List of writing systems

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

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 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.^[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.

Ideographic systems for language

Name	Language(s)	Notes
Adinkra	Akan
Birch-bark glyphs	Anishinaabemowin
Dongba	Naxi	Often supplemented with syllabic Geba script.
Ersu Shaba script	Ersu
Kaidā glyphs
Lusona
Lukasa	Luba
Nsibidi	Ekoi, Efik, Igbo
Siglas poveiras
Testerian		Used for missionary work in Mexico.

There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language:

Ideographic systems for things other than language

Name	Notes
Emojis	Used as expressive icons in modern media
Blissymbols	A constructed ideographic script used primarily in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
iConji	A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
Isotype
LoCoS
A wide variety of notation systems

In logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes (meaningful components of words, as in mean-ing-ful) rather than phonetic elements.

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.

• Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic – the writing systems of Ancient Egypt
  • Egyptian language

• Anatolian hieroglyphs – Luwian.
• Cuneiform – Sumerian, Akkadian, other Semitic languages, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Urartian.
• Aegean scripts – Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A (Minoan language) and Linear B (Mycenaean Greek).
• Chinese characters – Chinese, Japanese (called Kanji), Korean (called Hanja), Vietnamese (called Chữ Hán, obsolete).
  • Sawndip – Zhuang
  • Chữ Nôm – Vietnamese
  • Khitan large script – Khitan
  • Khitan small script – Khitan
  • Jurchen script – Jurchen
  • Tangut script – Tangut
• Sui script – Sui language
• Yi (classical) – various Yi/Lolo languages
• Pau Cin Hau logographic script – Tedim
• Eghap (or Bagam) script – Məgaka
• Mi'kmaw hieroglyphs – originally a pictorial system, transformed into a logographic system by French priest Father Le Clerq.
• Maya script – Ch'olan, Yucatecan and Tzeltalan, especially Epigraphic Ch'olti'.
• Mixteca-Puebla script – Nahuan languages, especially Classical Nahuatl (Aztec script),^[2] Mixtecan languages (Mixtec script), others.

In a syllabary, graphemes represent syllables or moras. (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
• Cypro-Minoan – Cypro-Minoan (probably ancestral to Eteocypriot).
• Cypriot – Arcadocypriot Greek, Eteocypriot
• 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
• Lisu Bamboo script
• Loma – Loma
• Masaba – Bambara
• Nüshu – Chinese
• Nwagu Aneke script – Igbo
• Vai – Vai
• Woleaian – Woleaian (a likely syllabary)
• Yi (modern) – various Yi/Lolo languages

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. 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 (kan = "k-an") rather than for consonants and vowels (kan = "k-a-n").

• Bamum script – Bamum (a defective syllabary, with alphabetic principles used to fill the gaps)
• Eskayan – Bohol, Philippines (a syllabary apparently based on an alphabet; some alphabetic characteristics remain)
• Linear Elamite – Elamite language
• Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries – Paleo-Hispanic languages
  • Celtiberian script – Celtiberian language
  • Northeastern Iberian script – Iberian language
  • Southeastern Iberian script – Iberian language
  • Southwest Paleohispanic script – Tartessian
• Old Persian cuneiform – Old Persian

• Bopomofo – phonetic script for different varieties of Chinese.
• Khom script – Bahnaric languages, including Alak and Jru'.
• Quốc Âm Tân Tự – Vietnamese

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:

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 Geʽez.
• Libyco-Berber –Berber languages
• Aramaic, including Khwarezmian (aka Chorasmian), Elymaic, Palmyrene, and Hatran
• Arabic – Arabic, Paleo-Arabic, Azeri, Bengali (historical occasion), Chittagonian (historical occasion), 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 and Proto-Sinaitic – Bronze Age Canaanites.
• Sogdian –Sogdian language
• Samaritan (Old Hebrew) – Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew
• Syriac – Classical Syriac, Sureth, Turoyo and other Neo-Aramaic dialects
• Tifinagh – Tuareg
• Ugaritic – Ugaritic, Hurrian

A true alphabet contains separate letters (not diacritic marks) for both consonants and vowels.

