Understanding Alphabet

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<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en">Alphabet</h1>
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<div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-
ltr"><div class="mw-parser-output"><div class="shortdescription nomobile noexcerpt
noprint searchaux" style="display:none">Standard set of letters that represent
phonemes of a spoken language</div>
<div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">For other uses, see <a
href="/wiki/Alphabet_(disambiguation)" class="mw-disambig" title="Alphabet
(disambiguation)">Alphabet (disambiguation)</a>.</div>
<div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">"Alphabetical" redirects
here. For other uses, see <a href="/wiki/Alphabetical_(disambiguation)" class="mw-
disambig" title="Alphabetical (disambiguation)">Alphabetical
(disambiguation)</a>.</div>
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<div class="thumb tright"><div class="thumbinner" style="width:222px;"><a
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href="/wiki/File:Orbis_eruditi_literatura_
%C3%A0_charactere_Samaritico_deducta_1689.jpg" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div><a href="/wiki/Charles_Morton_(librarian)" title="Charles
Morton (librarian)">Charles Morton</a>'s 1759 updated version of <a
href="/wiki/Edward_Bernard" title="Edward Bernard">Edward Bernard</a>'s "Orbis
eruditi",<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
1">[1]</a></sup> comparing all known alphabets as of 1689</div></div></div>
<table class="vertical-navbox nowraplinks hlist"
style="float:right;clear:right;width:22.0em;margin:0 0 1.0em
1.0em;background:#f8f9fa;border:1px solid #aaa;padding:0.2em;border-spacing:0.4em
0;text-align:center;line-height:1.4em;font-size:88%"><tbody><tr><th
style="background:#B2BEB5;padding:0.2em 0.4em 0.2em;font-size:145%;line-
height:1.2em"><a href="/wiki/Writing_system" title="Writing system">Writing
systems</a></th></tr><tr><td style="padding:0.2em 0 0.4em"><a
href="/wiki/File:Historical_Writing_Systems_Template_Image.jpg" class="image"><img
alt="Historical Writing Systems Template Image.jpg"
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0.4em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/History_of_writing" title="History of
writing">History</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Grapheme" title="Grapheme">Grapheme</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems" title="List of writing systems">List of
writing systems</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th style="padding:0.1em;background:#B2BEB5">
Types</th></tr><tr><td style="padding:0 0.1em 0.4em">
<ul><li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">Abjad</a> (<a
href="/wiki/Abjad#Impure_abjads" title="Abjad">Impure Abjad</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abugida" title="Abugida">Abugida</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syllabary" title="Syllabary">Syllabary</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Semi-syllabary" title="Semi-syllabary">Semi-syllabary</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">Logography</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Logophonetic" title="Logophonetic">Logophonetic</a> (<a
href="/wiki/Logosyllabary" class="mw-redirect"
title="Logosyllabary">Logosyllabary</a>, <a href="/wiki/Logoconsonantal" class="mw-
redirect" title="Logoconsonantal">Logoconsonantal</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Shorthand" title="Shorthand">Shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Featural_writing_system" title="Featural writing
system">Featural</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th style="padding:0.1em;background:#B2BEB5">
Related topics</th></tr><tr><td style="padding:0 0.1em 0.4em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Pictogram" title="Pictogram">Pictogram</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ideogram" title="Ideogram">Ideogram</a></li></ul></td>
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<p>An <b>alphabet</b> is a standardized set of basic written <a
href="/wiki/Symbols" class="mw-redirect" title="Symbols">symbols</a> or <a
href="/wiki/Graphemes" class="mw-redirect" title="Graphemes">graphemes</a> (called
<a href="/wiki/Letter_(alphabet)" title="Letter (alphabet)">letters</a>) that
represent the <a href="/wiki/Phoneme" title="Phoneme">phonemes</a> of certain <a
href="/wiki/Spoken_language" title="Spoken language">spoken languages</a>. Not all
<a href="/wiki/Writing_system" title="Writing system">writing systems</a> represent
language in this way; in a <a href="/wiki/Syllabary"
title="Syllabary">syllabary</a>, each character represents a <a
href="/wiki/Syllable" title="Syllable">syllable</a>, for instance, and <a
href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">logographic systems</a> use characters to
represent words, <a href="/wiki/Morphemes" class="mw-redirect"
title="Morphemes">morphemes</a>, or other semantic units.
</p><p>The first fully phonemic script, the <a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script"
title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-Canaanite script</a>, later known as the <a
href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" title="Phoenician alphabet">Phoenician
alphabet</a>, is considered to be the first alphabet, and is the ancestor of most
modern alphabets, including <a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic
alphabet">Arabic</a>, <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect"
title="Cyrillic alphabet">Cyrillic</a>, <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek
alphabet">Greek</a>, <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew
alphabet">Hebrew</a>, <a href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin
alphabet">Latin</a>, and possibly <a href="/wiki/Brahmic_scripts" title="Brahmic
scripts">Brahmic</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Coulmas_140_2-0" class="reference"><a
href="#cite_note-Coulmas_140-2">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-
Daniels_9296_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Daniels_9296-
3">[3]</a></sup> It was created by Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in
the <a href="/wiki/Sinai_Peninsula" title="Sinai Peninsula">Sinai Peninsula</a> (as
the <a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script" title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-
Sinaitic script</a>), by selecting a small number of <a
href="/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" title="Egyptian hieroglyphs">hieroglyphs</a>
commonly seen in their <a href="/wiki/Ancient_Egypt" title="Ancient Egypt">Egyptian
surroundings</a> to <a href="/wiki/Acrophony" title="Acrophony">describe the
sounds</a>, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own <a
href="/wiki/Canaanite_languages" title="Canaanite languages">Canaanite
language</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
4">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
5">[5]</a></sup> <a href="/wiki/Peter_T._Daniels" title="Peter T.
