List of writing systems


s are used to record human language, and may be classified according to certain common features.

Proto-writing and ideographic 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 true writing system can be completely pictographic or ideographic; it must be able to refer directly to a language in order to have the full expressive capacity of a language. Unger disputes claims made on behalf of Blissymbols in his 2004 book Ideogram.
Although a few pictographic or ideographic scripts exist today, there is no single way to read them because there is no one-to-one correspondence between symbol and language. Hieroglyphs were commonly thought to be ideographic before they were translated, and to this day, Chinese is often erroneously said to be ideographic. 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.
NameLanguageNotes-
Adinkra
Akan		-
Birch-bark glyphsAnishinaabemowin-
DongbaNaxiOften supplemented with syllabic Geba script.-
Ersu Shaba scriptErsu-
Kaidā glyphs-
Lusona--
LukasaLuba
NsibidiEkoi, Efik, Igbo-
Siglas poveiras-
Testerianused for missionary work in Mexico-

There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language:
NameNotes
EmojisUsed as expressive icons in modern media
BlissymbolsA constructed ideographic script used primarily in Augmentative and Alternative Communication
iConjiA constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
Isotype
LoCoS-
A wide variety of notation systems

Logographic systems

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes rather than phonetic elements.
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. Other scripts, such as Bopomofo, are semi-syllabic in a different sense: they transcribe half syllables. That is, they have letters for syllable onsets and rimes rather than for consonants and vowels ''.''

Consonant-vowel semi-syllabaries

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.

Brahmi family

In at least one abugida, not only the vowel but any syllable-final consonant is written with a diacritic. That is, if 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.
The following list contains writing systems that are in active use by a population of at least 50,000.
Name of scriptTypePopulation actively using Languages associated withRegions using script de facto
Latin
Latin		Alphabet4900+Latin and Romance languages
Germanic languages
Celtic languages
Baltic languages
Some Slavic languages
Albanian
Uralic languages
Malayo-Polynesian languages
Maltese
Turkic languages
Some Cushitic languages
Bantu languages
Vietnamese
others		Worldwide
Chinese
汉字
漢字		Logographic1541Sinitic languages
Japanese
Korean
Vietnamese
Zhuang 		Eastern Asia, Singapore
Arabic
العربية		Abjad or Abugida 828Arabic
Several Indo-Iranian languages
Some Turkic languages, Azeri )
Malay
others		Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
Devanagari
देवनागरी		Abugida480.5Indo-Aryan languages
Tibeto-Burman languages 		India, Nepal and Fiji
Cyrillic
Кирилица		Alphabet350Many Slavic languages. Non-Slavic languages of the former Soviet Union, such as West- and East Caucasian languages, Uralic languages, Iranian languages and Turkic language, Uzbek, Mongolic languages.Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan
Bengali
বাংলা		Abugida300Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya ManipuriBangladesh and India
Kana
かな
カナ		Syllabary123Japanese, Ryukyuan languages, Hachijō, Ainu, PalauanJapan
Baybayin
ᜊᜌ᜔ᜊᜌᜒᜈ᜔		AbugidaunknownFilipinoPhilippines
Telugu
తెలుగు		Abugida83TeluguIndia
Hangul
한글
조선글		Alphabet, featural81.7Korean, Cia-Cia North Korea and South Korea, Indonesia
Tamil
தமிழ்		Abugida78.6TamilIndia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia
Thai
ไทย		Abugida70ThaiThailand
Javanese
ꦲꦏ꧀ꦱꦫꦗꦮ		Abugida68Javanese,MadureseIndonesia
Gujarati
ગુજરાતી		Abugida57.1GujaratiIndia
Kannada
ಕನ್ನಡ		Abugida45Kannada India
Geʽez
ግዕዝ		Abugida41.85Amharic, TigrinyaEthiopia, Eritrea
Burmese
မြန်မာ		Abugida39Burmese Myanmar
Malayalam
മലയാളം		Abugida38MalayalamIndia
Adlam
?????		Alphabet37FulaGuinea
Odia
ଓଡ଼ିଆ		Abugida35OdiaIndia
Gurmukhi
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ		Abugida33.125PunjabiIndia
Sundanese ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓAbugida32SundaneseIndonesia
Sinhala
සිංහල		Abugida16SinhaleseSri Lanka
Khmer
ខ្មែរ		Abugida16KhmerCambodia
Greek
Ελληνικά		Alphabet13.5GreekGreece, Cyprus
Coptic
ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ		AlphabetunknownCopticEgypt
Hebrew
עברית		Abjad, Abugida or Alphabet 9.3Hebrew, YiddishIsrael
N'Ko
ߒߞߏ		Alphabet9.1N'Ko and other Manding languagesGuinea
Ol Chiki
ᱚᱞ ᱪᱤᱠᱤ		Alphabet7.3SantaliIndia
Lao
ລາວ		Abugida7Lao Laos
Tibetan
བོད་		Abugida6.241Dzongkha, Tibetan and SikkimeseChina, Bhutan, India
Armenian
Հայոց		Alphabet5.4ArmenianArmenia
Tifinagh
ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ		Abjad5.3Berber languagesNorth Africa
Mongolian
Alphabet5.2MongolianMongolia, China
Syriac
ܣܘܪܝܝܐ		Abjad4.8SyriacSyria
Lontara
ᨒᨚᨈᨑ		Abugida4.0BugineseIndonesia
Georgian
ქართული		Alphabet3.7Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz, SvanGeorgia
Balinese
ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬩᬮᬶ		Abugida3.3BalineseIndonesia
Hanifi Rohingya ?????????Abjad3.2RohingyaBangladesh,Myanmar
Meitei
Abugida2Meitei ' India
Chakma
????????????		Abugida0.8Chakma, Tongchangya & PaliIndia, Myanmar & Bangladesh.
Cham
ꨀꨇꩉ ꨌꩌ		Abugida0.5ChamVietnam
Thaana
ދިވެހި		Abugida0.34MaldivianMaldives
Cherokee
ᏣᎳᎩ		Syllabary0.31CherokeeUnited States
Canadian Syllabics'''
ᖃᓂᐅᔮᖅᐸᐃᑦ
ᒐᐦᑲᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐤ
ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ
ᑐᑊᘁᗕᑋᗸ		Abugida0.07Inuktitut, some Algonquian languages, some Athabaskan languages Canada

