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Encyclopedia > Undeciphered script
It has been suggested that List of alphabets be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

A list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into List of writing systems. ...


See Writing system for more information about the different kinds of writing systems. See also grapheme, a technical term used to refer to the individual base constituents of any given writing system. Writing Systems of the World today A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... A grapheme designates the atomic unit in written language. ...


The usual name of the script is given first (and bolded); 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.

Alphabets: Gray: Latin, Dark blue: Cyrillic, Cyan: Both Latin and Cyrillic, Blue: Greek, Black: Georgian and Armenian Abjads: Arabic: Green, Arabic and Latin: Light green, Hebrew and Arabic: Medium green Abugidas: Indic: Yellow, Thaana: Orange, Ethiopic: Brown, Ethiopic and Arabic: Olive Logographic: Red, Logographic plus syllabary: Dark pink, Syllabary: Pink
Enlarge
Alphabets: Gray: Latin, Dark blue: Cyrillic, Cyan: Both Latin and Cyrillic, Blue: Greek, Black: Georgian and Armenian
Abjads: Arabic: Green, Arabic and Latin: Light green, Hebrew and Arabic: Medium green
Abugidas: Indic: Yellow, Thaana: Orange, Ethiopic: Brown, Ethiopic and Arabic: Olive
Logographic: Red, Logographic plus syllabary: Dark pink, Syllabary: Pink

Contents


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 faithfully represent that language. However, it is likely that they have not examined Blissymbols, hence the claim that Blissymbols may in fact be the exception. A Chinese character. ... John DeFrancis is a Chinese language professor emeritus and researcher at the University of Hawaii who wrote a number of Chinese instructional texts (his Readers series is particularly well regarded) in the 60s and 70s. ... J. Marshall Unger (James Marshall Unger, born 28 May 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a professor of Japanese at the Ohio State University. ... Blissymbolics or Blissymbols were conceived of as an ideographic writing system consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symbols that represent new concepts. ...


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.

Nahuatl (pronounced in two syllables, NA-watl ) is a term applied to some members of the Aztecan or Nahuan sub-branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... Blissymbolics or Blissymbols were conceived of as an ideographic writing system consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symbols that represent new concepts. ... Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is the formal term for non-speech communication. In fact, the difference between augmentative and alternative communication is merely the difference between partial and total dependency on non-speech communication. ... The Dongba are the shamans or priests of the Naxi people of southwestern China. ... Categories: Ethnic groups of China ... Mikmaq hieroglyphic writing was a pictographic writing scheme and memory aid used by Mikmaq people both before and after European contact. ... The Mikmaq (also Míkmaq, Micmac, Migmaq) are a First Nations people indigenous to northeastern New England, Canadas Maritimes, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. ...

Logographic writing systems

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represents words or morphemes (meaningful components of words, as in mean-ing-ful), rather than phonetic elements. A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ...


Note that no logographic script is comprised solely of logograms. All contain graphemes which 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 which 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, while 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. The Chinese logogram for glyph or logogram. A logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS... In languages written in cuneiform, a phonetic complement is a sign used to indicate the type of the word it either precedes or follows. ...


Consonant-based logographies

It has been suggested that Hieroglyph (French Wiki article) be merged into this article or section. ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... Demotic script on a replica of the Rosetta stone. ... Khafres Pyramid (4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c. ...

Syllable-based logographies

Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo European language family and has been preserved in three forms: (1) Cuneiform Luwian, (2) Hieroglyphic-Luwian and (3), the somewhat later Lycian. ... The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. ... The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BCE. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BCE, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it... Akkadian (lišānum akkadÄ«tum) was a Semitic language (part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family) spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly by the Assyrians and Babylonians. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... Elamite is an extinct language, which was spoken in the ancient Elamite Empire. ... The Hittite language is the dead language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who once created an empire centered on ancient Hattusa (modern BoÄŸazköy) in north-central Anatolia (modern Turkey). ... Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo European language family and has been preserved in three forms: (1) Cuneiform Luwian, (2) Hieroglyphic-Luwian and (3), the somewhat later Lycian. ... Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians, a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. // Language interrelations Hurrian is an agglutinative language which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European language families. ... Urartian is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in Northeast Anatolia (present-day Turkey), in the region of Lake Van. ... Various styles of Chinese calligraphy. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Kanji (Japanese: ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), arabic numerals, and the Roman alphabet. ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ... Hán tá»± (漢字, lit. ... Chữ nho (字儒) is one of the Chinese based scripts used for writing the Vietnamese language. ... Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico The Maya script, commonly known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. ... The Chorti language (Chorti) is a langauge of the Mayan language family. ... Yucatec Maya (or Yukatek in the revised orthography of the Academia de Lenguas Mayas, now preferred by scholars) is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, northern Belize and parts of Guatemala. ... The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically attested member of the Maya language family. ... The Yi scripts, also known as Cuan or Wei, are used to write the Yi languages. ... Yi (also Moso, Lolo, Noso, ) is a family of closely related Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Yi people. ...