Daniels">Peter T. Daniels</a>, however, distinguishes an <a href="/wiki/Abugida"
title="Abugida">abugida</a> or alphasyllabary, a set of graphemes that represent
consonantal base letters which <a href="/wiki/Diacritic"
title="Diacritic">diacritics</a> modify to represent vowels (as in <a
href="/wiki/Devanagari" title="Devanagari">Devanagari</a> and other South Asian
scripts), an <a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">abjad</a>, in which letters
predominantly or exclusively represent consonants (as in the original Phoenician,
<a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a> or <a
href="/wiki/Arabic_script" title="Arabic script">Arabic</a>), and an "alphabet", a
set of graphemes that represent both <a href="/wiki/Vowel" title="Vowel">vowels</a>
and <a href="/wiki/Consonant" title="Consonant">consonants</a>. In this narrow
sense of the word the first "true" alphabet was the <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet"
title="Greek alphabet">Greek alphabet</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-Blackwell_6-0"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Blackwell-6">[6]</a></sup><sup
id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7">[7]</a></sup>
which was developed on the basis of the earlier <a href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet"
title="Phoenician alphabet">Phoenician alphabet</a>.
</p><p>Of the dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular is the <a
href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin alphabet</a>,<sup
which was derived from the <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek
alphabet">Greek</a>, and which many <a href="/wiki/Language"
title="Language">languages</a> modify by adding letters formed using diacritical
marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (<a
href="/wiki/Linear_writing" class="mw-redirect" title="Linear writing">linear
writing</a>), there are also <a href="/wiki/Non-linear_writing" class="mw-redirect"
title="Non-linear writing">exceptions</a> such as the alphabets used in <a
href="/wiki/Braille" title="Braille">Braille</a>. The <a
href="/wiki/Khmer_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Khmer alphabet">Khmer
alphabet</a> (for <a href="/wiki/Cambodian_language" class="mw-redirect"
title="Cambodian language">Cambodian</a>) is the longest, with 74 letters.<sup
</p><p>Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of letters. This
makes them useful for purposes of <a href="/wiki/Collation"
title="Collation">collation</a>, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in <a
href="/wiki/Alphabetical_order" title="Alphabetical order">alphabetical order</a>.
It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of
"numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as <a href="/wiki/Numbered_list"
class="mw-redirect" title="Numbered list">numbered lists</a> and number placements.
</p>
<div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading"><input
type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox"
style="display:none" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr"><h2 id="mw-toc-
heading">Contents</h2><span class="toctogglespan"><label class="toctogglelabel"
for="toctogglecheckbox"></label></span></div>
<ul>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="#Etymology"><span
class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Etymology</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="#History"><span
class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">History</span></a>
<ul>
<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a
href="#Ancient_Northeast_African_and_Middle_Eastern_scripts"><span
class="tocnumber">2.1</span> <span class="toctext">Ancient Northeast African and
Middle Eastern scripts</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="#European_alphabets"><span
class="tocnumber">2.2</span> <span class="toctext">European
alphabets</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5"><a href="#Asian_alphabets"><span
class="tocnumber">2.3</span> <span class="toctext">Asian alphabets</span></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="#Types"><span
class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Types</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7"><a href="#Alphabetical_order"><span
class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Alphabetical order</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8"><a href="#Names_of_letters"><span
class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">Names of letters</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9"><a href="#Orthography_and_pronunciation"><span
class="tocnumber">6</span> <span class="toctext">Orthography and
pronunciation</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10"><a href="#See_also"><span
class="tocnumber">7</span> <span class="toctext">See also</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11"><a href="#References"><span
class="tocnumber">8</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12"><a href="#Bibliography"><span
class="tocnumber">9</span> <span class="toctext">Bibliography</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13"><a href="#External_links"><span
class="tocnumber">10</span> <span class="toctext">External links</span></a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Etymology">Etymology</span></h2>

<p>The English word <i>alphabet</i> came into <a href="/wiki/Middle_English"
title="Middle English">Middle English</a> from the <a href="/wiki/Late_Latin"
title="Late Latin">Late Latin</a> word <i>alphabetum</i>, which in turn originated
in the <a href="/wiki/Greek_language" title="Greek language">Greek</a> ἀλφάβητος
(<i>alphabētos</i>). The Greek word was made from the first two letters, <i><a
href="/wiki/Alpha_(letter)" class="mw-redirect" title="Alpha
(letter)">alpha</a></i>(α) and <i><a href="/wiki/Beta_(letter)" class="mw-redirect"
title="Beta (letter)">beta</a></i>(β).<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a
href="#cite_note-10">[10]</a></sup> The names for the Greek letters came
from the first two letters of the <a href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet"
title="Phoenician alphabet">Phoenician alphabet</a>; <i><a href="/wiki/Aleph"
title="Aleph">aleph</a></i>, which also meant <i>ox</i>, and <i><a
href="/wiki/Bet_(letter)" title="Bet (letter)">bet</a></i>, which also meant
<i>house</i>.
