List of languages by writing system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Below is a list of languages sorted by writing system (by alphabetical order).

Adlam alphabet[]

  • Fulfulde/Pular

Afaka syllabary[]

  • Ndyuka (on occasion)

Anatolian alphabets[]

  • Anatolian languages (extinct)

Arabic script[]

  • Acehnese (on occasion, after the colonization by the Dutch)
  • Adyghe (before 1927 and Latin script [1927–1938], now uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Afrikaans (briefly, in the early 19th century)
  • Arabic
    • Algerian
    • Egyptian
    • Lebanese
    • Moroccan
    • Iraqi
    • Tunisian

and many other varieties of Arabic.

  • Afar (Kabir Hamza script)
  • Azerbaijani (Iran only)
  • Arwi
  • Bakhtiari
  • Balochi
  • Balti
  • Banjar
  • Bashkir
  • Belarusian (on occasion)
  • Bengali (Historical) (along with Bengali, Sylheti and Assamese script)
  • Berber
  • Bhadarwahi
  • Bosnian (formerly)
  • Brahui
  • Burushaski (on occasion)
  • Central Kurdish
  • Cham
  • Chechen (alongside the Georgian script)
  • Chinese in the Arabic-derived Xiao'erjing alphabet
  • Chittagonian
  • Comorian
  • Crimean Tatar (before 1928)
  • Dari
  • Dungan (now uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Dogri (also uses Devanāgarī in India and Takri script)
  • Dyula
  • French in Algeria and other parts of North Africa during the French colonial period.
  • Filipino used by Muslims from the 14th century to the 16th century, now the Arabic script for Filipino is extinct and is replaced by Spanish in Latin script, which uses the letter Ñ as an extra letter.
  • Fulani (on occasion)
  • Gilaki
  • Greek (on occasion in certain areas of Greece and Anatolia)
  • Harari (originally, now uses the Ge'ez script)
  • Hausa (on occasion)
  • Ingush (at the beginning of the 20th century)
  • Javanese (see Pegon alphabet)
  • Jola-Fonyi
  • Judeo-Arabic languages
  • Judaeo-Spanish (until the 20th century)
  • Kanuri (on occasion)
  • Karakalpak (before 1928)
  • Kashmiri
  • Kazakh in China
  • Khowar
  • Kurdish (Iran and Iraq)
  • Kyrgyz
  • Lak (now uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Lezgin
  • Luri
  • Madurese (with the Pegon alphabet)
  • Malagasy (until the 19th century)
  • Malay (14th – 20th century)
  • Mandinka
  • Marwari (Pakistan)
  • Mazanderani
  • Minangkabau
  • Mozarabic (now extinct)
  • Nobiin (algongside Latin script)
  • Ngai (before 1928 and Latin [1928–1938], now uses the Cyrillic)
  • Ottoman Turkish (extinct)
  • Pashto
  • Persian (Iran and Afghanistan)
  • Punjabi (Pakistan)
  • Qashqai
  • Rohingya (also uses the Latin script)
  • Salar
  • Saraiki
  • Sindhi
  • Somali (see Wadaad's writing)
  • Songhay
  • Spanish (before 16th century, a.k.a. Aljamiado)
  • Swahili (on occasion)
  • Tajik (formerly)
  • Talysh
  • Tatar
  • Tausug
  • Tuareg
  • Turkish (formerly)
  • Turkmen (on occasion in Iran and Afghanistan)
  • Urdu
  • Uyghur
  • Uzbek (Formerly, now Cyrillic and Latin are more commonly used)
  • Wakhi
  • Wolio
  • Wolof known as Wolofal
  • Yoruba in the 17th century with the Ajami script
  • Zarma (formerly)

Aramaic alphabet[]

  • Arabic (see Garshuni)
  • Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
  • Bohtan Neo-Aramaic
  • Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
  • Hertevin
  • Koy Sanjaq Surat
  • Senaya
  • Syriac
  • Turoyo (also has new Latin-based script)
  • Mongolian

Armenian script[]

  • Armenian
  • Western Armenian
  • Classical Armenian
  • Middle Armenian

ASL-phabet[]

  • Various sign languages
    • American Sign Language (also si5s, SignWriting, and Stokoe notation)

Borama script[]

  • Somali

Brahmic family and derivatives[]

Bengali–Assamese script[]

