List of writing systems


This is a list of writing systems, classified according to some common distinguishing features.
The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the language in which the script is written follows, 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, and pictographic scripts 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. 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.
There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language, or to represent constructed languages. Some of these are:
Linear B and Asemic writing also incorporate ideograms.

Logographic writing systems

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes, rather than phonetic elements.
Note that no logographic script is composed solely of logograms. All contain graphemes that represent phonetic elements as well. These phonetic elements may be used on their own, or may serve as phonetic complements to a logogram. 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

In a syllabary, graphemes represent syllables or moras.
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, is written +, and as +. 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 rather than for consonants and vowels .
A segmental script has graphemes which represent the phonemes of a language.
Note that there need not be 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 or only written word-initially.
A true alphabet contains separate letters for both consonants and vowels.

Linear nonfeatural alphabets

Linear alphabets are composed of lines on a surface, such as ink on paper.
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.
s are frequently found as parts of sign languages. They are not used for writing per se, but for spelling out words while signing.
These are other alphabets composed of something other than lines on a surface.
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 ቡ ጊ ዳ —. Unlike abjads, the diacritical marks and systemic modifications of the consonants are not optional.

Abugidas of the Brāhmī family

In at least one abugida, not only the vowel but any syllable-final consonant is written with a diacritic. That is, representing with an under-ring, and final with an over-cross, would be written as.
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.
Name of scriptTypePopulation actively using Languages associated withRegions with predominant usage
Latin
Latin		Alphabetover 4900Latin and Romance languages, Germanic languages, Finnish, Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino, Visayan languages, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Polish, Somali, Vietnamese, othersWorldwide
Chinese
汉字
漢字		Logographic1340Chinese, Japanese, Korean,Vietnamese, Zhuang Eastern Asia, Singapore, Malaysia
Arabic
العربية		Abjad or abugida 660+Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Kashmiri, Malay, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kurdish, Azeri, and othersMiddle East and North Africa, Pakistan, India, China, Malaysia
Devanagari
देवनागरी		Abugida608+Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali, Sanskrit, several othersIndia, Nepal
Bengali / Assamese
বাংলা / অসমীয়া		Abugida265Bengali, Assamese, Kokborok, Bishnupriya Manipuri and Meitei ManipuriBangladesh and India
Cyrillic
Кирилица		Alphabet250Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, othersEastern Europe, Central Asia and Mongolia, the Russian Far East
Kana
かな
カナ		Syllabary120Japanese, Okinawan, AinuJapan
Javanese
Abugida80JavaneseCentral Java, :Category:Javanese diaspora|Javanese diaspora
Hangul
한글
조선글		Alphabet, featural78.7KoreanKorea, Jilin Province, Cia-Cia Tribe
Telugu
తెలుగు		Abugida74TeluguAndhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry
Tamil
தமிழ்		Abugida70TamilTamil Nadu, Puducherry, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius
Gujarati
ગુજરાતી		Abugida48Gujarati, Kutchi, Vasavi, Sanskrit, AvestanIndia, Pakistan
Kannada
ಕನ್ನಡ		Abugida45KannadaKarnataka
Burmese
မြန်မာ		Abugida39BurmeseMyanmar
Malayalam
മലയാളം		Abugida38MalayalamKerala, Puducherry
Thai
ไทย		Abugida38Thai, Southern Thai, Northern Khmer and Lao Thailand
Sundanese
Abugida38SundaneseJava, Indonesia
Gurmukhi
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ		Abugida22PunjabiPunjab
Lao
ລາວ		Abugida22LaoLaos
Odia
ଉତ୍କଳ		Abugida21OdiaOdisha
Ge'ez
ግዕዝ		Abugida18Amharic, TigrinyaEthiopia, Eritrea
Sinhala
සිංහල		Abugida14.4SinhaleseSri Lanka
Hebrew
עברית		Abjad14Hebrew and other Jewish languagesIsrael
Armenian
Հայոց		Alphabet12ArmenianArmenia
Khmer
ខ្មែរ		Abugida11.4KhmerCambodia
Greek
Ελληνικά		Alphabet11GreekGreece, Cyprus, Southern Albania; worldwide for mathematical and scientific purposes
Lontara
Abugida7.6Buginese, Makassar, and MandarSouthern Sulawesi, Indonesia
Tibetan
བོད་		Abugida5Tibetic languages, DzongkhaTibet, Bhutan
Georgian
ქართული		Alphabet4.5Georgian and many other Kartvelian languagesGeorgia
Modern Yi
ꆈꌠ		Syllabary4Nuosu YiLiangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of China
Mongolian
Alphabet2MongolianMongolia, Inner Mongolia
Tifinagh
ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ		Abjad, Alphabet 1Berber languagesNorth Africa
Syllabics
ᖃᓂᐅᔮᖅᐸᐃᑦ
ᒐᐦᑲᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐤ
ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ
ᑐᑊᘁᗕᑋᗸ		Abugida0.54Inuktitut, Cree languages, Iyuw Iyimuun, Innu-aimun, Anishinaabemowin, Dakelh, Dene K'e, Denesuline, SiksikaCanada: Inuit Nunangat, Cree territories, St'aschinuw, Nitassinan, Anishinaabewaki, Denendeh, Blackfoot Confederacy
Syriac
ܣܘܪܝܬ		Abjad0.4Syriac, Aramaic, Neo-AramaicWest Asia
Thaana
ދިވެހި		Abugida0.35MaldivianMaldives
Cherokee
ᏣᎳᎩ		Syllabary0.02CherokeeUnited States

Undeciphered systems that may be writing

These systems have not been deciphered. In some cases, such as Meroitic, the sound values of the glyphs are known, but the texts still cannot be read because the language is not understood. Several of these systems, such as Epi-Olmec and Indus, are claimed to have been deciphered, but these claims have not been confirmed by independent researchers. In many cases it is doubtful that they are actually writing. The Vinča symbols appear to be proto-writing, and quipu may have recorded only numerical information. There are doubts that Indus is writing, and the Phaistos Disc has so little content or context that its nature is undetermined.
Comparatively recent manuscripts and other texts written in undeciphered writing systems; some of these may represent ciphers of known languages or hoaxes.
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.
Alphabets may exist in forms other than visible symbols on a surface. Some of these are:

Tactile alphabets

For example: