom
(obsolete)), Zhuang Sawndip

Oracle bone script – Old Chinese

Bronzeware script – Old Chinese
Khitan large script – Khitan
Tangut script – Tangut
Eghap (or Bagam) script
Mayan – Chorti, Yucatec, and other Classic Maya languages
Yi (classical) – various Yi/Lolo languages
Shui script – Shui language

Syllabaries
In a syllabary, graphemes represent syllables or moras. (Note that the 19th-century term syllabics usually referred to abugidas rather
than true syllabaries.)

Afaka – Ndyuka
Alaska script – Central Yup'ik
Bété
Cherokee – Cherokee
Cypriot – Arcadocypriot Greek
Geba – Naxi
Iban – Iban
Kana – Japanese (although primarily based onmoras rather than syllables)

Hiragana
Katakana
Man'yōgana
Kikakui – Mende
Kpelle – Kpelle
Linear B – Mycenean Greek
Loma – Loma
Nü Shu – Chinese
Nwagu Aneke script – Igbo
Vai – Vai
Woleaian – Woleaian (a likely syllabary)
Yi (modern) – various Yi/Lolo languages

Semi-syllabaries: Partly syllabic, partly alphabetic scripts

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, [tu] is written [to]+[u], and [ti] as [te]+[i].
Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries behaved as a syllabary for the stop consonants and as an alphabet 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. Zhuyin is semi-syllabic in a different sense: it transcribes half syllables. That is, it has letters for syllable onsets
and rimes (kan = "k-an") rather than for consonants and vowels(kan = "k-a-n").

Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries– Paleohispanic languages

Tartessian or Southwestern script– Tartessian or Southwestern language

Southeastern Iberian script– Iberian language
Northeastern Iberian script– Iberian language
Celtiberian script – Celtiberian language
Old Persian Cuneiform– Old Persian
Bopomofo (a.k.a. Zhuyin Fuhao) –phonetic script for the different varieties of Chinese.
Eskayan – Eskayan language (a syllabary apparently based on an alphabet; some alphabetic characteristics remain)
Bamum script – Bamum (a defective syllabary, with alphabetic principles used to fill the gaps)

Segmental scripts
A segmental script has graphemes which represent the phonemes (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
An abjad is a segmental script containing symbols for consonants only, or where vowels are optionally written with diacritics
("pointing") or only written word-initially.

Aramaic
Arabic – Arabic, Azeri, Punjabi, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Pashto, Persian, Kurdish (vowels obligatory), Sindhi, Uighur
(vowels obligatory), Urdu, and the languages of many other peoples of the Near East
Hebrew – Hebrew, Yiddish, and other Jewish languages
Jawi – Arabic, Malay
Manichaean script
Nabataean – the Nabataeans of Petra
Pahlavi script – Middle Persian

Parthian
Psalter
Phoenician – Phoenician and other Canaanite languages
Proto-Canaanite
Sabaean

South Arabian – Sabaean, Qatabanic, Himyaritic, and Hadhramautic

Sogdian
Samaritan (Old Hebrew)– Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew
Syriac – Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Syriac, Turoyo and other Neo-Aramaic languages
Tifinagh – Tuareg
Ugaritic – Ugaritic, Hurrian

True alphabets
A true alphabet contains separate letters (notdiacritic marks) for both consonants and vowels.

Linear nonfeatural alphabets

Linear alphabets are composed of lines on a surface, such as ink on paper
.