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

• A·chik Tokbirim – Garo
• Adlam – Fula
• Alifuru – Bahasa tanah languages
• Armenian – Armenian
• Ariyaka script – Pali, Isan, Lao
• 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
• Hurûf-ı munfasıla – proposed for Ottoman Turkish but never widely adopted
• 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
• Medefaidrin – also called Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ; used for the religious language of the same name
• Mongolian – Mongolian
• Mundari Bani – Mundari
• Mru script – Mru
• Neo-Tifinagh – Tamazight
• Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong – Hmong
• N'Ko – Maninka language, Bambara, Dyula language
• Oduduwa script – Yoruba
• Ogham – Gaelic, Britannic, Pictish
• Ol Chiki aka Ol Cemet' or Ol Chemet' – 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
• Ol Onal – Bhumij Language
• Osmanya – Somali
• Pau Cin Hau alphabetic script – Paite and other Northeastern Kuki-Chin languages
• Runes – Germanic languages
• Sayaboury (also called Eebee Hmong or Ntawv Puaj Txwm) – Hmong Daw
• Sorang Sompeng – Sora
• Tai Lue – Lue
• Tangsa – Tangsa language
• Todhri – Albanian
• Tolong Siki, Kurukh Banna – Kurukh
• Toto – Toto
• Unifon – proposed for English, never adopted
• Vah – Bassa
• Vellara – Albanian
• Vithkuqi aka Beitha Kukju – Albanian
• Wancho – Wancho
• Yezidi – Kurmanji
• Zaghawa – Zaghawa
• Zoulai – Zou (also has alphasyllabic characteristics)

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.

• ASL-phabet
• 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 descendants si5s and ASLwrite for sign languages
• Stokoe notation for American Sign Language, and its descendant, the Hamburg Notation System or HamNoSys
• Tengwar (a fictional script)
• Visible Speech (a phonetic script)

• Hangul – Korean
• Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics – Fox, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe
• IsiBheqe SoHlamvu – Southern Bantu languages
• ʼPhags-pa script – Mongolian, Chinese, Persian, Sanskrit

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
• Chinese manual alphabet
• Dutch manual alphabet
• Ethiopian manual alphabet (an abugida)
• French manual alphabet
• Greek manual alphabet
• Icelandic manual alphabet (also used in Denmark)
• Indian manual alphabet (a true alphabet?; used in Devanagari and Gujarati areas)
• International manual alphabet (used in Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland)
• Iranian manual alphabet (an abjad; also used in Egypt)
• Israeli manual alphabet (an abjad)
• Italian manual alphabet
• Korean manual alphabet
• Latin American manual alphabets
• Polish manual alphabet
• Portuguese manual alphabet
• Romanian manual alphabet
• Russian manual alphabet (also used in Bulgaria and ex-Soviet states)
• Spanish manual alphabet (Madrid)
• Swedish manual alphabet
• Yugoslav manual alphabet

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)

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.