Logographies based on Chinese

Categories: Ethnic groups of China ... Categories: Ethnic groups of China ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungusic people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungus people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... The Khitan, in Chinese Qidan (契丹 Pinyin: Qìdān), were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria and was classified in Chinese history as one of the Tungus ethnic groups (東胡族 dōng hú zú). They established the Liao dynasty in 907, which was then conquered in 1125 by the... The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people. ... The Tangut, also known as the Western Xia were a Qiangic-Tibetan people who moved to the highlands of western Sichuan sometime before the 10th century AD. They spoke Tangut language a now-extinct Tibeto-Burman language. ... Tangut (also Xixia) is the ancient northerneastern Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Tangut Empire. ... The Zhuang (Simplified Chinese: 壮族; Traditional Chinese: 壯族; Hanyu Pinyin: ; own name: BouчcueÅ‹ÑŒ/Bouxcuengh) are an ethnic group of people who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. ... The Zhuang language (autonym: Cuengh or CueÅ‹ÑŒ; Chinese: 壮语; Hanyu Pinyin: ) is used by the Zhuang people in the Peoples Republic of China. ...

Syllabaries

In a syllabary, graphemes represent syllables or moras. (Note that the 19th century term syllabics usually referred to abugidas rather than true syllabaries.) A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... Mora can mean: Cameroon Mora, Cameroon Costa Rica Mora Canton Portugal Mora, Portugal Sweden Mora, Sweden - a municipality of Dalarna County in Sweden Mora Court District - a district of Dalecarlia in Sweden United States Mora, Minnesota, United States Mora County, New Mexico, United States Mora (linguistics): A unit of sound...

The Afaka script (afaka sikifi) is a syllabary of 56 letters devised in 1908 for the Ndyuka language, an English creole of Surinam. ... Ndyuka (or Ndjuka, officially Ndyukátongo) is a language of Suriname. ... Yugtun is a dialect of Yupik spoken in Central Alaska. ... The Yupik people speak five distinct languages, depending on their location. ... Cherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. ... Cherokee (Cherokee: Tsalagi) is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. ... Map of Bronze Age Greece as described in Homers Iliad Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the 16th to 11th centuries BC, before the Dorian invasion. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Japanese Sign Language is the sign language most commonly used in Japan. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... The Kpelle are the largest ethnic group of the West African nation of Liberia. ... Linear B script sample Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. ... Map of Bronze Age Greece as described in Homers Iliad Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the 16th to 11th centuries BC, before the Dorian invasion. ... Manyōgana (万葉仮名) is an ancient form of Japanese kana based on kanji (Chinese characters). ... Nü Shu written in Nü Shu (right to left). ... The Yao nationality (瑶族, Pinyin: Yáo zú; Vietnamese: người Dao) are an ethnic group. ... Vai language is a language of Liberia. ... The Yi scripts, also known as Cuan or Wei, are used to write the Yi languages. ... Yi (also Moso, Lolo, Noso, ) is a family of closely related Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Yi people. ...

Part syllabic, part alphabetic scripts

In 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].

The Iberian alphabet was an alphabet, with some of the features of a syllabary, that was used to write the Iberian and Celtiberian languages. ... Celtiberian (also Hispano-Celtic) is an extinct Celtic language spoken by the Celtiberians in northern Spain before and during the Roman Empire. ... Sketch of the first column of the Behistun Inscription Old Persian is the oldest attested Persid language. ... Sketch of the first column of the Behistun Inscription Old Persian is the oldest attested Persid language. ...

Segmental scripts

A segmental script has graphemes which represent the phonemes (basic unit of sound) of a language. In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ...