Adlam – Fula
Armenian – Armenian
Avestan alphabet – Avestan
Avoiuli – Raga
Beitha Kukju – Albanian
Borama – Somali
Carian – Carian
Caucasian Albanian alphabet– Old Udi language
Coorgi–Cox alphabet – Kodava
Coptic – Egyptian
Cyrillic – Eastern Slavic languages(Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian), eastern South Slavic languages(Bulgarian,
Macedonian, Serbian), the other languages of Russia, Kazakh language, Kyrgyz language, Tajik language,
Mongolian language. Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Uzbek are officially written in Latin (in their respective countries) but
have a considerable number of users writing in Cyrillic. SeeLanguages using Cyrillic.
Eclectic Shorthand
Elbasan – Albanian
Fraser – Lisu
Gabelsberger shorthand
 Georgian – Georgian and other Kartvelian languages
Glagolitic – Old Church Slavonic
Gothic – Gothic
Greek – Greek
International Phonetic Alphabet
Kaddare – Somali
Latin AKA Roman – originally Latin language; most current
western and central European languages, Turkic
languages, sub-Saharan African languages, indigenous
languages of the Americas, languages of maritime
Southeast Asia and languages of Oceania use
developments of it. Languages using a non-Latin writing
system are generally also equipped withRomanization for
transliteration or secondary use.
Manchu – Manchu
Mandaic – Mandaic dialect of Aramaic Writing systems used in countries of Europe.[note 1]
Mongolian – Mongolian Greek
Neo-Tifinagh – Tamazight Greek & Latin
Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong
Latin
N'Ko – Maninka language, Bambara, Dyula language
Ogham (Irish pronunciation:[oːm]) – Gaelic, Britannic, Pictish Latin & Cyrillic
Old Hungarian (in Hungarian magyar rovásírás or székely- Cyrillic
magyar rovásírás) – Hungarian
Georgian
Old Italic – a family of connected alphabets for the
Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Messapian, South Picene, Armenian
Raetic, Venetic, Lepontic, Camunic languages
Old Permic (also called Abur) – Komi
Old Turkic – Turkic
Old Uyghur alphabet – Uyghur
Osmanya – Somali
Runic alphabet – Germanic languages
Ol Cemet' – Santali
Tai Lue – Lue
Uyghur Arabic alphabet– Uyghur
Vah – Bassa
Zaghawa – Zaghawa

Featural linear alphabets

A featural script has elements that indicate the components of articulation, such as bilabial consonants, fricatives, or back vowels.
Scripts differ in how many features they indicate.

Gregg Shorthand
Chosŏn'gŭl/Hangul – Korean
Osage – Osage
Physioalphabet (a physiological alphabet)
Shavian alphabet
Tengwar (a fictional script)
Visible Speech (a phonetic script)
Stokoe notation for American Sign Language
SignWriting for sign languages
IsiBheqe SoHlamvu for Southern Bantu languages

Linear alphabets arranged into syllabic blocks

Hangul – Korean
Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics– Fox, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe
 IsiBheqe SoHlamvu – Southern Bantu languages

Manual alphabets
Manual alphabets are frequently found as parts of sign languages. They are not used for writing per se, but for spelling out words
while signing.

American manual alphabet(used with slight modification inHong Kong, Malaysia, Paraguay, Philippines, Singapore,
Taiwan, Thailand)
British manual alphabet(used in some of the Commonwealth of Nations, such as Australia and New Zealand)
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)
Indian manual alphabet(a true alphabet?; used inDevanagari and Gujarati areas)
International manual alphabet(used in Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland)
Iranian manual alphabet(an abjad; also used inEgypt)
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 and ex-Soviet states)
Spanish manual alphabet(Madrid)
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(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 – (made by moving hand-held flags)

Alphasyllabary
An abugida, or alphasyllabary, is a segmental script in which vowel sounds are denoted by diacritical marks or other systematic
modification of the consonants. 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 alphasyllabary regardless of whether the vowels look like
diacritics or full letters. The vast majority of alphasyllabaries are found from India to Southeast Asia and belong historically to the
Brāhmī family. The term abugida is derived from the first characters of the abugida in Ge'ez: አ (A) ቡ (bu) ጊ (gi) ዳ (da) — (compare
with alphabet). Unlike abjads, the diacritical marks and systemic modifications of the consonants are not optional.

Alphasyllabary of the Brāhmī family

Ahom
Brahmi – Sanskrit, Prakrit,
Balinese
Batak – Toba and other Batak languages
Baybayin – Formerly used for Ilocano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan,
Tagalog, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other
Philippine languages
Bengali[4] - Sanskrit, Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri,
also for Khasi, Sylheti, Kokborok and Hajong and formerly for Bodo,
Karbi and Mising
Bhaiksuki
Buhid
Burmese – Burmese, Karen, Pwo, Mon, and Shan
Cham
Chakma
Dehong – Dehong Dai
Devanagari – Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, and many other
A Palaung manuscript written in a
languages of northern India
Brahmic abugida
Dhives Akuru
Grantha- Sanskrit
Gujarati – Gujarati, Kutchi, Vasavi, Sanskrit, Avestan
Gurmukhi script – Punjabi
Hanunó'o
Javanese
Kaithi
Kannada – Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Kodava
Kawi
Khojki
Khotanese
Khudawadi
Khmer
Lao
Lepcha
Leke – Eastern Pwo, Western Pwo, and Karen
Limbu
Lontara’ – Buginese, Makassar, and Mandar
Mahajani
Malayalam
Marchen - Zhang-Zhung
Meetei Mayek
Modi – Marathi
Multani – Saraiki
Nandinagari – Sanskrit
Newar – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit
New Tai Lue
Odia
Phags-pa – Mongolian, Chinese, and other languages of theYuan Dynasty Mongol Empire
Ranjana – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit
Rejang
 Sharada - Sanskrit
Siddham -used to write Sanskrit
Sinhala
Saurashtra
Soyombo
Sundanese
Syloti Nagri – Sylheti
Tagbanwa – Aborlan, Calamian, and Central Tagbanwa languages and other languages of Palawan
Tai Le
Tai Dam
Tai Tham – Khün, and Northern Thai
Takri
Tamil - Tamil, Kanikkaran, Badaga, Irula, Paniya, Sanskrit (Grantha), Saurashtra
Telugu
Thai
Tibetan
Tigalari – Sanskrit, Tulu
Tirhuta – Maithili
Tocharian
Vatteluttu
Zanabazar Square
Zhang zhung scripts

Other abugidas

Canadian Aboriginal syllabics– Cree syllabics (for Cree), Inuktitut syllabics (for Inuktitut), and other variants for
Ojibwe, Carrier, Blackfoot, and other languages of Canada (Based on Devanagari. refer to origins).
Ethiopic – Amharic, Ge’ez, Tigrigna
Kharoṣṭhī – Gandhari, Sanskrit
Mandombe
Meroitic – Meroë
Mwangwego
Pitman Shorthand
Pollard script – Miao
Thaana – Dhivehi
Thomas Natural Shorthand

Final consonant-diacritic abugidas

In at least one abugida, not only the vowel but any syllable-final consonant is written with a diacritic. For example, representing [o]
with an under-ring, and final [k] with an over-cross, [sok] would be written ass̥.̽

