10 Endangered Alphabets You Should See Before It's Too Late

BY EMILY PETSKO
JANUARY 17, 2019

1. CHEROKEE

Sequoyah never learned how to read. At the time, many Native Americans deeply distrusted
writing systems. However, once they realized that written Cherokee could be used to
preserve their language and culture, they asked Sequoyah to start teaching the syllabary.
“The Cherokee achieved 90 percent literacy more rapidly than any other people in history
that we know of,” Brookes says

2. Inuktitut

Inuktitut syllabics uses a set of symbols to indicate combinations of consonants and vowels. Inuktitut is
a polysynthetic language, meaning that words tend to be longer and structurally more complex than
their English or French counterparts.

3. Glagolitic

It’s widely believed that Glagolitic, The oldest known Slavic script, was invented by missionaries
Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius around 860 CE in an effort to translate the Gospels into old
Slavic language, which he based on the Slavic tribe’s local dialect, and convert the Slavs to
Christianity.

4. Mandombe

Then one time, he noticed that the mortar between the bricks of his wall forms the number 5 & 2. He
believed these were divine clues, created symbols based off those shapes. Eventually, he
assigned phonographic meaning for the symbols and turned it into an alphabet that could be
used by speakers of the Kikongo and Lingala languages.

5. Ditema Tsa Dinoko

 It is a matter of adopting/adapting symbols from craft design to stand as letters, and that alone tends to
give writing a new look and to root it in its culture of origin.

6. Mandaic

The Mandaic alphabet was considered sacred and represents the power and life. It is was also the
foundation of the priestly and esoteric knowledge of Mandeans.

7. LANNA

Lanna is also one of the rare scripts that also has an endangered 2 sets of number system. The first
set, Lek Nai Tam, is reserved for special purposes such as religious texts. The second set, Lek Hora, is the
set usually used in everyday life. Its name (Hora) suggests that it is also used for astrology.

8. DONGBA

Historically, it was mainly used by priests to help them remember their ceremonial rites, and
the word Dongba means "wise man."

9. Tibetan

In addition to that, Tibetan is the language of the Dalai Lama and the language of dharma, the buddhist
teaching. And one notable feauture of Tibetan is that syllables are separated by a dot.

10. MONGOLIAN

Beginning with Genghis Khan, Mongol leaders used the script to record historic events during
their reign.