</p><p>Sometimes, like in the <a href="/wiki/Alphabet_song" title="Alphabet
song">alphabet song</a> in English, the term "ABCs" is used instead of the word
"alphabet" (<i>Now I know my ABCs</i>...). "Knowing one's ABCs", in general, can
be used as a <a href="/wiki/Metaphor" title="Metaphor">metaphor</a> for knowing the
basics about anything.
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span></h2>
<div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a
href="/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" title="History of the alphabet">History of the
alphabet</a></div>
href="/wiki/File:A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_Casl
on.jpg/300px-A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg" decoding="async" width="300"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_C
aslon.jpg/450px-A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jp
g/600px-A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg 2x" data-file-width="2898" data-file-
href="/wiki/File:A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div><i>A Specimen</i> of <a href="/wiki/Typeset" class="mw-
redirect" title="Typeset">typeset</a> <a href="/wiki/Font" title="Font">fonts</a>
and <a href="/wiki/Language" title="Language">languages</a>, by <a
href="/wiki/William_Caslon" title="William Caslon">William Caslon</a>, letter
founder; from the 1728 <i><a
href="/wiki/Cyclopaedia,_or_an_Universal_Dictionary_of_Arts_and_Sciences"
class="mw-redirect" title="Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and
Sciences">Cyclopaedia</a></i></div></div></div>
<h3><span class="mw-headline"
id="Ancient_Northeast_African_and_Middle_Eastern_scripts">Ancient Northeast African
and Middle Eastern scripts</span></h3>
<p>The history of the alphabet started in <a href="/wiki/Ancient_Egypt"
title="Ancient Egypt">ancient Egypt</a>. Egyptian writing had a set of some <a
href="/wiki/Egyptian_uniliteral_signs" class="mw-redirect" title="Egyptian
uniliteral signs">24 hieroglyphs</a> that are called uniliterals,<sup id="cite_ref-
11" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-11">[11]</a></sup> to represent
syllables that begin with a single <a href="/wiki/Consonant"
title="Consonant">consonant</a> of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be
supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for
<a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">logograms</a>, to write grammatical
inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names.<sup
id="cite_ref-Daniels_12-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Daniels-
12">[12]</a></sup>
</p>
<div class="thumb tleft"><div class="thumbinner" style="width:222px;"><a
href="/wiki/File:Ba%60alat.png" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Ba%60alat.png/220px-Ba
%60alat.png" decoding="async" width="220" height="146" class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Ba%60alat.png 1.5x" data-
file-width="275" data-file-height="182" /></a> <div class="thumbcaption"><div
class="magnify"><a href="/wiki/File:Ba%60alat.png" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div>A specimen of <a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script"
title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-Sinaitic script</a>, one of the earliest (if
not the very first) phonemic scripts</div></div></div>
<p>In the <a href="/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age" class="mw-redirect" title="Middle
Bronze Age">Middle Bronze Age</a>, an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the
<a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script" title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-Sinaitic
script</a> appears in Egyptian turquoise mines in the <a
href="/wiki/Sinai_peninsula" class="mw-redirect" title="Sinai peninsula">Sinai
peninsula</a> dated to circa the 15th century BC, apparently left by Canaanite
workers. In 1999, John and Deborah Darnell discovered an even earlier version of
this first alphabet at Wadi el-Hol dated to circa 1800 BC and showing evidence of
having been adapted from specific forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs that could be dated
to circa 2000 BC, strongly suggesting that the first alphabet had been developed
about that time.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
13">[13]</a></sup> Based on letter appearances and names, it is believed to
be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs.<sup id="cite_ref-Coulmas_140_2-1"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Coulmas_140-2">[2]</a></sup> This
script had no characters representing vowels, although originally it probably was a
syllabary, but unneeded symbols were discarded. An alphabetic <a
href="/wiki/Cuneiform" title="Cuneiform">cuneiform</a> script with 30 signs
including three that indicate the following vowel was invented in <a
href="/wiki/Ugarit" title="Ugarit">Ugarit</a> before the 15th century BC. This
script was not used after the destruction of Ugarit.<sup id="cite_ref-14"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-14">[14]</a></sup>
</p><p>The Proto-Sinaitic script eventually developed into the <a
href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" title="Phoenician alphabet">Phoenician
alphabet</a>, which is conventionally called "Proto-Canaanite" before ca. 1050
BC.<sup id="cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
Daniels_9296-3">[3]</a></sup> The oldest text in Phoenician script is an
inscription on the sarcophagus of King <a href="/wiki/Ahiram" class="mw-redirect"
title="Ahiram">Ahiram</a>. This script is the parent script of all western
alphabets. By the tenth century, two other forms can be distinguished, namely <a
href="/wiki/Canaanite_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Canaanite
language">Canaanite</a> and <a href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic
alphabet">Aramaic</a>. The Aramaic gave rise to the <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet"
title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a> script.<sup id="cite_ref-15"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-15">[15]</a></sup> The <a
href="/wiki/South_Arabian_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="South Arabian
alphabet">South Arabian alphabet</a>, a sister script to the Phoenician alphabet,
is the script from which the <a href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_alphabet" class="mw-redirect"
title="Ge'ez alphabet">Ge'ez alphabet</a> (an <a href="/wiki/Abugida"
title="Abugida">abugida</a>) is descended. Vowelless alphabets are called <a
href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">abjads</a>, currently exemplified in scripts
including <a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a>, and <a
href="/wiki/Syriac_alphabet" title="Syriac alphabet">Syriac</a>. The omission of
vowels was not always a satisfactory solution and some "weak" consonants are
sometimes used to indicate the vowel quality of a syllable (<a
href="/wiki/Mater_lectionis" title="Mater lectionis">matres lectionis</a>). These
letters have a dual function since they are also used as pure consonants.<sup
</p><p>The Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Canaanite script and the <a
href="/wiki/Ugaritic_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Ugaritic script">Ugaritic
script</a> were the first scripts with a limited number of signs, in contrast to
the other widely used writing systems at the time, <a href="/wiki/Cuneiform"
title="Cuneiform">Cuneiform</a>, <a href="/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs"
title="Egyptian hieroglyphs">Egyptian hieroglyphs</a>, and <a href="/wiki/Linear_B"
title="Linear B">Linear B</a>. The Phoenician script was probably the first
phonemic script<sup id="cite_ref-Coulmas_140_2-2" class="reference"><a
href="#cite_note-Coulmas_140-2">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-
Daniels_9296_3-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Daniels_9296-
3">[3]</a></sup> and it contained only about two dozen distinct letters,
making it a script simple enough for common traders to learn. Another advantage of
Phoenician was that it could be used to write down many different languages, since
it recorded words phonemically.