Róng – 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 scripts by adoption
 Regions
Population Languages
Number of with
Name of script Type actively using associated
characters predominant
(in millions) with
usage
Latin and
Romance
languages
(Italian, French,
Franco-
Provençal,
Occitan,
Catalan,
Portuguese,
Galician,
Spanish,
Rhaeto-
Romance
languages,
Sardinian and
Romanian),
Germanic
languages
(English, Dutch,
German, Nordic
languages),
Chinese
(Mandarin
Pinyin),
Austronesian
Latin 23 languages
Alphabet over 6120[note 2] Worldwide
Latin (classical)[5] (Indonesian,
Filipino, Malay,
Polynesian
languages),
West and
Southwest
Slavic
languages
(including
Polish), Niger-
Congo
languages
(including
Swahili, Yoruba,
and Zulu),
Turkish, Somali,
Albanian,
Vietnamese,
Hungarian,
Maltese, Finnic
(including
Estonian and
Finnish) and
Sami
languages,
others
Chinese Logographic >50,000[6] 1340[note 3] Mandarin, Yue, China, Taiwan,
汉字 Wu, Gan, Min, Singapore,
漢字 Hakka, Xiang, Malaysia
Jin, Pinghua, (Chinese
Huizhou and Malaysians),
other Chinese Japan, South
languages Korea,
(Chinese Indonesia
characters), (Chinese
Japanese Indonesians),
(Kanji), Korean Hong Kong
(Hanja),[note 4]
 (Hanja),
Vietnamese
(Chu Nom),
Zhuang
(Sawndip),
Okinawan
(Okinawan),
Mulam
A phonetic
transcription
Zhuyin Fuhao (a.k.a. system used in
Bopomofo) Taiwan for
Alphabet, 37 (plus four
ㄅㄆㄇㄈ Semisyllabary tone marks) 1340[note 5] Mandarin Taiwan
Chinese,
ㄓㄨㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊㄏㄠˋ
studied mainly
by
schoolchildren.
Angika, Awadhi,
Bhili, Bhojpuri,
Bodo,
Chhattisgarhi,
Dogri,
Haryanvi, Hindi,
Kashmiri,
Konkani, India (native in
Devanagari Magahi, Hindi Belt, Goa,
दे वनागर
Abugida 44[7] 820+[note 6]
Maithili, Maharashtra),
Marathi, Nepal
Mundari,
Nepali, Newar,
Pali,
Rajasthani,
Sanskrit,
Santali, Sindhi,
others
Arabic, Persian,
Urdu, Punjabi, Middle East
Pashto, Sindhi, and North
Balochi, Africa,
Malayan (Jawi), Pakistan, China
Acehnese (Xinjiang), India
(Jawi), Uyghur, (a few states),
Arabic
‫اﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬
Abjad 28[8] 660+ Kazakh (in Brunei (co-
China), official with
Kurdish, Azeri Latin),
(in Iran), Malaysia,
Javanese Indonesia
(Pegon), (religious uses
Sundanese only)
(Pegon), others
Sanskrit,
Bengali,
Assamese,
Kokborok, Bangladesh,
Bishnupriya and India (West
Manipuri, Bengal, Bihar,
Mizoram,
Khasi,[12] Meitei
Bengali|[9] Jharkhand,
Manipuri,
Abugida 28[10] 300[11] Tripura, Assam,
বাংলা Hajong,
Manipur,
Chakma,[13] Meghalaya,
Maithili Andaman and
(historical use), Nicobar
Angika Islands)
(historical use),
Sylheti and
others.
Cyrillic Alphabet 250 Bulgarian, Eastern
33[14]
Кириллица 33[14] Russian, Europe, Central
Serbian, Asia and
Ukrainian, Mongolia, the
Macedonian, Russian Far
Belarusian, East
others
Japanese,
Kana Okinawan,
かな Syllabary 46[15] 120[note 7] Ainu, Palauan, Japan
カナ other Japonic
languages
Indonesia
(Central Java,
East Java,
Special Region
Javanese Javanese, of Yogyakarta,
Cirebonese, Cirebon,
Abugida 53[16] 80[note 8]
Madurese, Cirebon
Sundanese Regency,
Indramayu
Regency),
Javanese
diaspora
North Korea,
South Korea,
and Yanbian
Chosŏn'gŭl/Hangul Korean
한글 Alphabet, Korean, Cia-
featural 24[17] 78.7[note 9] Cia, Jeju
Autonomous
조선글 Prefecture of
China,
Indonesia
(Baubau)
Andhra
Telugu Pradesh,
Telugu,
Abugida 60[18] 74[note 10] Sanskrit, Gondi
Telangana,
Puducherry
(India)
Tamil Nadu
Tamil, (India),
Kanikkaran, Puducherry
Tamil Badaga, Irula, (India), Sri
த
Abugida 246[19] 70[note 11] [note 12]
Paniya, Lanka,
Sanskrit, Singapore,
Saurashtra Malaysia,
Mauritius
Gujarati, Kutchi,
Avestan, Bhili,
Gujarati Bhilori, Gamit, India,[note 14]
Abugida 47[20] 48[note 13]
ગુજરાતી Chowdhary, Pakistan[note 15]
Kukna, Bhili,
Varli, Vasavi
Kannada, Tulu,
Kodava,
Kannada 51 (or 50 or Badaga, Beary, Karnataka
ಕನಡ Abugida 45[note 16]
49)[21] Sanketi, (India)
Konkani,
Sanskrit
Burmese Burmese, Pali,
ြမန်မာ Abugida 26[22] 39[note 17] Sanskrit
Myanmar

