The Amharic Syllabary

The Amharic script is used for various languages in Ethiopia and Somalia
including Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya.
 The Arabic Alphabet
and Numbers
The Letters of the Alphabet

Vowel Sounds

The Numbers

The Arabic script is used by the Arabic language spoken in Middle East, North
Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The script is also used in the Muslim holy book,
the Quran and so is known by many who are not speakers of the Arabic language. The
script has been modified for use by other languages in the Middle East and Asia.

The Arabic numerals were borrowed by the Arabs from India and brought to
Europe where they were modified and replaced Roman numerals.
 The Aramaic Alphabet

Aramaic was the language of Aram state in Ancient Syria. The alphabet is a
development of the original alphabet developed by the Phoenicians. The Greek and
Latin alphabets are both decendents of this script.

The language is also known as Assyrian.

 The Armenian Alphabet

The Armenian alphabet is used for the Armenian language spoken in Armenia
in the Caucasian region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. It has been
influenced by the Greek alphabet and ancient Persian scripts.
 The Bengali Syllabary
and Numbers
Vowels

Consonants

The Numbers

The Bengali script is a derivative of the Devanagari script of Sanskrit. It is more

angular and has some different letters. It is used for several languages in East India and
Bangladesh: Bengali, Assamese and Munda.
 The (Ancient) Berber Alphabet

The Berber script was used in North Africa to write various Berber languages,
the forerunners of languages like Tuareg and Kabyle.
 The Brahmi Syllabary
The Consonants

The Wowels

The Brahmi script was used by the Maurian Dynasty of Central India. It is aslo
called the Ashoka script, after the Buddhist emperor. It was the basis of many Indian
scripts.
 The Burmese Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Numbers

The Burmese script resembles the writing systems of South India. The script
allows for the tonal nature of the Burmese language.
 The Cham Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Numbers

The Cham script is derived from the writing systems of South India. It is used for
the Cham language which is spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Chinese Characters
Pictograms

Ideograms

Numbers

Compounds
 Homophones

Modern Words

Chinese script is made up of characters that represent a complete word. It is used

for most of the languages of China (Mandarain, Cantonese, Wu, etc) as well as
Japanese, where it is called Kanji.
 Chinese Pictograms

Chinese Pictograms are the ancestor of modern Chinese writing.

 The Coptic Alphabet

The Coptic alphabet is used for the Coptic language of Egypt. This is now the
religious language used by Egyptian Christians. It is derived from Greek and Nubian
writing.
 Cuniform
Old Persian Writing

Old Persian Numbers

Cuniform is a pictographic writing system used by many languages over several

empires in ancient Mesopotamia and Persia.
The Cyrillic Alphabet
Russian

Ukrainian

Bulgarian
Macedonian

Serbian

Mongolian
 Old Church Slavonic

The Cyrillic alphabet has been influenced by both the Greek and Latin
alphabets.The original is called Old Church Slavonic.
It is used for several languages in Eastern Europe: Russian, Ukrainian,
Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian.
 The Etruscan Alphabet

The Etruscan alphabet was used for the language of the Etruscans.They were a
pre-Roman people from ancient Italy.It is an adaptation of the Greek alphabet and later
influenced the Latin alphabet.
 The Georgian Alphabet

The Georgian script (also called Khutsuri or Mkhedruli) is used for the
Georgian language spoken in Georgia, a Caucasian country.
 The Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet was the first alphabet to include vowels. It is over 2500 years
old. It is used for all forms of Greek.
 The Gujarati Syllabary
and Numbers
The Syllabary

The Numbers

The Gujarati script is a derivative of the Devanagari script of Sanskrit.

It lacks the continuous line across the top of each letter, common on North Indian
scripts.
Gujarati is a language spoken in North West India.
The Hebrew Alphabet
Hebrew Consonants

Hebrew Vowels
 Yiddish

Ladino

The Hebrew alphabet is over 2200 years old. It is derived from Aramaic and is used
for both ancient Hebrew (the language of Judaism) and the modern language of Israel,
Ivrit.

Versions of this alphabet are used for languages spoken by Jews in Central Europe
(Yiddish) and Asia (Ladino).
The Hindi Syllabary
and Numbers
The Syllabary

Additional Symbols
 The Numbers

The Hindi script is derived from the Devanagari script of Sanskrit. It is used for
several North Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Rajasthani) and Nepalese. The
numerals were borrowed by the Arabs and brought to Europe where (after
modification) they replaced Roman numerals.
The Japanese Alphabets
Hiragana
 Katakana

The Japanese language is written with Chinese characters (Kanji). It also uses two
alphabets for word endings and for foreign words. These are called Hiragana and
Katakana.
 The Javanese Syllabary
The Consonants

Extra Consonants

The Vowels

The Javanese script (used on Java in Indonesia) is based on the writing systems
of South India.
 The Kannada Syllabary
and Numbers
The Syllabary

The Numbers

Kannada is a language from South India with its own script.The syllabary is
similar but not identical to the script for Telugu.It is a typical South Indian writing
system with few straight lines.
The Khmer Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants
 The Vowels

The Numbers

Khmer is the script used for the language of the same name used in Cambodia.
It is derived from the scripts of South India.
 The Korean Alphabet
The Consonants

The Vowels

Hangul is the name of the alphabet used to write the Korean language spoken in
Korea and parts of China. It was devised by King Sejong in 1443.
 The Lao Syllabary and Numbers
The Consonants

Isolated Vowels

Vowels Combined With Consonants

The Numbers

The Lao script is used to write the language of the same name spoken in Laos. It
closely resembles Thai script and is derived from the South Indian scripts.
The Latin Alphabet
Roman

Modern English

Polish

Turkish
Note: lengthens the preceding vowel.

