List of writing systems

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

This is a list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features.

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.

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 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.^[1] 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.

• Birch-bark glyphs – Anishinaabemowin
• Kaidā glyphs
• Dongba – Naxi – Although this is often supplemented with syllabic Geba script.
• Ersu Shābā – Ersu
• Nsibidi – Ekoi, Efik/Ibibio, Igbo
• Siglas poveiras
• Suckerfish script – Mi'kmawi'sit – Does have phonetic components, however.
• Testerian – used for missionary work in Mexico.
• Emoji – used in electronic messages and web pages.

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 in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
• iConji – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
• Isotype (picture language)
• A wide variety of notations

Linear B also incorporates 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 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 logographies[]

• Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic – the writing systems of Ancient Egypt
  • Egyptian hieroglyphs
    • List of Egyptian hieroglyphs by common name

Syllable-based logographies[]

• Anatolian hieroglyphs – Luwian
• Cuneiform – Sumerian, Akkadian, other Semitic languages, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Urartian
• Chinese characters (Hanzi) – Chinese, Japanese (called Kanji), Korean (called Hanja), Vietnamese (called Chu Nom, obsolete)
  • Sawndip – Zhuang
  • Khitan large script – Khitan
  • Khitan small script – Khitan
  • Jurchen script – Jurchen
• 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 or Yugtun script – Central Yup'ik
• Bété
• Cherokee – Cherokee
• Cypriot – Arcadocypriot Greek
• Geba – Naxi
• Iban or Dunging script – Iban
• Kana – Japanese (although primarily based on moras rather than syllables)
  • Hiragana
  • Katakana
  • Man'yōgana
• Kikakui – Mende
• Kpelle – Kpelle
• Linear B – Mycenean Greek
• 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: 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 – Paleo-Hispanic 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 or Zhuyin fuhao – phonetic script for the different varieties of Chinese.
• Eskayan – Bohol, Philippines (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)
• Khom script – Bahnaric languages, including Alak and Jru'. (Onset-rime script)

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.

• Ancient North Arabian – Dadanitic, Dumaitic, Hasaitic, Hismaic, Safaitic, Taymanitic, and Thamudic
• Ancient South Arabian – Old South Arabian languages including Himyaritic, Hadhramautic, Minaean, Sabaean and Qatabanic; also the Ethiopic language Ge'ez.
• Aramaic, including Khwarezmian (AKA Chorasmian)
• Arabic – Arabic, Azeri, Chittagonian (historically), Punjabi, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Pashto, Persian, Kurdish (vowels obligatory), Sindhi, Uighur (vowels obligatory), Urdu, Malay (as Jawi) and many other languages spoken in Africa and Western, Central, and Southeast Asia,
• Hebrew – Hebrew and other Jewish languages
• Manichaean script
• Nabataean – the Nabataeans of Petra
• Pahlavi script – Middle Persian
  • Parthian
  • Psalter
• Phoenician – Phoenician and other Canaanite languages
• Proto-Canaanite
• 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 (not diacritic 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 – Avestan
• Avoiuli – Raga
• Borama – Somali
• Carian – Carian
• Caucasian Albanian – Caucasian Albanian
• Coorgi–Cox alphabet – Kodava
• Coptic – Egyptian
• Cyrillic – Eastern South Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian), the Western South Slavic Serbian, Eastern Slavic languages (Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian), the other languages of Russia, Kazakh language, Kyrgyz language, Tajik language, Mongolian language. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are changing to the Latin alphabet but still have considerable use of Cyrillic. See Languages using Cyrillic.
• Deseret alphabet – proposed for English but never adopted
• Eclectic shorthand – English
• Elbasan – Albanian
• Fraser – Lisu
• Gabelsberger shorthand – German
• Garay – Wolof and Mandinka
• Georgian – Georgian and other Kartvelian languages
• Gjirokastër (also called Veso Bey) – Albanian
• Glagolitic – Old Church Slavonic
• Gothic – Gothic
• Greek – Greek, historically a variety of other languages
• Hanifi – Rohingya
• 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 with Romanization for transliteration or secondary use.
• Lycian – Lycian
• Lydian – Lydian
• Manchu – Manchu
• Mandaic – Mandaic dialect of Aramaic
• Mongolian – Mongolian
• Neo-Tifinagh – Tamazight
• Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong – Hmong
• N'Ko – Maninka language, Bambara, Dyula language
• Ogham – Gaelic, Britannic, Pictish
• Ol Cemet' – 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
• Osmanya – Somali
• Runes – Germanic languages
• Sayaboury (also called Eebee Hmong or Ntawv Puaj Txwm) – Hmong Daw
• Tai Lue – Lue
• Todhri – Albanian
• Tolong Siki – Kurukh
• Toto – Toto
• Unifon – proposed for English, never adopted
• Vah – Bassa
• Vithkuqi AKA 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 consonants, fricatives, or back vowels. Scripts differ in how many features they indicate.