Malayalam Abugida 26[23] 38[note 18] Malayalam, Kerala,

മലയാളം Sanskrit, Puducherry
Paniya, Betta (India)
 Kurumba,
Ravula
Thai, Northern
Thai, Southern
Thai, Northern
Thai Khmer, and
Abugida 68[24] 38[note 19] Thailand
ไทย Isan, Kelantan-
Pattani Malay,
Pali, Sanskrit,
others

Sundanese Sundanese, West Java and

Abugida 44[25] 38[note 20] Bantenese, Banten
Baduy (Indonesia)

Gurmukhi Sanskrit,
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ Abugida 35[26] 22[note 21] Punjabi, Sant Punjab (India)
Bhasha, Sindhi
Odia
ଉ ଳ Abugida 64[27] 21[note 22] Odia, others Odisha (India)

Ethiopian
Semitic
Ge'ez
ግዕዝ
Abugida 30[28] 18[note 23] languages, Blin, Ethiopia, Eritrea
Meʻen, Oromo,
Anuak
Sinhala
ංහල Abugida 58[29] 14.4[note 24] Sinhala, Vedda Sri Lanka

Hebrew,
Hebrew Yiddish, other
Abjad 22[30] 14[note 25] Israel
‫עברית‬ Jewish
languages
Greece,
Cyprus,
Southern
Greek Albania;
Alphabet 24[31] 13.4 Greek, others
Ελληνικό worldwide for
mathematical
and scientific
purposes
Armenian Armenian,
Alphabet 39[32] 12 Armenia
Հայոց Lomavren
Khmer Khmer, Pali,
ែខរ
Abugida 35[33] 11.4[note 26] Cambodia
others

Batak
20 (Toba Batak North Sumatra
Abugida 8.5
Batak)[34] languages (Indonesia)

Indonesia
Buginese,
Lontara (South
Abugida 23[35] 7.6 Makassar,
Sulawesi and
Mandar
West Sulawesi)
Balinese Indonesia (Bali
Balinese and
and Lombok,
Abugida 18 (basic)[36] 6 Sasak
East Nusa
(modified)
Tenggara)

Tibetan Abugida 30[37] 5 Tibetan, Tibet

བོད་ Dzongkha, Autonomous
Ladakhi, Region of
Sikkimese, China, Bhutan,
 Balti, Tamang, and India
Sherpa, Yolmo, (Jammu and
Tshangla Kashmir,
Sikkim, Assam,
and Arunachal
Pradesh)
Georgian and
Georgian
ქართული
Alphabet 33[38] 4.5 other Kartvelian Georgia
languages
Liangshan Yi
Autonomous
Modern Yi Prefecture and
Nuosu Yi, other
Syllabary 1165[39] 4 Chuxiong Yi
ꆈꌠ Yi languages
Autonomous
Prefecture of
China
Lao Lao, Isan,
Abugida 26[40] 2[note 27]
ລາວ others Laos
Mongolian,
Mongolian Manchu
China (Inner
Alphabet 26[41] 2 (Manchu),
Mongolia)
Evenki
(experimentally)
Tifinagh Berber
Abjad 33[42] 1 North Africa
ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ languages
Tai Le
Abugida 35[43] 0.72 Tai Nüa Yunnan (China)