  • Assamese alphabet:
    • Assamese
    • Bishnupriya Manipuri (with Bengali ra)
    • Bodo (less common now)
    • Deori
    • Garo
    • Kamtapuri
    • Karbi (formerly)
    • Khasi
    • Koch
    • Rabha
    • Meitei Manipuri (with Bengali ra)
    • Mising
    • Sanskrit
    • Sylheti
    • Tiwa
  • Bengali alphabet
    • Bengali (Bangla)
    • Sylheti
    • Bishnupriya Manipuri (with Assamese va)
    • Chittagonian
    • Meitei Manipuri (with Assamese va)
    • Hajong
    • Kokborok
  • Mithilakshara/Tirhuta (Maithili alphabet)

Balinese script[]

  • Balinese language

Baybayin script[]

  • Ilokano (formerly)
  • Pangasinan (formerly)
  • Tagalog (formerly)
  • Bikol language (formerly)
  • Visayan languages (formerly)

Buhid script[]

Chakma[]

  • Chakma

Devanagari[]

  • Hindi
  • Sanskrit
  • Marathi
  • Bhojpuri
  • Magadhi
  • Maithili
  • Nepali
  • Sindhi (also written in Arabic)
  • Konkani (also written in Latin and Kannada)
  • Kashmiri (also written in Arabic)
  • Bodo
  • Dogri
  • Santali
  • Chhattisgarhi
  • Nepal Bhasa (mainly written in Ranjana Script)

Gujarati script[]

  • Gujarati

Hanunó'o script[]

Javanese script (Hanacaraka)[]

  • Javanese

Kaithi script[]

  • Awadhi
  • Bhojpuri
  • Magahi
  • Maithili

Kannada script[]

  • Kannada
  • Konkani (In Karnataka)
  • Tulu
  • Kodava
  • Badaga (formerly)
  • Beary bashe (also written in Latin)
  • Sankethi

Khmer script[]

  • Khmer

Kulitan alphabet[]

  • Kapampangan

Laṇḍā scripts[]

Gurmukhi script[]

  • Punjabi (also written in Shahmukhi, a variant of the Arabic script)

Khojki[]

  • Sindhi (formerly)

Khudawadi[]

  • Sindhi (formerly)

Mahajani script[]

  • Punjabi (formerly)

Multani script[]

  • Punjabi (formerly)

Lao script[]

  • Lao

Leke script[]

Lepcha script[]

  • Lepcha

Limbu script[]

  • Limbu

Lontara script[]

  • Makassarese
  • Buginese
  • Mandar

Malayalam script[]

  • Malayalam

Meitei Mayek[]

  • Meitei Manipuri

Tirhuta/Mithilakshar[]

  • Maithili

Modi[]

  • Marathi (formerly)

Mongolian[]

  • Mongolian

Myanmar script[]

Odia script[]

  • Odia

'Phags-pa script[]

  • Chinese (formerly)
  • Mongolian (formerly)
  • Sanskrit (formerly)
  • Tibetan (for decorative purposes)
  • Uyghur (formerly)

Ranjana[]

  • Nepal Bhasa

Saurashtra[]

  • Saurashtra

Sinhala script[]

  • Sinhala
  • Elu
  • Vedda

Sundanese script[]

  • Sundanese

Sylhet Nagri script[]

Tagbanwa script[]

  • Palawan languages

Tamil script[]

Telugu script[]

  • Telugu

Thaana script[]

Thai script[]

  • Thai

Tibetan script[]

Canadian Aboriginal script[]

  • Blackfoot
  • Chipewyan
  • Cree
  • Dakelh
  • Dane-zaa
  • Inuktitut
  • Ojibwe
  • Sekani
  • Slavey
  • Tłįchǫ

Caucasian Albanian alphabet[]

  • Udi (formerly)

Cherokee script[]

  • Cherokee

Coptic alphabet[]

  • Coptic language (extinct, still in use liturgically)

Cyrillic script[]

Main article: Languages written in a Cyrillic alphabet
  • Belarusian (also Latin script in the past)
  • Bosnian (also Latin script)
  • Bulgarian
  • Dungan
  • Judaeo-Spanish (also Latin script, others)
  • Kazakh (to be replaced with Latin script by 2025)
  • Kyrgyz
  • Macedonian
  • Mongolian (also Mongolian script and Latin script)
  • Montenegrin (also Latin script in the past)
  • Russian
  • Serbian (also Latin script, not official)
  • Ukrainian
  • Persian (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)

Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet (bosančica)[]

  • Croatian (formerly)
  • Bosnian (formerly)

Ge'ez script (Ethiopia and Eritrea)[]

  • Amharic
  • Ge'ez
  • Tigrinya
  • Tigre
  • Harari
  • Blin
  • Me'en (formerly)
  • Oromo (formerly)

Georgian script[]

  • Georgian
  • Laz (sometimes Latin)
  • Mingrelian
  • Svan

Glagolitic alphabet[]

  • Old Church Slavonic (extinct, still in use liturgically)
  • Croatian (formerly)

Gothic alphabet[]

  • Gothic (extinct)

Greek script[]

  • Greek
  • Coptic Egyptian
  • Bactrian (extinct)
  • Gaulish (extinct) – Written in both Greek and Latin scripts
  • Judaeo-Spanish (also Latin script)
  • Karamanli Turkish (extinct)

Chinese characters and derivatives[]

  • Sinitic
    • Mandarin (Dungan uses Cyrillic alphabet)
    • Yue which includes Cantonese
    • Wu which includes Shanghainese
    • Min which includes Taiwanese (most varieties also use Latin alphabet)
    • Xiang
    • Hakka
    • Gan
    • Jin (sometimes considered part of Mandarin)
    • Huizhou (sometimes considered part of Wu)
    • Ping
  • Minority languages in China
    • Dong
    • Bai (obsolete)
    • Miao (obsolete)
    • Zhuang, with Zhuang logograms
  • Japanese (kanji plus kana derivative)
  • Korean (hanja) (used in academic texts and newspapers along with official documents)
  • Vietnamese (Han-Nom) (used in historic or academic texts, or for artistic or aesthetic purposes, but in general use virtually extinct)
  • Extinct languages
    • Khitan, written in large and small Khitan scripts
    • Jurchen, written in Jurchen script
    • Tangut, written in Tangut script

Hangul[]

  • Korean
  • Cia-Cia
  • Jeju

Hebrew script[]

Old Italic script[]

  • Italic (extinct)

Kaddare script[]

  • Somali

Kana[]

  • Japanese (plus kanji)
  • Ryukyuan (plus kanji)
  • Ainu slightly modified variety of katakana, which enable the ability to represent final consonants

Kharosthi[]

  • Kharosthi (extinct)

Khitan large script[]

  • Khitan (extinct)

Khitan small script[]

  • Khitan (extinct)

Latin script[]