</p>
href="/wiki/File:Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti,_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg"
class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Acta_Eruditorum_-
_I_alfabeti%2C_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg/220px-Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti
%2C_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="293"
class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Acta_Eruditorum_-
_I_alfabeti%2C_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg/330px-Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti
%2C_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti
%2C_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg/440px-Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti%2C_1743_
%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="1199"
/></a> <div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a
href="/wiki/File:Acta_Eruditorum_-_I_alfabeti,_1743_%E2%80%93_BEIC_13408919.jpg"
class="internal" title="Enlarge"></a></div>Illustration from <a
href="/wiki/Acta_Eruditorum" title="Acta Eruditorum">Acta Eruditorum</a>,
1741</div></div></div>
<p>The script was spread by the Phoenicians across the Mediterranean.<sup
id="cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Daniels_9296-
3">[3]</a></sup> In Greece, the script was modified to add vowels, giving
rise to the ancestor of all alphabets in the West. It was the first alphabet in
which vowels have independent letter forms separate from those of consonants. The
Greeks chose letters representing sounds that did not exist in Greek to represent
vowels. Vowels are significant in the Greek language, and the syllabical <a
href="/wiki/Linear_B" title="Linear B">Linear B</a> script that was used by the <a
href="/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece" title="Mycenaean Greece">Mycenaean</a> Greeks from
the 16th century BC had 87 symbols, including 5 vowels. In its early years, there
were many variants of the Greek alphabet, a situation that caused many different
alphabets to evolve from it.
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="European_alphabets">European
alphabets</span></h3>
href="/wiki/File:ZographensisColour.jpg" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/ZographensisColour.jpg/220
px-ZographensisColour.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="350"
class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/ZographensisColour.jpg/
330px-ZographensisColour.jpg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/ZographensisColour.jpg/440px-
ZographensisColour.jpg 2x" data-file-width="555" data-file-height="883" /></a>
<div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a
href="/wiki/File:ZographensisColour.jpg" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div><a href="/wiki/Codex_Zographensis" title="Codex
Zographensis">Codex Zographensis</a> in the <a href="/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet"
class="mw-redirect" title="Glagolitic alphabet">Glagolitic alphabet</a> from
Medieval <a href="/wiki/Bulgaria" title="Bulgaria">Bulgaria</a></div></div></div>
<p>The <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek alphabet</a>, in
its <a href="/wiki/Euboean_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Euboean
alphabet">Euboean form</a>, was carried over by Greek colonists to the Italian
peninsula, where it gave rise to a variety of alphabets used to write the <a
href="/wiki/Italic_languages" title="Italic languages">Italic languages</a>. One of
these became the <a href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin
alphabet</a>, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire.
Even after the fall of the Roman state, the alphabet survived in intellectual and
religious works. It eventually became used for the descendant languages of Latin
(the <a href="/wiki/Romance_languages" title="Romance languages">Romance
languages</a>) and then for most of the other languages of Europe.
</p><p>Some adaptations of the Latin alphabet are augmented with <a
href="/wiki/Ligature_(typography)" class="mw-redirect" title="Ligature
(typography)">ligatures</a>, such as <a href="/wiki/%C3%86" title="Æ">æ</a> in <a
href="/wiki/Danish_language" title="Danish language">Danish</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Icelandic_language" title="Icelandic language">Icelandic</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Ou_(letter)" class="mw-redirect" title="Ou (letter)">Ȣ</a> in <a
href="/wiki/Algonquian_languages" title="Algonquian languages">Algonquian</a>; by
borrowings from other alphabets, such as the <a href="/wiki/Thorn_(letter)"
title="Thorn (letter)">thorn</a> þ in <a href="/wiki/Old_English_language"
class="mw-redirect" title="Old English language">Old English</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Icelandic_language" title="Icelandic language">Icelandic</a>, which
came from the <a href="/wiki/Runic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Runic
alphabet">Futhark</a> runes; and by modifying existing letters, such as the <a
href="/wiki/Eth_(letter)" class="mw-redirect" title="Eth (letter)">eth</a> ð of Old
English and Icelandic, which is a modified <i>d</i>. Other alphabets only use a
subset of the Latin alphabet, such as Hawaiian, and <a
href="/wiki/Italian_language" title="Italian language">Italian</a>, which uses the
letters <i>j, k, x, y</i> and <i>w</i> only in foreign words.