• Ditema tsa Dinoko AKA IsiBheqe SoHlamvu for Southern Bantu languages
• Duployan Shorthand
• Gregg Shorthand
• Hangul – Korean
• Osage – Osage
• Shavian alphabet – proposed for English, never adopted
• SignWriting and its descendents si5s and ASLwrite for sign languages
• Stokoe notation for American Sign Language
• Tengwar (a fictional script)
• Visible Speech (a phonetic script)

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 in Hong 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
• (an abugida)
• French manual alphabet
• (also used in Denmark)
• (a true alphabet?; used in Devanagari and Gujarati areas)
• (used in Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland)
• (an abjad; also used in Egypt)
• (an abjad)
• Korean manual alphabet
• Polish manual alphabet
• Portuguese manual alphabet
• Russian manual alphabet (also used in Bulgaria and ex-Soviet states)
• Spanish manual alphabet (Madrid)
• 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)

Abugidas[]

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.

Abugidas of the Brāhmī family[]

• Ahom
• Brahmi – Sanskrit, Prakrit
• Balinese
• Batak – Toba and other Batak languages
• Baybayin – Formerly used for Ilokano, Pangasinan, Tagalog, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other Philippine languages
• Bengali and Assamese- Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri
• Bhaiksuki
• Buhid
• Burmese – Burmese, Karen languages, Mon, and Shan
• Cham
• Chakma
• Dehong – Dehong Dai
• Devanagari – Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, and many other languages of northern India
• Dhives Akuru
• Grantha – Sanskrit
• Gujarati – Gujarati, Kutchi, Vasavi, Sanskrit, Avestan
• Gurmukhi script – Punjabi
• Hanuno’o
• Javanese
• Kaithi
• Kannada – Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Kodava
• Kawi
• Khojki
• Khotanese
• Khudawadi
• Khmer
• Kulitan alphabet
• 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
• New Tai Lue
• Odia
• Phags-pa – Mongolian, Chinese, and other languages of the Yuan Dynasty Mongol Empire
• Pracalit script AKA Newa – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit, Pali
• Pyu – Pyu
• Ranjana – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit
• Rejang
• Rencong
• Sharada – Sanskrit, Kashmiri
• Siddham – Sanskrit
• Sinhala
• Saurashtra
• Soyombo
• Sundanese
• Sylheti Nagri – Bengali, Dobhashi, Sylheti
• Tagbanwa – Languages of Palawan
• Tai Le
• Tai Tham – Khün, and Northern Thai
• Tai Viet
• Takri
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Thai
• Tibetan
• Tigalari  – Sanskrit, Tulu
• Tirhuta – used to write Maithili
• Tocharian
• Vatteluttu
• Zanabazar Square
• Zhang zhung scripts

Other abugidas[]

• Canadian Aboriginal syllabics – Cree syllabics (for Cree), Inuktitut syllabics (for Inuktitut), Ojibwe syllabics (for Ojibwe), and various systems for other languages of Canada. Derived scripts with identical operating principles but divergent character repertoires include Carrier and Blackfoot syllabics.
• Ge'ez – Amharic, Ge’ez, Tigrigna
• Kharoṣṭhī – Gandhari, Sanskrit
• Lontara Bilang-bilang script – Buginese
• Mandombe
• Meroitic – Meroë
• Pitman Shorthand
• Pollard script – Miao
• Sapalo script – Oromo
• 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. That is, if representing [o] with an under-ring, and final [k] with an over-cross, [sok] would be written as s̥̽.

• 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 systems by adoption[]