• Ahom
• Balinese
• Batak – Toba and other Batak languages
• Baybayin – Formerly used for Ilokano, Pangasinan, Tagalog, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other Philippine languages
• Bengali — Bengali, Assamese, Meithei, Bishnupriya Manipuri
• Bhaiksuki
• Brahmi – Sanskrit, Prakrit
• Buda – Old Sundanese and Old Javanese
• Buhid
• Burmese – Burmese, Karen languages, Mon, and Shan
• Cham
• Chakma
• 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
• Goykanadi – Formerly used for Konkani
• Hanuno’o
• Javanese
• Kaithi
• Kannada – Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Kodava
• Kawi
• Khema script – Gurung
• Khojki
• Khudabadi
• Khmer
• Kirat Rai aka Khambu Rai – Bantawa
• Kulitan alphabet
• Lai Tay – Tai Yo
• Lampung
• Lao
• Leke – Eastern Pwo, Western Pwo, and Karen
• Lepcha
• Limbu
• Lontara’ – Buginese, Makassar, and Mandar
• Mahajani
• Makasar – Formerly used for Makassar
• Malayalam
• Marchen – Zhang-Zhung
• Meitei Mayek – Meitei
• Modi – Marathi
• Multani – Saraiki
• Nandinagari – Sanskrit
• Naoriya Phulo script – Meitei
• New Tai Lue
• Odia
• Ogan – South Barisan Malay (Ogan dialect)
• Pracalit script aka Newa – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit, Pali
• Pyu – Pyu
• Ranjana – Nepal Bhasa, Sanskrit
• Rejang
• Rencong
• Saurashtra
• Sharada – Sanskrit, Kashmiri
• Siddham – Sanskrit
• Sinhala
• Sirmauri
• Soyombo
• Sundanese
• Sylheti Nagri – Sylheti
• Tagbanwa – Languages of Palawan
• Tai Le aka Dehong Dai – Tai Nuea
• 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

• 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.
• Dham – Dhimal
• Ge'ez – Amharic, Ge’ez, Tigrigna
• Kharoṣṭhī – Gandhari, Sanskrit
• Kurukh Banna – Kurukh
• Lontara Bilang-bilang script – Buginese
• Mandombe
• Masaram Gondi – Gondi
• Meroitic – Meroë
• Mwangwego – Chewa and other Bantu languages of Malawi
• Pitman Shorthand
• Pollard script – Miao
• Sapalo script – Oromo
• Rma script – Qiang
• Sunuwar aka Jenticha
• Thaana – Dhivehi
• Tikamuli – Sunuwar
• Thomas Natural Shorthand

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

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

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The following list contains writing systems that are in active use by a population of at least 50,000.