</p><p>Another notable script is <a href="/wiki/Elder_Futhark" title="Elder
Futhark">Elder Futhark</a>, which is believed to have evolved out of one of the <a
href="/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Old Italic
alphabet">Old Italic alphabets</a>. Elder Futhark gave rise to a variety of
alphabets known collectively as the <a href="/wiki/Runic_alphabet" class="mw-
redirect" title="Runic alphabet">Runic alphabets</a>. The Runic alphabets were used
for Germanic languages from AD 100 to the late Middle Ages. Its usage is mostly
restricted to engravings on stone and jewelry, although inscriptions have also been
found on bone and wood. These alphabets have since been replaced with the Latin
alphabet, except for decorative usage for which the runes remained in use until the
20th century.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Old_Hungarian_script" title="Old Hungarian script">Old
Hungarian script</a> is a contemporary writing system of the Hungarians. It was in
use during the entire history of Hungary, albeit not as an official writing system.
From the 19th century it once again became more and more popular.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect"
title="Glagolitic alphabet">Glagolitic alphabet</a> was the initial script of the
liturgical language <a href="/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic" title="Old Church
Slavonic">Old Church Slavonic</a> and became, together with the Greek uncial
script, the basis of the <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_script" title="Cyrillic
script">Cyrillic script</a>. Cyrillic is one of the most widely used modern
alphabetic scripts, and is notable for its use in Slavic languages and also for
other languages within the former <a href="/wiki/Soviet_Union" title="Soviet
Union">Soviet Union</a>. <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabets" title="Cyrillic
alphabets">Cyrillic alphabets</a> include the <a
href="/wiki/Serbian_Cyrillic_alphabet" title="Serbian Cyrillic
alphabet">Serbian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Macedonian_alphabet" title="Macedonian
alphabet">Macedonian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Bulgarian_alphabet" title="Bulgarian
alphabet">Bulgarian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Russian_alphabet" title="Russian
alphabet">Russian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Belarusian_alphabet" title="Belarusian
alphabet">Belarusian</a> and <a href="/wiki/Ukrainian_alphabet" title="Ukrainian
alphabet">Ukrainian</a>. The Glagolitic alphabet is believed to have been created
by <a href="/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius" title="Saints Cyril and
Methodius">Saints Cyril and Methodius</a>, while the Cyrillic alphabet was invented
by <a href="/wiki/Clement_of_Ohrid" title="Clement of Ohrid">Clement of Ohrid</a>,
who was their disciple. They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed
from or influenced by the <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek
alphabet">Greek alphabet</a> and the <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew
alphabet">Hebrew alphabet</a>.
</p><p>The longest European alphabet is the Latin-derived <a
href="/wiki/Slovak_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Slovak alphabet">Slovak
alphabet</a> which has 46 letters.
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Asian_alphabets">Asian alphabets</span></h3>
<p>Beyond the logographic <a href="/wiki/Written_Chinese" title="Written
Chinese">Chinese writing</a>, many phonetic scripts are in existence in Asia. The
<a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic alphabet</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew alphabet</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Syriac_alphabet" title="Syriac alphabet">Syriac alphabet</a>, and other
<a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">abjads</a> of the Middle East are developments
of the <a href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic alphabet">Aramaic
alphabet</a>.
</p><p>Most alphabetic scripts of India and Eastern Asia are descended from the <a
href="/wiki/Brahmi_script" title="Brahmi script">Brahmi script</a>, which is often
believed to be a descendant of Aramaic.
</p>
href="/wiki/File:Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpeg" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detai
l.jpeg/250px-Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpeg" decoding="async" width="250"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_de
tail.jpeg/375px-Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpeg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpe
g/500px-Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpeg 2x" data-file-width="566" data-file-
href="/wiki/File:Zhuyin_on_cell_phone_detail.jpeg" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div><a href="/wiki/Bopomofo" title="Bopomofo">Zhuyin</a> on a
cell phone</div></div></div>
<p>In <a href="/wiki/Korea" title="Korea">Korea</a>, the <a href="/wiki/Hangul"
title="Hangul">Hangul</a> alphabet was created by <a href="/wiki/Sejong_the_Great"
title="Sejong the Great">Sejong the Great</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-17"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-17">[17]</a></sup> Hangul is a unique
alphabet: it is a <a href="/wiki/Featural_alphabet" class="mw-redirect"
title="Featural alphabet">featural alphabet</a>, where many of the letters are
designed from a sound's place of articulation (P to look like the widened mouth, L
to look like the tongue pulled in, etc.); its design was planned by the government
of the day; and it places individual letters in syllable clusters with equal
dimensions, in the same way as <a href="/wiki/Chinese_characters" title="Chinese
characters">Chinese characters</a>, to allow for mixed-script writing<sup
(one syllable always takes up one type-space no matter how many letters get stacked
into building that one sound-block).