New Tai Lue

Abugida 83[44] 0.55 Tai Lü Yunnan (China)

Syriac,
Aramaic, Neo-
Syriac Aramaic,
Abjad 22[45] 0.4 West Asia
Suriyani
Malayalam,
nothers
Thaana
Abugida 24[46] 0.35 Maldivian Maldives

14 (each of
the 14
Inuktitut consonants Inuktitut, other Canada (North
Abugida 0.035
ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ has 6 modes Inuit languages of Tree Line)
depending on
the vowel)[47]
Cherokee
Syllabary 86[48] 0.02 Cherokee United States

Undeciphered systems that may be writing

These systems have not been deciphered. In some cases, such as 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 Epi-Olmec and Indus, 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 Indus is writing, and the Phaistos Disc has so little content or context that its nature is undetermined.

Ba–Shu scripts
 Byblos syllabary – the city of Byblos
Isthmian (apparently logosyllabic)
Indus – Indus Valley Civilization
Quipu – Inca Empire (possibly numerical only)
Khitan small script – Khitan
Cretan hieroglyphs
Linear A (a syllabary) – Minoan
Mixtec – Mixtec (perhaps pictographic)
Olmec – Olmec civilization (possibly the oldest Mesoamerican script)
Phaistos Disc (a unique text, very possibly not writing)
Proto-Elamite – Elam (nearly as old as Sumerian)
Rongorongo – Rapa Nui (perhaps a syllabary)
Proto-Sinaitic (likely an abjad)
Zapotec – Zapotec (another old Mesoamerican script)
Banpo symbols – Yangshao culture (perhaps proto-writing)
Jiahu symbols – Peiligang culture (perhaps proto-writing)
ANRSAWS

Undeciphered manuscripts
A number of manuscripts exist which may be written in an invented writing system, a cipher of an existing writing system or may
only be a hoax.

Voynich manuscript
Rohonc Codex
Hamptonese
Dorabella Cipher
ANRSSAWS

Other
Asemic writing is generally meaningless, though it sometimes contains ideograms or pictograms.

Phonetic alphabets
This section lists alphabets used to transcribe phonetic or phonemic sound; not to be confused with spelling alphabets like the ICAO
spelling alphabet.

International Phonetic Alphabet

Deseret alphabet
Unifon
Americanist phonetic notation
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
Shavian 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
Morse code
Flag semaphore
Optical telegraphy

Alternative alphabets
Gregg shorthand
Initial Teaching Alphabet
Pitman shorthand
Quikscript

Fictional writing systems

Alteran
Ath (alphabet)
Aurebesh
Cirth
D'ni
Gallifreyan
Goa'uld
Heptapod B, used by the extraterrestrials in the filmArrival
Hymmnos
Hylian
Klingon
On Beyond Zebra!
Sarati
Tengwar, used to write Quenya, Sindarin and other of J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages
The "Tennobet", used to write the Orokin language in the Digital Extremes MMO Warframe
Unown
Unnamed script used in Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Utopian, in Thomas More's Utopia
The written language inHunter x Hunter
Ancient Language used in the Tellius World of the series Fire Emblem

For animal use

Yerkish uses "lexigrams" to communicate with non-human primates.