This section does not cite any sources. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This section possibly contains original research. Please by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (January 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Name of script	Type	Population actively using (in millions)	Languages associated with	Regions with predominant usage
Latin Latin	Alphabet	Unknown[note 2]	Latin and Romance languages (Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian), Germanic languages (English, Dutch, German, Nordic languages), Finnish, Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino, Visayan languages, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Polish, Somali, Vietnamese, others	Worldwide
Chinese 汉字 漢字	Logographic	1340[note 3]	Chinese, Japanese (Kanji), Korean (Hanja),[note 4] Vietnamese (Chu Nom obsolete), Zhuang (Sawndip)	Eastern Asia, Singapore, Malaysia
Arabic العربية	Abjad or abugida (when diacritics are used)	660+	Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi (Shahmukhi in Pakistan), Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Kashmiri, Uyghur, Kazakh (in China), Kurdish, Azeri (in Iran), and others	Middle East and North Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (Urdu co-official in some states), China (Xinjiang)
Devanagari देवनागरी	Abugida	608+[note 5]	Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali, Bodo, Sanskrit, several others	India, Nepal, Fiji[note 6]
Bengali–Assamese বাংলা-অসমীয়া	Abugida	265[2][3]	Assamese, Bengali, Kokborok, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Meitei Manipuri, Rabha, Maithili, Rangpuri, Sylheti, Santali etc.	Bangladesh and India (West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Andaman and Nicobar Islands)
Cyrillic Кирилица	Alphabet	250	Bulgarian and Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, others	Southeast Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Mongolia, the Russian Far East
Kana かな カナ	Syllabary	120[note 7]	Japanese, Okinawan, Ainu	Japan
Hangul 한글 조선글	Alphabet, featural	78.7[note 8]	Korean	Korea (North and South), Jilin Province (China)
Telugu తెలుగు	Abugida	74[note 9]	Telugu	Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry (India)
Tamil தமிழ்	Abugida	70[note 10][note 11]	Tamil	Tamil Nadu (India), Puducherry (India), Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius
Gujarati ગુજરાતી	Abugida	48[note 12]	Gujarati, Kutchi, Vasavi, Sanskrit, Avestan	India,[note 13] Pakistan[note 14]
Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ	Abugida	45[note 15]	Kannada	Karnataka (India)
Burmese မြန်မာ	Abugida	39[note 16]	Burmese	Myanmar
Malayalam മലയാളം	Abugida	38[note 17]	Malayalam	Kerala, Puducherry (India)
Thai ไทย	Abugida	38[note 18]	Thai, Southern Thai, Northern Khmer and Lao (Isan)	Thailand
Gurmukhi ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ	Abugida	22[note 19]	Punjabi	Punjab (India)
Lao ລາວ	Abugida	22[note 20]	Lao	Laos
Odia ଉତ୍କଳ	Abugida	21[note 21]	Odia	Odisha (India)
Ge'ez ግዕዝ	Abugida	18[note 22]	Amharic, Tigrinya	Ethiopia, Eritrea
Sinhala සිංහල	Abugida	14.4[note 23]	Sinhalese	Sri Lanka
Hebrew עברית	Abjad	14[note 24]	Hebrew, Yiddish and other Jewish languages	Israel, other regions with Jewish populations
Armenian Հայոց	Alphabet	12	Armenian	Armenia
Khmer ខ្មែរ	Abugida	11.4[note 25]	Khmer	Cambodia
Greek Ελληνικά	Alphabet	11[note 26]	Greek	Greece, Cyprus, Southern Albania; worldwide for mathematical and scientific purposes
Tibetan བོད་	Abugida	5	Tibetic languages, Dzongkha, Ladakhi, Balti	Tibet, Bhutan, India
Georgian ქართული	Alphabet	4.5	Georgian and many other Kartvelian languages	Georgia
Mongolian ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ	Alphabet	2	Mongolian	Mongolia, Inner Mongolia
Syllabics ᖃᓂᐅᔮᖅᐸᐃᑦ ᒐᐦᑲᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐤ ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ ᑐᑊᘁᗕᑋᗸ	Abugida	0.54[citation needed]	Inuktitut, Cree languages, Iyuw Iyimuun, Innu-aimun, Anishinaabemowin, Dakelh, Dene K'e, Denesuline, Siksika	Canada: Inuit Nunangat (Nunavut, Nunavik), Cree territories, St'aschinuw, Nitassinan, Anishinaabewaki, Denendeh, Blackfoot Country
Thaana ދިވެހި	Abugida	0.35	Maldivian	Maldives

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.

• Banpo symbols – Yangshao culture (perhaps proto-writing)
• Byblos syllabary – the city of Byblos
• Cretan hieroglyphs
• Indus – Indus Valley Civilization
• Isthmian (apparently logosyllabic)
• Jiahu symbols – Peiligang culture (perhaps proto-writing)
• Linear A (a syllabary) – Minoan
• Mixtec – Mixtec (perhaps pictographic)
• Olmec – Olmec civilization (possibly the oldest Mesoamerican script)
• Para-Lydian script – Unknown language of Asia Minor; script appears related to the Lydian alphabet.
• Phaistos Disc (a unique text, very possibly not writing)
• Proto-Elamite – Elam (nearly as old as Sumerian)
• Proto-Sinaitic (likely an abjad)
• Quipu – Inca Empire (possibly numerical only)
• Rongorongo – Rapa Nui (perhaps a syllabary)
• Sidetic – Sidetic
• Zapotec – 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
• Codex Seraphinianus
• Hamptonese
• Dorabella cipher

Others[]

Asemic writing is a writing-like form of artistic expression that generally lacks a specific semantic meaning, 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. Some of these are used for transcription purposes by linguists; others are pedagogical in nature or intended as general orthographic reforms.

• International Phonetic Alphabet
• 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

For example:

• American Sign Language
• American manual alphabet
• Korean manual alphabet
• Cued Speech

Long-Distance Signaling[]

• International maritime signal flags
• Morse code
• Flag semaphore
• Optical telegraphy

Alternative alphabets[]

• Gregg Shorthand
• Initial Teaching Alphabet
• Pitman Shorthand
• Quikscript

Fictional writing systems[]

• Ath (alphabet)
• Aurebesh
• D'ni
• Hymmnos
• Klingon
• On Beyond Zebra!
• Scripts from The Lord of The Rings
  • Cirth
  • Sarati
  • Tengwar
• Unown
• Utopian

For animal use[]

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

See also[]

• Artificial 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
• Writing systems without word boundaries

Notes[]

References[]

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