</p><p><a href="/wiki/Zhuyin" class="mw-redirect" title="Zhuyin">Zhuyin</a>
(sometimes called <i>Bopomofo</i>) is a <a href="/wiki/Semi-syllabary" title="Semi-
syllabary">semi-syllabary</a> used to phonetically transcribe <a
href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese" title="Standard Chinese">Mandarin Chinese</a> in the
<a href="/wiki/Taiwan" title="Taiwan">Republic of China</a>. After the later
establishment of the <a href="/wiki/China" title="China">People's Republic of
China</a> and its adoption of <a href="/wiki/Pinyin" title="Pinyin">Hanyu
Pinyin</a>, the use of Zhuyin today is limited, but it is still widely used in <a
href="/wiki/Taiwan" title="Taiwan">Taiwan</a> where the Republic of China still
governs. Zhuyin developed out of a form of Chinese shorthand based on Chinese
characters in the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary.
Like an alphabet the phonemes of <a href="/wiki/Syllable_onset" class="mw-redirect"
title="Syllable onset">syllable initials</a> are represented by individual symbols,
but like a syllabary the phonemes of the <a href="/wiki/Syllable_rime" class="mw-
redirect" title="Syllable rime">syllable finals</a> are not; rather, each possible
final (excluding the <a href="/wiki/Syllable_medial" class="mw-redirect"
title="Syllable medial">medial glide</a>) is represented by its own symbol. For
example, <i>luan</i> is represented as ㄌㄨㄢ (<i>l-u-an</i>), where the last symbol
ㄢ represents the entire final <i>-an</i>. While Zhuyin is not used as a mainstream
writing system, it is still often used in ways similar to a <a
href="/wiki/Romanization" title="Romanization">romanization</a> system—that is, for
aiding in pronunciation and as an input method for Chinese characters on computers
and cellphones.
</p><p>European alphabets, especially Latin and Cyrillic, have been adapted for
many languages of Asia. Arabic is also widely used, sometimes as an abjad (as with
<a href="/wiki/Urdu_alphabet" title="Urdu alphabet">Urdu</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Persian_alphabet" title="Persian alphabet">Persian</a>) and sometimes
as a complete alphabet (as with <a href="/wiki/Kurdish_alphabet" class="mw-
redirect" title="Kurdish alphabet">Kurdish</a> and <a href="/wiki/Uyghur_alphabet"
class="mw-redirect" title="Uyghur alphabet">Uyghur</a>).
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Types">Types</span></h2>
href="/wiki/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.png" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Writing_systems_worldwide.
png/460px-Writing_systems_worldwide.png" decoding="async" width="460" height="213"
class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Writing_systems_worldwi
de.png/690px-Writing_systems_worldwide.png 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Writing_systems_worldwide.png/9
20px-Writing_systems_worldwide.png 2x" data-file-width="1357" data-file-
href="/wiki/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.png" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div><table style="width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-
spacing:0px 0px;border:none;font-size:90%;"><caption style="font-weight:bold; font-
size:105%; padding-bottom:5px">Predominant national and selected regional or
minority scripts</caption><tbody><tr style="vertical-align:top"><th scope="col"
style="background:lavender;font-weight:normal;text-align:center;border-right:1px
#fefefe solid;"> Alphabetic</th><th scope="col" style="background:lavender;font-
weight:normal;text-align:center;border-right:1px #fefefe solid;"> <div
style="display:inline-block; padding:0.1em 0;line-height:1.2em;"><a
href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">[L]ogographic</a><br />and <a
href="/wiki/Syllabary" title="Syllabary">[S]yllabic</a></div></th><th scope="col"
#fefefe solid;"> <a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">Abjad</a></th><th scope="col"
#fefefe solid;"> <a href="/wiki/Abugida" title="Abugida">Abugida</a></th></tr><tr
style="vertical-align:top"><td style="white-space:nowrap"> <style data-mw-
deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r976040225">.mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-
inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-
color{display:inline-block;width:1.5em;height:1.5em;margin:1px 0;text-
align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black;font-
size:100%}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{font-size:95%}</style><div
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#aaa;
color:black; -webkit-column-break-inside: avoid;"> </span> <a
href="/wiki/Latin_script" title="Latin script">Latin</a></div> <link rel="mw-
deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r976040225"/><div
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#008080;
color:white; -webkit-column-break-inside: avoid;"> </span> <a
href="/wiki/Cyrillic_script" title="Cyrillic script">Cyrillic</a></div> <link
rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r976040225"/><div
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:blue;
href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a></div> <link rel="mw-
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#1E90FF;
href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian alphabet">Armenian</a></div> <link
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#00FFFF;
href="/wiki/Georgian_scripts" title="Georgian scripts">Georgian</a></div> <link
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#FF00FF;
href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">Hangul</a></div></td><td style="white-
space:nowrap"> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
data:TemplateStyles:r976040225"/><div class="legend"><span class="legend-color"
style="background-color:#8B0000; color:white; -webkit-column-break-inside:
avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Hanzi" class="mw-redirect"
title="Hanzi">Hanzi</a> <span style="font-size:90%;">[L]</span></div> <link
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#FF0000;
href="/wiki/Kana" title="Kana">Kana</a> <span style="font-
size:90%;">[S]</span> / <a href="/wiki/Kanji" title="Kanji">Kanji</a>
<span style="font-size:90%;">[L]</span><span
class="nowrap"> </span></div></td><td style="white-space:nowrap"> <link
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:green;
href="/wiki/Arabic_script" title="Arabic script">Arabic</a></div> <link rel="mw-
class="legend"><span class="legend-color" style="background-color:#00ff7f;
href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a></div></td><td
style="white-space:nowrap"> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
style="background-color: #FFA500; color:black; -webkit-column-break-inside:
avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Brahmic_scripts" title="Brahmic
scripts">North Indic</a></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
style="background-color:#D2691E; color:black; -webkit-column-break-inside:
avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Brahmic_scripts" title="Brahmic