Name of script	Type	Population actively using (in millions)	Languages associated with	Regions using script de facto
Latin Latin	Alphabet	5000[3][note 2]	Latin[note 3] and Romance languages (languages that evolved from Latin: Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian) Germanic languages (English, Dutch, German, Nordic languages)[note 4] Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic)[note 5] Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian) Some Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian) Albanian Uralic languages (Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian) Malayo-Polynesian languages (Malaysian,[note 6] Indonesian, Filipino, etc.) Maltese Turkic languages (Turkish,[note 7] Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Turkmen) Some Cushitic languages (Somali, Afar, Oromo) Bantu languages (for example: Swahili) Vietnamese (an Austroasiatic language)[note 8] others	Worldwide
Chinese 汉字 漢字	Logographic	1467[4]	Sinitic languages (Mandarin, Min, Wu, Yue, Jin, Gan, Hakka and others) Japanese (Kanji) Korean (Hanja)[note 9] Vietnamese (Chữ Nôm obsolete) Zhuang (Sawndip)	Eastern Asia, Singapore
Arabic العربية	Abjad or Abugida (when diacritics are used)	1022[4]	Arabic (a Semitic language) Several Indo-Iranian languages (Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Punjabi (Shahmukhi in Pakistan), Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Kashmiri) Some Turkic languages (Uyghur, Kazakh (in China), Azeri (in Iran)) Malay (in Brunei) 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	Abugida	849	Indo-Aryan languages (Bhojpuri, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit and many more) Tibeto-Burman languages (Bodo, Newar, Sherpa)	India, Nepal and Fiji
Bengali-Assamese বাংলা	Abugida	320	Bengali, Assamese, Meitei, Bishnupriya Manipuri	Bangladesh and India
Cyrillic Кирилица	Alphabet	248[4]	Many Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, others). Non-Slavic languages of the former Soviet Union, such as West- and East Caucasian languages (Abkhaz, Chechen, Avar, others), Uralic languages (Karelian, others), Iranian languages (Ossetic, Tajik, others) and Turkic language (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar, Azeri (formerly), Uzbek (unofficially) and others), Mongolic languages (Mongolian).	Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan
Kana かな カナ	Syllabary	122	Japanese, Ryukyuan languages, Hachijō, Ainu, Palauan[5]	Japan
Javanese ꦧꦱꦗꦮ	Abugida	98	Javanese	Indoensia
Telugu తెలుగు	Abugida	83	Telugu	India
Hangul 한글 조선글	Alphabet, featural	79	Korean, Cia-Cia (an Austronesian language)	North Korea and South Korea, Indonesia
Tamil தமிழ்	Abugida	78.6	Tamil	India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia
Thai ไทย	Abugida	70	Thai	Thailand
Javanese ꦲꦏ꧀ꦱꦫꦗꦮ	Abugida	68	Javanese,Madurese	Indonesia
Gujarati ગુજરાતી	Abugida	57.1	Gujarati	India
Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ	Abugida	45[note 10]	Kannada (a Dravidian language)	India
Geʽez ግዕዝ	Abugida	41.85	Amharic, Tigrinya	Ethiopia, Eritrea
Burmese မြန်မာ	Abugida	39[note 11]	Burmese (a Lolo-Burmese language)	Myanmar
Malayalam മലയാളം	Abugida	38	Malayalam	India
Baybayin ᜊᜌ᜔ᜊᜌᜒᜈ᜔	Abugida	unknown	Filipino	Philippines
Adlam 𞤀𞤣𞤤𞤢𞤥	Alphabet	37	Fula	Guinea
Odia ଓଡ଼ିଆ	Abugida	35	Odia	India
Tirhuta 𑒞𑒱𑒵𑒯𑒳𑒞	Abugida	35	Maithili	Nepal
Gurmukhi ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ	Abugida	33.125	Punjabi	India
Sundanese ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ	Abugida	32	Sundanese	Indonesia
Syloti Nagri ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ ꠘꠣꠉꠞꠤ	Abugida	20	Sylheti	Bangladesh
Sinhala සිංහල	Abugida	16	Sinhalese	Sri Lanka
Khmer ខ្មែរ	Abugida	16	Khmer	Cambodia
Greek Ελληνικά	Alphabet	13.5	Greek	Greece, Cyprus
Coptic ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ	Alphabet	unknown	Coptic	Egypt
Yi ꆈꌠꁱꂷ	Syllabary	9.3	Nuosu	China
Hebrew עברית	Abjad, Abugida (when diacritics are used) or Alphabet (when used for Yiddish)	9.3[6]	Hebrew, Yiddish	Israel
N'Ko ߒߞߏ	Alphabet	9.1	N'Ko and other Manding languages	Guinea
Ol Chiki ᱚᱞ ᱪᱤᱠᱤ	Alphabet	7.3	Santali	India
Batak ᯘᯮᯒᯖ᯲ ᯅᯖᯂ᯲	Abugida	7	Batak	Indonesia
Tai Viet ꪼꪕꪒꪮꪙꫀ	Abugida	7	Tai Dam, Tai Don	Vietnam, Laos and China
Lao ລາວ	Abugida	7	Lao (a Tai language)	Laos
Tai Tham ᨲ᩠ᩅᩫᨾᩮᩥᩬᨦ	Abugida	7	Northern Thai	Thailand
Tibetan བོད་	Abugida	6.241	Dzongkha, Tibetan and Sikkimese	China, Bhutan, India
Armenian Հայոց	Alphabet	5.4	Armenian	Armenia
Tifinagh ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ	Abjad	5.3	Berber languages	North Africa
Mongolian ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ	Alphabet	5.2	Mongolian	Mongolia, China
Syriac ܣܘܪܝܝܐ	Abjad	4.8	Syriac	Syria
Lontara ᨒᨚᨈᨑ	Abugida	4.0	Buginese	Indonesia
Georgian ქართული	Alphabet	3.7	Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz, Svan	Georgia
Balinese ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬩᬮᬶ	Abugida	3.3	Balinese	Indonesia
Hanifi Rohingya 𐴌𐴗𐴥𐴝𐴙𐴚𐴒𐴙𐴝	Abjad	3.2	Rohingya	Bangladesh,Myanmar
Gunjala Gondi 𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶋 𑵵𑶋𑶅𑶋	Abugida	2.98	Gondi	India
Masaram Gondi 𑴎𑴽𑵀𑴘𑴳 𑴧𑴲𑴠𑴲	Abugida	2.9	Gondi	India
Meitei ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ	Abugida	2[4]	Meitei (officially termed as "Manipuri") (a Sino-Tibetan language)	India
Newa 𑐣𑐾𑐰	Abugida	1.5	Nepali, Newari	Nepal
Warang Citi 𑢹𑣉𑣉 𑣎𑣋𑣜	Alphabet	1.106	Ho	India
Lisu ꓡꓲꓢꓴ	Alphabet	1.1	Lisu	China
Chakma 𑄌𑄋𑄴𑄟𑄳𑄦𑄃𑄧𑄏𑄛𑄖𑄴	Abugida	0.8	Chakma, Tongchangya & Pali	India, Myanmar & Bangladesh.
Bassa Vah 𖫢𖫧𖫳𖫒𖫨𖫰𖫨𖫱	Alphabet	0.74	Bassa	Liberia, Sierra Leone
Tai Le ᥖᥭ ᥘᥫ	Abugida	0.72	Tai Nua	China
Bamum ꚶꛉ꛰꛲ꚫꛦꚳ	Syllabary	0.7	Bamum	Cameroon
New Tai Lue ᦅᧄᦺᦑᦟᦹᧉ	Abugida	0.55	Tai Lue	China
Cham ꨀꨇꩉ ꨌꩌ	Abugida	0.5	Cham	Vietnam
Pollard 𖼄𖽷𖽔𖽙	Abugida	0.5	Lipo	China
Kayah Li ꤊꤢꤛꤢ꤭ ꤜꤟꤤ꤬	Abugida	0.5	Kayah (Karen (Red))	Myanmar
Limbu ᤕᤠᤰᤌᤢᤱ ᤐᤠᤴ	Abugida	0.4	Limbu	Nepal
Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong 𞄀𞄩𞄰𞄁𞄦𞄱𞄂𞄤𞄳𞄬𞄃𞄥𞄳	Abugida	0.368	Hmong	United States
Rejang ꤽꥍꤺꥏ	Abugida	0.35	Rejang	Indonesia
Thaana ދިވެހި	Abugida	0.34	Maldivian	Maldives
Cherokee ᏣᎳᎩ	Syllabary	0.31	Cherokee	United States
Sora Sompeng 𑃐𑃚𑃝	Abugida	0.3	Sora	India
Vai ꕙꔤ	Syllabary	0.24	Vai	Liberia
Pahawh Hmong 𖬖𖬲𖬝𖬵 𖬄𖬲𖬟 𖬌𖬣𖬵	Abugida	0.2	Hmong Daw	Laos, Thailand, Vietnam & China
Saurashtra ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬ	Abugida	0.13	Saurashtra	India
Mandaic ࡓࡀࡈࡍࡀ	Abjad	0.1	Mandaic	Iran
Mro 𖩃𖩓𖩑	Alphabet	0.085	Mro	Bangladesh
Lepcha ᰛᰩᰵᰛᰧᰵᰶ	Abugida	0.075	Lepcha	Bhutan
Canadian Syllabics ᖃᓂᐅᔮᖅᐸᐃᑦ ᒐᐦᑲᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐤ ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ ᑐᑊᘁᗕᑋᗸ	Abugida	0.07[4]	Inuktitut (an Inuit language), some Algonquian languages (Cree, Iyuw Iyimuun, Innu-aimun, Anishinaabemowin, Niitsipowahsin), some Athabaskan languages (Dakelh, Dene K'e, Denesuline)	Canada
Wancho 𞋒𞋀𞋉𞋃𞋕	Abugida	0.06	Wancho	Myanmar
Hanunoo ᜱᜨᜳᜨᜳᜢ	Abugida	0.025	Hanunoo	Philippines
Tagbanwa ᝦᝤᝪᝨᝯ	Abugida	0.025	Tagbanwa	Philippines
Osmanya 𐒙𐒈𐒑𐒀𐒒𐒕𐒀	Alphabet	0.02	Somali	Somalia
Buhid ᝊᝓᝑᝒᝇ	Abugida	0.015	Buhid	Philippines
Pau Cin Hau 𑫀𑫙 𑫍𑫗𑫠 𑫈𑫙	Alphabet	0.005	Tedim	Myanmar
Osage 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷	Alphabet	0.0013	Osage	United States
Samaritan ࠀࠓࠣࠌࠪࠅ	Abjad	0.0009	Samaritan Aramaic	Israel
Mende Kikakui 𞠀𞠁𞠂	Syllabary	0.0005	Mende	Sierra Leone
Nushu 𛆁𛈬	Logographic	0.0001	Unknown	China