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. An abjad is a type of writing system where there is one symbol per consonantal phoneme, sometimes also called a consonantary. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

The Aramaic alphabet is an abjad alphabet designed for writing the Aramaic language. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing in the Arabic language. ... The Arabic language (Arabic: ‎ transliterated: ), or simply Arabic (Arabic: ‎ transliterated: ), is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Balochi, a north-western Iranian language, is the principal language of Balochistan. ... For other uses, see Kashmiri (disambiguation) Kashmiri (, also , Kashmiri: ) is a Dardic language spoken primarily in Kashmir, a South Asian region now split between India, Pakistan and China. ... Pashto (پښتو; also known as Afghan, Pushto, Pashto, Pashtoe, Pashtu, and Pukhto) is the language spoken by the ethnic Afghan otherwise known as the Pashtun people who inhabit Afghanistan and the Western provinces of Pakistan. ... Persian is a language spoken in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... Punjabi (also Panjabi; in GurmukhÄ«, PanjābÄ« in ShāhmukhÄ«) is the language of the Punjabi people and the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ... Sindhi (سنڌي، सिन्धी sindhÄ«) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. ... Uyghur (in Uyghur: ئۇغۇرچه Uyƣurqə or ئۇغۇر تىلى Uyƣur tili; in Chinese: 维吾尔语 Wéiwúěryǔ) is a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang (East Turkestan), China. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Dhivehi is an Indo-Aryan language and the official language of the Republic of the Maldives. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... Syriac ( Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. ... This article is mainly about Hebrew letters. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ... The Nabatean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was used by the Nabateans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra. ... Petra, the Nabataean capital The Nabataeans were a trading people of ancient Arabia, whose oasis settlements in the time of Josephus gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Syria and Arabia, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. ... The Treasury at Petra Petra (from petra, rock in Greek; Arabic: البتراء, al-Bitrā) is an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Wadi Araba, the great valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. ... The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... Pahlavi is a term that refers: (1) to a script used in Iran derived from the Aramaic script, and (2) more broadly, to Middle Persian, the Middle Iranian language written in this script. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region of what is now Lebanon. ... For other uses, see Canaan (disambiguation). ... Drawing of the 16 and 12 characters Wadi el-Hol inscriptions The Proto-Canaanite (also Proto-Sinaitic) alphabet is identified as the prototype of the Semitic alphabets that, mostly via the successful Phoenician alphabet became the ancestor of most scripts in use today. ... The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. ... The Sogdian alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of Aramaic alphabet. ... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. ... The Arabic language (Arabic: ‎ transliterated: ), or simply Arabic (Arabic: ‎ transliterated: ), is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Tuareg or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad[1].) They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a... The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform version of the Levantine consonant alphabet (abjad), used from around 1300 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit, Syria. ... The Ugaritic language is known to us only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit in Syria since its discovery by French archaeologists in 1928. ... Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians, a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. // Language interrelations Hurrian is an agglutinative language which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European language families. ...

True alphabets

A true alphabet contains separate letters (not diacritic marks) for both consonants and vowels. A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, sometimes called an accent mark, is a mark added to a letter to alter a words pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...