See also
Constructed script
Grapheme
List of inventors of writing systems
List of ISO 15924 codes
List of languages by first written accounts
List of languages by writing system
Unicode

Notes
1. This maps shows languages official in the respective countries; if a country has an independent breakaway republic,
both languages are shown. Moldova's sole of ficial language is Romanian (Latin-based), but the unrecognized de
 facto independent republic of Transnistria uses three Cyrillic-based languages: Ukrainian, Russian, and Moldovan.
Georgia's official languages are Georgian and Abkhazian (in Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia), the sparsely
recognized de facto independent republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia use Cyrillic-based languages: Both
republics use Russian. Additionally, Abkhazia also uses Abkhaz, and South Ossetia uses Ossetian. Azerbaijan's sole
official language is Azerbaijani, but the unrecognized de facto independent republic of Nagorno-Karabakh uses
Armenian as its sole language. Additionally , Serbia's sole official language is Cyrillic Serbian, but within the country
,
Latin script for Serbian is also widely used.
2. Difficult to determine, as it is used to write a very large number of languages with varying literacy rates among them.
3. Based on sum of 1.335 billion PRC citizens with a 92% literacy rate (1.22 billion), and 120 million Japanese
Kanji
users with a near-100% literacy rate.
4. Hanja has been banned in North Korea and is increasingly being phased out in South Korea. It is mainly used in
official documents, newspapers, books, and signs to identify Chinese roots to Korean words.
5. Based on sum of 1.335 billion PRC citizens with a 92% literacy rate (1.22 billion), and 120 million Japanese
Kanji
users with a near-100% literacy rate.
6. January 2017 estimate. 2001 census reported that languages with more than 1 million native speakers that use
Devanagari had a total number of native speakers of 631.5 million. The January 2017 population estimate of India is
1.30 times that of the 2001 census, and it was estimated that the native speakers of Devanagari languages increased
by the same proportion, i.e. to 820.95 million. This was multiplied by the literacy rate 74.04% as reported by the 2011
census. Since the literacy rate has increased since 2011 a + sign was added to this figure.
7. Based on Japanese population of roughly 120 million and a literacy rate near 100%.
8. Since around 1945 Javanese script has largely been supplanted by Latin script to write Javanese.
9. Excluding figures related to North Korea, which does not publish literacy rates.
10. Based on 67% literacy rate in Andhra Pradesh (according to government estimate) and 74 million
Telugu speakers.
11. Tamil Nadu has an estimated 80% literacy rate and about 72 million Tamil speakers.
12. Sri Lanka Tamil and Moor population that useTamil script. 92% literacy
13. Based on 60.38 million population and 79.31% literacy rate ofGujarat
14. An estimated 46 million Gujaratis live in India with 11 Gujarati-script newspapers in circulation.
15. An estimated 1 million Gujaratis live in Pakistan with 2 Gujarati-script newspapers in circulation.
16. Based on 46 million speakers ofKannada language, Tulu, Konkani, Kodava, Badaga in a state with a 75.6 literacy
rate. url=https://updateox.com/india/26-populated-cities-karnataka-population-sex-ratio-literacy
17. Based on 42 million speakers ofBurmese in a country (Myanmar) with a 92% literacy rate.
18. Spoken by 38 million people in the world.
19. Based on 40 million proficient speakers in a country with a 94% literacy rate.
20. Sundanese is predominantly written using the Latin alphabet. The number of people able to read the Sundanese
script is considerably lower than 38 million.
21. Based on 29 million Eastern Punjabi speakers and 75% literacy rate
22. Based on 32 million speakers ofOdia in a country with a 65% literacy.
23. Based on 30 million native speakers of Amharic and iTgrinya and a 60% literacy rate.
24. Based on 15.6 million Sinhala language speakersand a 92% literacy rate in Sri Lanka.
25. Hebrew has over 9 million speakers, including other Jewish languages and Jewish population outside Israel, where
the Hebrew script is used by Jews for religious purposes worldwide.
26. Based on 15 million Khmer speakers with 73.6% literacy rate.
27. Based on 3 million speakers ofLao in a country with a 73% literacy.

References
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External links
Omniglot: a guide to writing systems
Ancient Scripts: Home: Site with some introduction to different writing systems and group them into
(origins/types/families/regions/timeline/A to Z)
Michael Everson's Alphabets of Europe
Deseret Alphabet
ScriptSource - a dynamic, collaborative reference to the writing systems of the world

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