Special Letters

The Latin alphabet was developed from the Greek and Etruscan alphabets for
Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.

This is now the most used writing system in the world. Hundreds of languages use
it in Europe (English, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Czech), Africa (Zulu,
Swahili, Wolof), The Americas (Spanish, Portuguese, Nahuatl, Quechua) and Asia
(Turkish, Malay, Vietnamese).
 The Lepcha Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Numerals

The Lepcha script is used for the language of the same name spoken in the state
of Sikkim in North India.
 The Linear B Syllabary

Linear B is a script used to write an ancient form of Greek spoken on the island
of Crete over 3000 years ago.
 The Malayalam Syllabary
The Consonants

The Vowels

Wowels and Consonants

The Malayalam syllabary is used to write the language of the same name spoken
in South India.It is a typical rounded South Indian script.
 The Maldivian Alphabet

The Maldivian alphabet was invented in the 17th century to write the language of
the same name in the Maldive Islands. It is a fusion of Arabic and Telegu scripts.
 Mayan Glyphs

Mayan glyphs were used to write the languages of the Mayan region in Mexico
and Guatemala.
 The Mongolian Alphabet
and Numbers

The Mongolian alphabet is used for the Mongolian language in Mongolia and
Northern China. It is derived from Aramaic and is written downwards.
The Nastaliq Alphabet
Farsi (Iranian)

Urdu
 Pashto

Kashmiri
 Sindhi

Ottoman Turkish

Nastaliq is a form of the Arabic script which is used, with extra letters, to write
several languages in Asia including Farsi, Urdu, Pashto, Kasmiri and Sindhi. Under
the Ottoman Empire (before 1920), Turkish was also written in this script.
 The Oriya Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Numbers

The Oriya script is used for writing the langauge of the same name spoken in
Eastern India. The curved structure of the letters arises from the use of palm leaves for
writing. A straight line would cause the leaves to break.
 The Phoenician Alphabet

Phoenician is one of the oldest alphabets in the world and the basis of most of the
world's alphabets and syllabaries. The language was spoken by the Phoenicians around
the Mediterranean Sea.
 The Punjabi Syllabary
and Numbers
The Syllabary

The Numbers

Punjabi is a language spoken in Western India and Eastern Pakistan.

The Pakistani version is written in a form of Arabic script called Nastaliq. The
Indian version is written in a script called Gurmukhi (meaning "from the mouth of the
guru"). It is derived from the Devanagari writing of Sanskrit.
 The Runic Alphabet
Germanic

Hungarian

The Runic alphabet was developed for use with the widespread Germanic
languages of Central Europe. Other languages also used this alphabet.
 The Samaritan Alphabet

The Samaritan script was used by the language of the same name in Ancient
Israel, over 2500 years ago.It is related to the Hebrew script.
 The Sanskrit Syllabary

The Sanskrit script was developed for the language of the same name spoken in
North India over 2500 years ago.The Hindu holy books were written with this
language.

The script is the basis for most of the North Indian writing systems.
 The Sinhalese Syllabary

Sinhalese is a typical curly South Indian script.The curly lines arose because the
language was written on palm leaves - these break if a straight line is used. It is used by
the language of the same name spoken on the island of Sri Lanka.
 The Syriac Alphabet

Syriac (also called Nestorian) writing is used by the language of the same name
spoken in Ancient Syria. The language is still used by Syrian Orthodox Christians.
The script is related to Arabic.
 The Tamil Syllabary
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Tamil script is used for the language of the same name spoken in South
India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. It is a typical South Indian writing
system but has few irregularities.
 The Telugu Syllabary
The Consonants

The Vowels

Telugu script is used for the language of the same name spoken in South India. It
resembles Kannada writing.
 The Thai Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

The Vowels

The Numbers

The Thai script is used to write the language of the same name spoken in
Thailand. Apart from symbols for consonants and vowels, Thai also has tonal markers.
 The Tibetan Syllabary
and Numbers
The Consonants

Consonants for Borrowed Words

The Vowels

The Numbers

The Tibetan script is used for the language of the same name spoken in the Tibet
region of China, North India and Nepal. It is derived from the Devanagari script of
Sanskrit.
 The Tocharian Syllabary
The Consonants

The Vowels

Vowels and Consonants

Tocharian is an extinct Indo-European language from China and Central Asia.

 The Ugarit Alphabet

Ugarit is the oldest alphabet. It was used on the coastal regions of modern day
Syria and Lebanon.