Undeciphered and possible writing systems

These systems have not been deciphered. In some cases, such as Meroitic, the sound values of the glyphs are known, but the texts still cannot be read because the language is not understood. Several of these systems, such as Isthmian script and Indus script, are claimed to have been deciphered, but these claims have not been confirmed by independent researchers. In many cases it is doubtful that they are actually writing. The Vinča symbols appear to be proto-writing, and quipu may have recorded only numerical information. There are doubts that the Indus script is writing, and the Phaistos Disc has so little content or context that its nature is undetermined.
Comparatively recent manuscripts and other texts written in undeciphered writing systems; some of these may represent ciphers of known languages or hoaxes.
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.
See List of constructed scripts for an expanded version of this table.
NameTypeLanguageWork
AihaAlphabetKeshAlways Coming Home
AthAlphabetBaronhCrest of the Stars
AurebeshAlphabetGalactic Basic Star Wars
CirthAlphabetKhuzdul, Sindarin, Quenya, Westron, EnglishThe Lord of the Rings
D'niAlphabetD'niMyst
HymmnosAlphabetHymmnosAr Tonelico: Melody of Elemia
KLI pIqaDAlphabetKlingonStar Trek
LoxianAbjadLoxianAmarantine and other projects by Enya and Roma Ryan
MandelAlphabetKlingonStar Trek
On Beyond Zebra!
SaratiAbugidaQuenyaThe Lord of the Rings
Sitelen PonaLogographyToki Pona
TengwarAbugida or alphabetQuenya, Sindarin, EnglishThe Lord of the Rings
Ultima scriptsAbjadVariousUltima
UnownPokémon
UtopianAlphabetUtopianUtopia