Linear nonfeatural alphabets

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

The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing in the Arabic language. ... Kurdish (Kurdî) is an Indo-Iranian language spoken in the region loosely called Kurdistan, including Kurdish populations in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the hymns of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia. ... The Serbian language is one of the standard versions of the Å tokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and by Serbs everywhere. ... This is a list of languages that have been written in the Cyrillic alphabet at one time or another. ... Eclectic shorthand (sometimes called Cross shorthand or Eclectic-Cross shorthand after its founder, J.G. Cross) is an English shorthand system of the 19th century. ... The Fraser alphabet is an artificial script invented around 1915 by the missionary James O. Fraser to write the Lisu language. ... Lisu is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Tibet. ... Gabelsberger shorthand, named for its creator Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, is a form of shorthand previously common in Germany. ... The Megrelian language (Megruli ena in Georgian, Margaluri nina in Megrelian), sometimes called Mingrelian, is a language spoken in northwest Georgia. ... The Georgian alphabet is the script currently used to write the Georgian language and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus. ... The Georgian alphabet is the script currently used to write the Georgian language and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus. ... The Georgian alphabet is the script currently used to write the Georgian language and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus. ... The Georgian alphabet is the script currently used to write the Georgian language and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus. ... Tablet inscribed with the Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavonic alphabet. ... Old Church Slavonic (also called Old Church Slavic, Old Bulgarian, Old Macedonian, and Old Slavonic) is the first literary Slavic language, developed from the Slavonic dialect of Thessaloniki by 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius. ... Representation of the Gothic alphabet surrounding its inventor Ulfilas The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed to Wulfila used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ... The Gothic language (*gutiska razda, *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺𐌰 𐍂𐌰𐌶𐌳𐌰, * ) is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths and specifically by the Visigoths. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Manchu and Chinese writing in the Forbidden City The word “Manju” (Manchu) written in Manchu script. ... The Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic languages of Altaic family; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ... The Mandaic alphabet is based on the Aramaic alphabet, and is used for writing the Mandaic language. ... The Mandaic language is the liturgical language of the Mandaean religion; a vernacular form is still spoken by a small community in Iran around Ahwaz. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... The word NKo written in the NKo alphabet NKo is a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa; NKo means I say in all Mande languages. ... The Malinké are an African Mandé ethnic group. ... Bambara, also known as Bamanankan in the language itself, is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people (including second language users). ... Dioula (Jula) is a language spoken in Burkina Faso and Côte dIvoire. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages. ... The Goidelic languages (also sometimes called the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) are one of two major divisions of modern-day Insular Celtic languages (the other being the Brythonic languages). ... The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... The Picts inhabited Caledonia (Scotland), north of the River Forth. ... Hungarian Runes ((Székely) rovásírás in Hungarian; also called rovás) is a type of runic writing system used by the Magyars (mostly by Székely Magyars) prior to AD 1000. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Etruscan was a language spoken and written in the ancient region of Etruria (current Tuscany) and in parts of what are now Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. ... Denarius of Marsican Confederation with Oscan legend. ... Umbrian, an Indo-European language of the Italic family, is a dead language formerly spoken in Umbria, Italy. ... The name may refer to Komi Republic Komi peoples Komi-Zyrians Komi-Permyaks Komi language Komi-Zyrian language Komi-Permyak language Komi is also a rule in a board game Go. ... Orkhon script The Orkhon script is the earliest known Turkic alphabet. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... An invented script for the Somali language, now replaced both officially and in practise by the Latin alphabet. ... Younger Futhark inscription on the Vaksala Runestone The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia and the British Isles, but before Christianization also on the European Continent. ... The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... The Santali alphabet, also known as Ol Cemet (language of writing), Ol Ciki, Ol Chiki, or Ol, was created in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu for the Santali language. ... Santali is a language in the Munda subfamily of Austro-Asiatic, related to Ho and Mundari. ... LUE may stand for: Life, the Universe and Everything, a book by Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything, or LUE, a GameFAQs message board This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... The Bassa are a people of Liberia, living in Grand Bassa, Rivercess, and Montserrado counties, who speak a Kru language. ... Zhuyin Fuhao (Traditional Chinese: 注音符號; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the Republic of China (Taiwan... The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ...

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. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ...

Gregg Shorthand is a form of shorthand that was invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888. ... Hangul also refers to a word processing application widely used in Korea. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... First article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in English) The Tengwar are an artificial script which was invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Visible speech is the name of the system used by Alexander Melville Bell, who was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper elocution and an author of books on the subject. ...

Manual alphabets

Manual alphabets are frequently found as parts of sign languages. The are not used for writing per se, but for spelling out words while signing. Fingerspelling (somtimes known as dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. ... A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining handshapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speakers thoughts. ...

The American Sign Language Alphabet is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language when spelling individual letters of a word is the preferred or only option, such as with proper names or the titles of works. ... BSL is also an abbreviation for Breed-specific legislation. ... The Commonwealth of Nations, usually known as The Commonwealth, is an association of 53 independent sovereign states, almost all of which are former territories of the British Empire. ... Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century) DevanāgarÄ« (देवनागरी — in English pronounced ) (ISCII – IS13194:1991) [1] is an abugida alphabet used to write several Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri and Nepali from Nepal. ... {{Infobox Language |name=Gujarati |nativename=ગુજરાતી GujarātÄ« |region[[Pakistan|speakers=1 million |rank=122 |familycolor=Indo-European |fam2=Indo-Iranian |fam3=Indo-Aryan |fam4=Western Indo-Aryan |script=Gujarati script |nation=Gujarat |agency=Language Academy |iso1=gu|iso2=guj|iso3=guj |notice=Indic}} Gujarati (ગુજરાતી GujarātÄ«) is an Indo-European... The Korean manual alphabet is used by the Deaf in South Korea who speak Korean Sign Language. ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Soviet republics Area  - Total  - % water 1st before collapse 22,402,200 km² Approx. ... Madrid is the capital and the largest city in Spain, as well as in the province and the autonomous community of the same name. ...

