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List of writing systems

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File:World alphabets & writing systems.svg
Writing systems currently in use around the world

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Writing systems 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 languages 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 systemsEdit

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 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.<ref>Halliday, M.A.K., Spoken and written language, Deakin University Press, 1985, p.19</ref> 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.

Ideographic systems for language
Name Language(s) Notes
Adinkra
Birch-bark glyphs Anishinaabemowin
Dongba Naxi Often supplemented with syllabic Geba script.
Ersu Shaba script Ersu
Kaidā glyphs
Lusona Luba
Lukasa
Nsibidi Ekoi, Efik, Igbo
Siglas poveiras
Testerian used for missionary work in Mexico

There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language:

Ideographic systems for things other than language
Name Notes
Emojis Used as expressive icons in modern media
Blissymbols A constructed ideographic script used primarily in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
iConji A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
Isotype
A wide variety of notation systems

Logographic systemsEdit

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

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 as phonetic 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 logographiesEdit

Syllable-based logographiesEdit

SyllabariesEdit

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

Semi-syllabariesEdit

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. Other scripts, such as Bopomofo, are semi-syllabic in a different sense: they transcribe half syllables. That is, they have letters for syllable onsets and rimes (kan = "k-an") rather than for consonants and vowels (kan = "k-a-n").

Consonant-vowel semi-syllabariesEdit

Onset-rime semi-syllabariesEdit

Template:AnchorSegmental systemsEdit

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:

AbjadsEdit

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.

True alphabetsEdit

A true alphabet contains separate letters (not diacritic marks) for both consonants and vowels.

Linear nonfeatural alphabetsEdit

File:Alphabets in Europe.svg
Writing systems used in countries of Europe.<ref group="note">This maps shows languages official in the respective countries; if a country has an independent breakaway republic, both languages are shown. Moldova's sole official 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. Additionally, Serbia's sole official language is Cyrillic Serbian, but within the country, Latin script for Serbian is also widely used.</ref> Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend

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

Featural linear alphabetsEdit

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.

Linear alphabets arranged into syllabic blocksEdit

Manual alphabetsEdit

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.

Other non-linear alphabetsEdit

These are other alphabets composed of something other than lines on a surface.

AbugidasEdit

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

Brahmi familyEdit

File:Manuscripts in the Yunnan Nationalities Museum - DSC03945.JPG
A Palaung manuscript written in a Brahmic abugida

Other abugidasEdit

Final consonant-diacritic abugidasEdit

In at least one abugida, not only the vowel but any 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 {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.

Vowel-based abugidasEdit

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.

List of writing systems by adoptionEdit

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

Name of script Type Population actively using (in millions) Languages associated with Regions using script de facto
Latin
Latin 		Alphabet Template:Hs4900+<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref><ref group="note">Difficult to determine, as it is used to write a very large number of languages with varying literacy rates among them.</ref>

Latin<ref group="note">alphabet originally created to this language</ref> and Romance languages (languages that evolved from Latin: Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian)
Germanic languages (English, Dutch, German, Nordic languages)<ref group="note">replaced the runic alphabet</ref>
Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic)<ref group="note">replaced the Ogham</ref>
Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian)
Some Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian)
Albanian
Uralic languages (Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian)
Malayo-Polynesian languages (Malaysian,<ref group="note">replaced the Arabic alphabet</ref> Indonesian, Filipino, etc.)
Turkic languages (Turkish,<ref group="note">replaced the Arabic script</ref> Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Turkmen)
Some Cushitic languages (Somali, Afar, Oromo)
Bantu languages (for example: Swahili)
Vietnamese (an Austroasiatic language)<ref group="note">replaced the Chu Nom</ref>
others 		Worldwide
Chinese
汉字
漢字 		Logographic Template:Hs1541<ref name=":1">Population using script where it is official, according to 100% alphabetization.</ref> Sinitic languages (Mandarin, Min, Wu, Yue, Jin, Gan, Hakka and others)
Japanese (Kanji)
Korean (Hanja)<ref group="note">Hanja 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.</ref>
Vietnamese (Chu Nom obsolete)
Zhuang (Sawndip) 		Eastern Asia, Singapore
Arabic
العربية 		Abjad or Abugida (when diacritics are used) Template:Hs828<ref name=":1" /> Arabic (a Semitic language)
Several Indo-Iranian languages (Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Punjabi (Shahmukhi in Pakistan), Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Kashmiri)
Some Turkic languages (Uyghur, Kazakh (in China), Azeri (in Iran))