scripts">South Indic</a></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
style="background-color:#8B4513 ; color:white; -webkit-column-break-inside:
avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_script" class="mw-redirect"
title="Ge'ez script">Ethiopic</a></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-
style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r976040225"/><div class="legend"><span
class="legend-color" style="background-color:#808000; color:black; -webkit-column-
break-inside: avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Thaana"
title="Thaana">Thaana</a></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
style="background-color:#FFFF80; color:black; -webkit-column-break-inside:
avoid;"> </span> <a href="/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics"
title="Canadian Aboriginal syllabics">Canadian
syllabic</a></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div>
<table class="vertical-navbox nowraplinks"
style="float:right;clear:right;width:22.0em;margin:0 0 1.0em
1.0em;background:#f8f9fa;border:1px solid #aaa;padding:0.2em;border-spacing:0.4em
0;text-align:center;line-height:1.4em;font-size:88%"><tbody><tr><td
style="padding:0 0.1em 0.4em">
<div class="NavFrame collapsed" style="border:none;padding:0"><div class="NavHead"
style="font-size:105%;background:transparent;text-align:left"><a
href="/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" title="History of the alphabet">History of the
alphabet</a></div><div class="NavContent" style="font-size:105%;padding:0.2em 0
0.4em;text-align:center;text-align:left;"><hr />
<p><i><a href="/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" title="Egyptian hieroglyphs">Egyptian
hieroglyphs</a></i> 32 <abbr title="century">c.</abbr> <abbr title="before the
common era">BCE</abbr>
</p>
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Hieratic" title="Hieratic">Hieratic</a></i> 32 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Demotic_(Egyptian)" title="Demotic
(Egyptian)">Demotic</a></i> 7 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Meroitic_script" title="Meroitic script">Meroitic</a></i>
3 c. BCE</li></ul></li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script" title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-
Sinaitic</a></i> 19 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Ugaritic_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Ugaritic
script">Ugaritic</a></i> 15 c. BCE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/South_Arabian_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="South
Arabian alphabet">Epigraphic South Arabian</a></i> 9 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Ge'ez
alphabet">Ge’ez</a> 5–6 c. BCE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" title="Phoenician
alphabet">Phoenician</a></i> 12 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet" title="Paleo-Hebrew
alphabet">Paleo-Hebrew</a></i> 10 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Samaritan_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Samaritan
alphabet">Samaritan</a> 6 c. BCE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Libyco-Berber" class="mw-redirect" title="Libyco-
Berber">Libyco-Berber</a></i> 3 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tifinagh" title="Tifinagh">Tifinagh</a></li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Paleohispanic_scripts" title="Paleohispanic
scripts">Paleohispanic</a></i> (semi-syllabic) 7 c. BCE</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic alphabet">Aramaic</a> 8 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><i lang="sa-Latn" title="International Alphabet of Sanskrit
transliteration"><a href="/wiki/Kharo%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%ADh%C4%AB" class="mw-redirect"
title="Kharoṣṭhī">Kharoṣṭhī</a></i></i> 4 c. BCE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Br%C4%81hm%C4%AB_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Brāhmī
script">Brāhmī</a></i> 4 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Brahmic_family" class="mw-redirect" title="Brahmic
family">Brahmic family</a> <i>(see)</i>
<ul><li>E.g. <a href="/wiki/Tibetan_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Tibetan
alphabet">Tibetan</a> 7 c. CE</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Devanagari_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Devanagari
alphabet">Devanagari</a> 10 c. CE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics" title="Canadian Aboriginal
syllabics">Canadian syllabics</a> 1840</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a> 3 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Western_Neo-Aramaic#Square_Aramaic_Alphabet" title="Western
Neo-Aramaic">Square Aramiac Alphabet</a> 2007</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Pahlavi_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Pahlavi
script">Pahlavi</a></i> 3 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Avestan_alphabet" title="Avestan
alphabet">Avestan</a></i> 4 c. CE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Palmyrene_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Palmyrene
script">Palmyrene</a></i> 2 c. BCE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Nabataean_alphabet" title="Nabataean
alphabet">Nabataean</a></i> 2 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic</a> 4 c. CE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/N%27Ko_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="N'Ko
alphabet">N'Ko</a> 1949 CE</li></ul></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syriac_alphabet" title="Syriac alphabet">Syriac</a> 2 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Sogdian_alphabet" title="Sogdian
alphabet">Sogdian</a></i> 2 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Old_Turkic_script" title="Old Turkic script">Orkhon</a>
(old Turkic)</i> 6 c. CE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Old_Hungarian_script" title="Old Hungarian script">Old
Hungarian</a></i> c. 650 CE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Old_Uyghur_alphabet" title="Old Uyghur alphabet">Old
Uyghur</a></i>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Mongolian_script" title="Mongolian script">Mongolian</a>
1204 CE</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mandaic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Mandaic
alphabet">Mandaic</a> 2 c. CE</li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a> 8 c. BCE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Old
Italic alphabet">Etruscan</a></i> 8 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin</a> 7 c. BCE
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary" title="Cherokee syllabary">Cherokee</a>
(syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Runic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Runic
alphabet">Runic</a></i> 2 c. CE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Ogham" title="Ogham">Ogham</a></i> (origin uncertain) 4 c.