Other non-linear alphabets

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

PREMIER - first The braille system, named after Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. ... Korean Braille is related to other braille systems found around the world. ... New York Point is a system of writing for the blind invented by William Bell Wait (1839-1916), a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. ... The system of international maritime signal flags is a way of representing individual letters of the alphabet in signals to or from ships. ... 1922 Chart of the Morse Code Letters and Numerals Morse code is a method for transmitting information, using standardized sequences of short and long marks or pulses — commonly known as dots and dashes — for the letters, numerals and special characters of a message. ... Trinary is an artistic language in David Brins Uplift series of science fiction novels, spoken largely by dolphins or neo-fins. ... 1922 Chart of the Morse Code Letters and Numerals Morse code is a method for transmitting information, using standardized sequences of short and long marks or pulses — commonly known as dots and dashes — for the letters, numerals and special characters of a message. ... A Chappe semaphore tower near Saverne, France // The semaphore or optical telegraph is an apparatus for conveying information by means of visual signals, with towers with pivoting blades or paddles, shutters, in a matrix, or hand-held flags etc. ...

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. An abugida or alphasyllabary is a writing system composed of signs (graphemes) denoting consonants with an inherent following vowel, which are consistently modified to indicate other vowels (or, in some cases, the lack of a vowel). ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... A diacritic mark or accent mark is an additional mark added to a basic letter. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing (often syllabics for short) is a family of writing schemes which are used to write a number of aboriginal Canadian languages from the Algonquian, Athabaskan and Inuit language families. ... Cree syllabics are the variations on Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics that are used to write Cree language dialects. ... Cree is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 50,000 speakers across Canada, from Alberta to Labrador. ... The Inuktitut syllabary (Inuktitut: ᑎᑎᕋᐅᓯᕐᒃ ᓄᑖᕐᒃ titirausiq nutaaq) is a writing system used by Inuit people in Nunavut and in Nunavik, Quebec. ... Inuktitut (Inuktitut syllabics: ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ, literally like the Inuit) is the language of the Inuit people. ... Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin in Eastern Ojibwe syllabics) is the third most commonly spoken Native language in Canada (after Cree and Inuktitut), and the fourth most spoken in North America (behind Navajo, Cree, and Inuktitut). ... The Carrier language is a Northern Athabaskan language. ... Bear Bull The Blackfoot Confederacy is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana. ... Geez (also transliterated Giiz, , and pronounced IPA ; ISO 639-2 gez) is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ... Amharic (አማርኛ ’amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia. ... Geez (also transliterated Giiz, , and pronounced IPA ; ISO 639-2 gez) is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ... The Oromo, sometimes called Galla (this usage has now become pejorative, but was widely used into the 20th century) are an African ethnic group found in Ethiopia and to a lesser extent Kenya. ... Tigrigna (or ትግሪኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Eritrea, where it is the official language, and in parts of Ethiopia and Israel. ... The KharoṣṭhÄ« script, also known as the GāndhārÄ« script, is an ancient alphabetic script used by the Gandhara culture of historic northwest India to write the Gandhari and Sanskrit languages (the Gandhara kingdom was located along the present-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan between the Indus... Alternate meanings: see Gandhari Gāndhārī was a north-western prakrit spoken in Gāndhāra. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम् ; pronunciation: ) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Aerial view of the pyramids at Meroë. Meroë is the name of an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile 16. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Hmong (Hmong: Hmoob) is a Hmong-Mien language spoken by the Hmong people native to Sichuan, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. ... Thaana is the writing system for the Dhivehi language spoken in the Maldives. ... Dhivehi is an Indo-Aryan language and the official language of the Republic of the Maldives. ... Thomas Natural Shorthand is an English shorthand system created by Charles A. Thomas which was first published in 1935. ... Ho is a Munda (Austroasiatic language) spoken primarily in India by about 1,077,000 people. ...

Abugidas of the Brāhmī family

BrāhmÄ« refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of scripts. ... Prakrit (Sanskrit prāká¹›ta प्राकृत (from pra-ká¹›ti प्रकृति), original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual, i. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम् ; pronunciation: ) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... The Ahom alphabet is a type of alphabet called an abugida that was used to write the Ahom language, an extinct Tai language spoken by the Ahom people who ruled the Brahmaputra valley in the Indian state of Assam between the 13th and the 18th centuries. ... The Balinese alphabet is a type of alphabet called an abugida that was used to write the Balinese language, an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Bali. ... The Batak alphabet is a type of alphabet called an abugida that is used to write the Batak languages of northern Sumatra, an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. ... The Toba are an ethnic group in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. ... Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of ethnic groups found in the highlands of North Sumatra Indonesia. ... Baybayin (sometimes called Alibata) is a pre-Hispanic Tagalog writing system that originated from the Javanese script Kavi. ... Tagalog (pronunciation: ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Pangasinán is a language of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages spoken by more than two million people in Pangasinan, other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, and by a significant number of Pangasinan immigrants in the United States; it is the primary language in Pangasinan... The Bengali script is an Abugida system of writing belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts whose use is associated with the Bangla, Assamese, Manipuri and Sylheti languages. ... Bangla (বাংলা, IPA: ) or Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language of East South Asia, evolved from Sanskrit and Prakrit. ... Assamese (অসমীয়া) or Ôxômiya (IPA [É”xÉ”mija]) is the language spoken by some of the natives of the state of Assam in northeast India. ... The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken in Myanmar and Thailand. ... The Eastern (Vietnamese) Cham Writing Script The Cham script evolved from the early Brahmi alphabet that is found in India. ... The Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture (Chinese: Déhóng DÇŽizú Jǐngpōzú zìzhìzhōu 德宏傣族景颇族自治州) is located in the west of Yunnan province in southwest China. ... Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century) DevanāgarÄ« (देवनागरी — in English pronounced ) (ISCII – IS13194:1991) [1] is an abugida alphabet used to write several Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri and Nepali from Nepal. ... Hindi (हिन्दी) is a language spoken mainly in North and Central India. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम् ; pronunciation: ) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Nepali (Khaskura) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Burma. ... Excerpt from My experiments with truth - the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi in its original Gujarati script. ... {{Infobox Language |name=Gujarati |nativename=ગુજરાતી GujarātÄ« |region[[Pakistan|speakers=1 million |rank=122 |familycolor=Indo-European |fam2=Indo-Iranian |fam3=Indo-Aryan |fam4=Western Indo-Aryan |script=Gujarati script |nation=Gujarat |agency=Language Academy |iso1=gu|iso2=guj|iso3=guj |notice=Indic}} Gujarati (ગુજરાતી GujarātÄ«) is an Indo-European... The Kachchi language is spoken in western India, particularly in the Kutch area of the state of Gujarat. ... The Gurmukhi (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) script, derived from the Landa alphabet and standardised by Guru Angad Dev in the 16th century, was designed to write the Punjabi language (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ). ... Punjabi (also Panjabi; in GurmukhÄ«, PanjābÄ« in ShāhmukhÄ«) is the language of the Punjabi people and the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ... One of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines; see Baybayin. ... Javanese language is the spoken language of the people in the central and eastern part of the island of Java, in Indonesia. ... The Kannada script is an abugida of the Brahmic family, primarily to write the Kannada language, one of the Dravidian languages in India. ... Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ ; also, less commonly, Kanarese) is one of the major Dravidian languages of southern India and one of the oldest languages in India. ... Tulu (ತುಳು ) is an Indo-Aryan language of India with fewer than two million speakers. ... The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog translated into Khmer. ... The Limbu alphabet is a Brahmic script used to write the Limbu language of northern India and Nepal. ... Buginese (locally Basa Ugi, elsewhere also Bahasa Bugis, Bugis, Bugi, De) is the language spoken by about four million people mainly in the southern part of Sulawesi, Indonesia. ... Makassar (sometimes spelled Makasar or Macassar) is both a language and a writing system used by the people in South Sulawesi island (Celebes) in Indonesia. ... The Malayalam script is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write the Malayalam language. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language. ... The Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: 元朝; pinyin: Yuáncháo; Mongolian: Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus) lasting officially from 1271 to 1368, occasionally known as the Mongol Dynasty. ... Mongol Empires largest extent coloured in blue. ... The Newari script also known as the Ranjana script is used for writing the Newari language of Nepal. ... The Newar are the indigenous ethnolinguistic group of Nepals Kathmandu valley. ... The Sinhala script is used to write the Sinhala language. ... Soyombo script - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Sylheti (native name Silôţi; Bengali name SileÅ£i) is the language of Sylhet, the North Eastern region of Bangladesh and southern districts of Assam around Silchar. ... Tagbawna is one of the indigenous writing systems of the Philippines. ... The Tamil script is an abugida which has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. ... Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language. ... The Tibetan script was created in the mid-7th century, by Thonmi Sambhota, a Tibetan official, with the assistance of some Indian Buddhist monks. ...