  • Acehnese (also uses the Arabic script)
  • Afar (formerly used the Arabic script)
  • Afrikaans
  • Albanian
  • Aragonese
  • Asturian
  • Aymara
  • Azeri (formerly used the Cyrillic script)
  • Bai
  • Banjar (also uses the Arabic script)
  • Basque
  • Belarusian (also uses the Cyrillic script, and occasionally the Lacinka alphabet)
  • Betawi
  • Berber / Tamazight (Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Niger)
  • Bislama
  • Boholano (formerly used Baybayin)
  • Bosnian (also uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Breton
  • Catalan
  • Cebuano
  • Chamorro
  • Cherokee (also uses the Cherokee script)
  • Cornish
  • Corsican
  • Croatian
  • Cree
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dayak
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Esperanto
  • Estonian
  • Faroese
  • Fijian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Fula (Pulaar)
  • Gaelic (Scottish)
  • Galician
  • German
  • Gikuyu
  • Guaraní
  • Haitian Creole
  • Hausa (formerly used the Arabic script)
  • Hawaiian
  • Hiri Motu
  • Hmong
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Ido
  • Igbo
  • Ilocano (formerly used Baybayin)
  • Indonesian
  • Interlingua
  • Innu-aimun
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Javanese (also uses the Javanese script)
  • Judeo-Spanish (also used other scripts)
  • Kabylian Berber
  • Khasi (also uses the Bengali script)
  • Kazakh (formerly used the Arabic script; used alongside the Cyrillic script)
  • Kinyarwanda
  • Klingon language (also uses its own fictional writing system.)
  • Kirundi
  • Kongo
  • Konkani
  • Kurdish (Kurmanji)
  • Latin
  • Latvian
  • Laz
  • Leonese
  • Lingala
  • Lithuanian
  • Luganda
  • Luxembourgish
  • Māori
  • Malagasy
  • Malay (also uses the Arabic script)
  • Maltese
  • Manx
  • Marshallese
  • Mauritian Creole
  • Min (also uses the Chinese characters)
  • Minangkabau (also uses the Arabic script)
  • Moldovan (also uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Montenegrin (also uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Nahuatl (after the Spanish conquest)
  • Nauruan
  • Navaho or Navajo
  • Nias
  • Ndebele (Northern)
  • Ndebele (Southern)
  • North Frisian
  • Norwegian
  • Occitan
  • Oromo (formerly used the Ge'ez script)
  • Palauan
  • Picard
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Quechua
  • Rohingya (formerly used the Arabic script)
  • Romanian (formerly used the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet)
  • Romansh
  • Samoan
  • Sasak
  • Saterland Frisian
  • Scots
  • Serbian (officially uses the Cyrillic script)
  • Seychellois creole
  • Shona
  • Slovak
  • Slovene
  • Somali (formerly used the Arabic script and the Osmanya script)
  • Sotho (Northern)
  • Sotho (Southern)
  • Spanish
  • Sundanese (also uses the Sundanese script)
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Swati
  • Tagalog (formerly used Baybayin)
  • Tahitian
  • Tatar (formerly used the Arabic script, then Janalif, and then the Cyrillic script)
  • Tetum
  • Tok Pisin
  • Tongan
  • Tsonga
  • Tswana
  • Tunisian Arabic (also uses the Arabic script)
  • Turkish
  • Turkmen (formerly used the Cyrillic script)
  • Turoyo (formerly used the Syriac alphabet)
  • Uzbek (formerly used the Arabic script and then the Cyrillic script; the latter still in widespread use)
  • Venda
  • Vietnamese (formerly used Han-Nom)
  • Vastese
  • Volapük
  • Võro
  • Walloon
  • Welsh
  • West Frisian
  • Wolof
  • Xhosa
  • Yoruba
  • Zazaki
  • Zhuang
  • Zulu

Meetei Mayek[]

  • Meetei language

Mesoamerican scripts[]

Epi-Olmec script[]

  • Olmec (extinct)

Maya script[]

(Almost extinct although still used in some areas)

Mixtec script[]

(Almost extinct although still used in some areas)

Nahuat hieroglyphs[]

(Now uses Spanish alphabet)

  • Nahuatl

Olmec script[]

  • Olmec (extinct)

Zapotec script[]

Takalik Abaj and Kaminaljuyú scripts[]

Mongolian and related scripts[]

Old Uyghur alphabet[]

  • Uyghur (formerly)

Mongolian script[]

  • Mongolian (also Cyrillic)

Manchu script[]

  • Manchu
  • Xibe

Munda scripts[]

Sorang Sompeng[]

Ol Cemet'[]

  • Santali

Warang Citi[]

  • Ho

N'Ko script[]

Naxi script[]

  • Naxi (obsolete)

Nsibidi[]

  • Ekoi
  • Igbo
  • Ibibio

Ogham[]

Osmanya script[]

  • Somali

Pahawh Hmong[]

  • Hmong

Old Permic alphabet[]

  • Komi (formerly)

Runic script[]

  • Proto-Norse inscriptions
  • Old Norse (also Latin script)
  • Old Danish (also Latin script)
  • Old English/Anglo-Saxon (also Latin script)
  • Old Frisian (also Latin script)
  • Old High German (also Latin script)
  • Old Dutch (also Latin script)

si5s[]

  • Various sign languages
    • American Sign Language (also ASL-phabet, SignWriting, and Stokoe notation)

SignWriting[]

  • Various sign languages
    • American Sign Language (also, ASL-phabet, si5s, and Stokoe notation)
    • British Sign Language
    • Nicaraguan Sign Language

Stokoe notation[]

  • Various sign languages
    • American Sign Language (also, ASL-phabet, si5s, and SignWriting)

Old Turkic script[]

  • Old Turkic language (extinct)

Old Hungarian alphabet[]

  • Hungarian (revived for decorative purposes only. In use: Latin script)

Tifinagh[]

  • Berber / Tamazight (Morocco)
  • Tuareg

Yezidi Script[]

  • Yezidi

Yi script[]

  • Nuosu

References[]

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