Malay (in Brunei)
others

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
Devanagari
देवनागरी 		Abugida Template:Hs480.5 Indo-Aryan languages (Bhojpuri, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit and many more)
Tibeto-Burman languages (Bodo, Newar, Sherpa) 		India, Nepal and Fiji
Cyrillic
Кирилица 		Alphabet Template:Hs289<ref name=":1" /> The majority of the Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, others). Non-Slavic languages of the former Soviet Union, such as West- and East Caucasian languages (Abkhaz, Chechen, Avar, others), Uralic languages (Karelian, others), Iranian languages (Ossetic, Tajik, others) and Turkic language (Kyrgyz, Tatar, Azeri (formerly), and others). Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan and Ukraine
Bengali
বাংলা 		Abugida Template:Hs234 Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri Bangladesh and India
Kana
かな
カナ 		Syllabary Template:Hs123 Japanese, Ryukyuan languages, Hachijō, Ainu, Palauan<ref>Thomas E. McAuley, Language change in East Asia, 2001:90</ref> Japan
Telugu
తెలుగు 		Abugida Template:Hs83 Telugu India
Hangul
한글
조선글 		Alphabet, featural Template:Hs81.7 Korean, Cia-Cia (an Austronesian language) North Korea and South Korea, Indonesia
Tamil
தமிழ் 		Abugida Template:Hs78.6 Tamil India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia
Thai
ไทย 		Abugida Template:Hs70 Thai Thailand
Gujarati
ગુજરાતી 		Abugida Template:Hs57.1 Gujarati India
Kannada
ಕನ್ನಡ 		Abugida Template:Hs45<ref group="note">Based on 46 million speakers of Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Kodava, Badaga in a state with a 75.6 literacy rate. url=http://updateox.com/india/26-populated-cities-karnataka-population-sex-ratio-literacy</ref> Kannada (a Dravidian language) India
Geʽez
ግዕዝ 		Abugida Template:Hs41.85 Amharic, Tigrinya Ethiopia, Eritrea
Burmese
မြန်မာ 		Abugida Template:Hs39<ref group="note">Based on 42 million speakers of Burmese in a country (Myanmar) with a 92% literacy rate.</ref> Burmese (a Lolo-Burmese language) Myanmar
Malayalam
മലയാളം 		Abugida Template:Hs38 Malayalam India
Odia
ଓଡ଼ିଆ 		Abugida Template:Hs35 Odia India
Gurmukhi
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ 		Abugida Template:Hs33.125 Punjabi India
Sinhala
සිංහල 		Abugida Template:Hs16 Sinhalese Sri Lanka
Khmer
ខ្មែរ 		Abugida Template:Hs16 Khmer Cambodia
Greek
Ελληνικά 		Alphabet Template:Hs13.5 Greek Greece, Cyprus
Hebrew
עברית 		Abjad, Abugida (when diacritics are used) or Alphabet (when used for Yiddish) Template:Hs9.3<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

Hebrew, Yiddish Israel
Ol Chiki
ᱚᱞ ᱪᱤᱠᱤ 		Alphabet Template:Hs7.3 Santali India
Lao
ລາວ 		Abugida Template:Hs7 Lao (a Tai language) Laos
Tibetan
བོད་ 		Abugida Template:Hs6.241 Dzongkha, Tibetan and Sikkimese China, Bhutan, India
Armenian
Հայոց 		Alphabet Template:Hs5.4 Armenian Armenia
Mongolian
Template:MongolUnicode 		Alphabet Template:Hs5.2 Mongolian Mongolia, China
Georgian
ქართული 		Alphabet Template:Hs3.7 Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz, Svan Georgia, Russia, Abkhazia
Meitei
Template:Script 		Abugida Template:Hs2<ref name=":1" /> Meitei (officially termed as "Manipuri") (a Sino-Tibetan language) India
Chakma
𑄌𑄋𑄴𑄟𑄳𑄦𑄃𑄧𑄏𑄛𑄖𑄴 		Abugida Template:Hs0.8 Chakma, Tongchangya & Pali India, Myanmar & Bangladesh.
Thaana
ދިވެހި 		Abugida Template:Hs0.34 Maldivian Maldives
Canadian Syllabics
ᖃᓂᐅᔮᖅᐸᐃᑦ
ᒐᐦᑲᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐤ
ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ
ᑐᑊᘁᗕᑋᗸ 		Abugida Template:Hs0.07<ref name=":1" /> Inuktitut (an Inuit language), some Algonquian languages (Cree, Iyuw Iyimuun, Innu-aimun, Anishinaabemowin, Niitsipowahsin), some Athabaskan languages (Dakelh, Dene K'e, Denesuline) Canada

Undeciphered and possible writing systemsEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

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 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.

Undeciphered manuscriptsEdit

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.

Phonetic alphabetsEdit

This section lists alphabets used to transcribe phonetic or 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.

Special alphabetsEdit

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

Tactile alphabetsEdit

Manual alphabetsEdit

Long-distance signalingEdit

Alternative alphabets Edit

Fictional writing systemsEdit

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

Name Type Language Work
Ath Alphabet Baronh Crest of the Stars
Aurebesh Alphabet Galactic Basic (i.e. English) Star Wars
Cirth Alphabet Khuzdul, Sindarin, Quenya, Westron, English The Lord of the Rings
D'ni D'ni Myst
Hymmnos Alphabet Hymmnos
KLI pIqaD Alphabet Klingon Star Trek
Loxian Loxian
Mandel Alphabet Klingon Star Trek
On Beyond Zebra!
Sarati Abugida Quenya The Lord of the Rings
Sitelen Pona Logography Toki Pona
Tengwar Abugida or alphabet Quenya, Sindarin, English The Lord of the Rings
Ultima scripts Various Ultima
Unown Pokémon
Utopian Utopian

See alsoEdit

NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

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