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, representing [o] with an under-ring, and final [k] with an over-cross, [sok] would written as s̥̽. Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

The Lepcha (population: 50,000) are the aboriginal inhabitants of present day Sikkim. ...

Vowel-based abugidas

In a couple 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.

Boyds Syllabic Shorthand is a system of shorthand invented by Robert Boyd, published originally in 1903, and updated in 1912. ... Japanese Braille is based on the orginal braille system. ... Hmong (Hmong: Hmoob) is a Hmong-Mien language spoken by the Hmong people native to Sichuan, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. ...

Undeciphered systems thought to be writing

These writing 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. In others, such as the Phaistos Disc, there is little hope of progress unless further texts are found. 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 Vinča and other cases the system, although symbolic, may turn out to not be writing. Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost. ... The Phaistos Disc (Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc, Greek: Δίσκος της Φαιστού) is a curious archaeological find, likely dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age. ...

The ruins of the Crusader castle in Byblos. ... Epi-Olmec (after Olmec) is a Mesoamerican writing system in use in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from perhaps 500 BCE to 500 CE, although there is disagreement on these dates. ... Early fragments of Indus Valley symbols found on pottery in Harappa are about 5,500 years old. ... The Indus Valley Civilization (3300–1500 BCE) was an ancient civilization thriving along the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River in what is now Pakistan and Northern India. ... Representation of a khipu Khipu, or quipu, were recording devices used during the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region. ... Capital Cusco Official language Quechua Government Head of State Federal Empire Sapa Inca Establishment Dissolution 1250 (¿?) 1548 Area ~2. ... The Khitan, in Chinese Qidan (契丹 Pinyin: Qìdān), were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria and was classified in Chinese history as one of the Tungus ethnic groups (東胡族 dōng hú zú). They established the Liao dynasty in 907, which was then conquered in 1125 by the... The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people. ... Linear A etched on tablets found in Akrotiri, Santorini. ... The Eteocretan (i. ... Codex Zouche-Nuttall, a pre-Columbian piece of Mixtec writing, now in the British Museum The Mixtec (or Mixteca) are a Native American people centered in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. ... A clay vessel unearthed in Vinča, found at depth of 8. ... Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. ... The cultural areas of Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a region that extends roughly from the Tropic of Cancer in central Mexico down through northwestern Costa Rica. ... The Phaistos Disc (Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc, Greek: Δίσκος της Φαιστού) is a curious archaeological find, likely dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age. ... See further the article on proto-Elamite at the education pages of the CDLI project. ... Elam (Persian: ایلام) is one of the most ancient civilizations on record. ... Rongorongo script sample. ... The Rapa Nui language (also Rapanui) is the Eastern Polynesian language of Easter Island, forming its own subgroup of that classification. ... The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar but undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE), and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets: the Proto-Sinaitic script discovered in the winter of 1904-1905 by William Flinders Petrie, and dated to... The Zapotec are an indigenous people of Mexico. ...

Undeciphered manuscripts

A number of manuscripts from comparable recent past may be written in an invented writing system, a cipher of an existing writing system or may only be an hoax. A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ...

The Voynich manuscript is written in an unknown script. ... Rohonczi codex sample Rohonczi Codex is a set of writings in an unknown writing system. ... The Codex Seraphinianus is a book written and illustrated by the Italian architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini during the late 1970s. ...

See also

An artificial or constructed script (also conscript or neography) is a new writing system specifically created by an individual or group, rather than having evolved as part of a language or culture like a natural script. ... Nearly all the segmental scripts (alphabets, but see below for more precise terminology) used around the globe were apparently derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. ... . ... This is a chronological list of any individuals, legendary or real, who are purported by traditions to have invented alphabets or other writing systems, whether this is proven or not. ...

References

  • Omniglot - a guide to writing systems

 

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