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.

• Byblos syllabary – the city of Byblos
• Indus script – Indus Valley civilization
• Isthmian script (apparently logosyllabic).
• Neolithic signs in China, including:
  • Banpo symbols – Yangshao culture (perhaps proto-writing)
  • Jiahu symbols – Peiligang culture (perhaps proto-writing)
  • Sawveh – Western Guangxi (disputed; perhaps proto-writing)
• 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).
• Proto-Elamite – Elam (nearly as old as Sumerian).
• Quipu – Andean Civilisation (possibly numerical only, though some experts assert it may have partly been logosyllabic).
• Rongorongo – Rapa Nui (perhaps a logosyllabary)
• Trojan script – Trojan language
• Zapotec script – Zapotec (another old Mesoamerican script).

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
• Hamptonese
• Dorabella cipher

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
  • X-SAMPA (and original SAMPA while not covering all of IPA), is an encoding of a phonetic alphabet, i.e. IPA, using just ASCII.
• Americanist phonetic notation
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

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

See List of constructed scripts for an expanded version of this table.

Name	Type	Language	Work
Aiha	Alphabet	Kesh	Always Coming Home
Ath	Alphabet	Baronh	Crest of the Stars
Aurebesh	Alphabet	Galactic Basic (i.e. English)	Star Wars
Cirth	Alphabet	Khuzdul, Sindarin, Quenya, Westron, English	The Lord of the Rings
D'ni	Alphabet	D'ni	Myst
Hymmnos	Alphabet	Hymmnos	Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia
KLI pIqaD	Alphabet	Klingon	Star Trek
Loxian	Abjad	Loxian	Amarantine and other projects by Enya and Roma Ryan
Mandel	Alphabet	Klingon	Star Trek
On Beyond Zebra!
Sarati	Abugida	Quenya	The Lord of the Rings
Sitelen Pona	Logography	Toki Pona
Tengwar	Abugida or alphabet	Quenya, Sindarin, English	The Lord of the Rings
Ultima scripts	Abjad	Various	Ultima
Unown			Pokémon
Utopian	Alphabet	Utopian	Utopia

• Constructed script (artificial script)
• List of creators of writing systems
• List of ISO 15924 codes
• List of languages by first written accounts
• Unicode
• Writing systems without word boundaries

• 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
• The World’s Writing Systems, catalogue of 294 writing systems, each with a typographic reference glyph and Unicode status
• Deseret Alphabet
• ScriptSource – a dynamic, collaborative reference to the writing systems of the world