CE</li></ul></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Coptic_alphabet" title="Coptic alphabet">Coptic</a></i> 3 c.
CE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Gothic_alphabet" title="Gothic alphabet">Gothic</a></i> 3 c.
CE</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian alphabet">Armenian</a> 405
CE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Caucasian_Albanian_script" title="Caucasian Albanian
script">Caucasian Albanian</a></i> (origin uncertain) c. 420 CE</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Georgian_scripts" title="Georgian scripts">Georgian</a> (origin
uncertain) c. 430 CE</li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Glagolitic
alphabet">Glagolitic</a></i> 862 CE</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_script" title="Cyrillic script">Cyrillic</a> c. 940 CE
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Old_Permic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Old
Permic alphabet">Old Permic</a></i> 1372
CE</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>
<p><a href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">Hangul</a> 1443
</p>
<a href="/wiki/Thaana_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Thaana
alphabet">Thaana</a> 18 c. CE (derived from <a href="/wiki/Brahmi_numerals"
title="Brahmi numerals">Brahmi numerals</a>)</div></div></td>
</tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;font-size:115%;padding-top: 0.6em;"><div
class="plainlinks hlist navbar mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a
href="/wiki/Template:Alphabet" title="Template:Alphabet"><abbr title="View this
template">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-talk"><a
href="/wiki/Template_talk:Alphabet" title="Template talk:Alphabet"><abbr
title="Discuss this template">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a
class="external text" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Template:Alphabet&action=edit"><abbr title="Edit this
template">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The term "alphabet" is used by <a href="/wiki/Linguistics"
title="Linguistics">linguists</a> and <a href="/wiki/Paleographer" class="mw-
redirect" title="Paleographer">paleographers</a> in both a wide and a narrow sense.
In the wider sense, an alphabet is a script that is <i>segmental</i> at the <a
href="/wiki/Phoneme" title="Phoneme">phoneme</a> level—that is, it has separate
glyphs for individual sounds and not for larger units such as syllables or words.
In the narrower sense, some scholars distinguish "true" alphabets from two other
types of segmental script, <a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">abjads</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Abugida" title="Abugida">abugidas</a>. These three differ from each
other in the way they treat vowels: abjads have letters for consonants and leave
most vowels unexpressed; abugidas are also consonant-based, but indicate vowels
with <a href="/wiki/Diacritic" title="Diacritic">diacritics</a> to or a systematic
graphic modification of the consonants. In alphabets in the narrow sense, on the
other hand, consonants and vowels are written as independent letters.<sup
The earliest known alphabet in the wider sense is the <a
href="/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets" class="mw-redirect" title="Middle Bronze
Age alphabets">Wadi el-Hol script</a>, believed to be an abjad, which through its
successor <a href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" title="Phoenician
alphabet">Phoenician</a> is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including <a
href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin</a> (via the <a
href="/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Old Italic
alphabet">Old Italic alphabet</a>), <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic" class="mw-redirect"
title="Cyrillic">Cyrillic</a> (via the Greek alphabet) and <a
href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a> (via <a
href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic alphabet">Aramaic</a>).
</p><p>Examples of present-day abjads are the <a href="/wiki/Arabic_script"
title="Arabic script">Arabic</a> and <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_script" class="mw-
redirect" title="Hebrew script">Hebrew scripts</a>; true alphabets include <a
href="/wiki/Latin_script" title="Latin script">Latin</a>, Cyrillic, and Korean <a
href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">hangul</a>; and abugidas are used to write <a
href="/wiki/Tigrinya_language" title="Tigrinya language">Tigrinya</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Amharic_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Amharic
language">Amharic</a>, <a href="/wiki/Hindi" title="Hindi">Hindi</a>, and <a
href="/wiki/Thai_language" title="Thai language">Thai</a>. The <a
href="/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics" title="Canadian Aboriginal
syllabics">Canadian Aboriginal syllabics</a> are also an abugida rather than a
syllabary as their name would imply, since each glyph stands for a consonant that
is modified by rotation to represent the following vowel. (In a true syllabary,
each consonant-vowel combination would be represented by a separate glyph.)
</p><p>All three types may be augmented with syllabic glyphs. <a
href="/wiki/Ugaritic_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Ugaritic
script">Ugaritic</a>, for example, is basically an abjad, but has syllabic letters
for <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)"
class="IPA">/ʔa, ʔi, ʔu/</span>. (These are the only time vowels are indicated.)
Cyrillic is basically a true alphabet, but has syllabic letters for <span
title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)"
class="IPA">/ja, je, ju/</span> (я, е, ю); <a href="/wiki/Coptic_alphabet"
title="Coptic alphabet">Coptic</a> has a letter for <span title="Representation in
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">/ti/</span>. <a
href="/wiki/Devanagari" title="Devanagari">Devanagari</a> is typically an abugida
augmented with dedicated letters for initial vowels, though some traditions use अ
as a <a href="/wiki/Zero_consonant" title="Zero consonant">zero consonant</a> as
the graphic base for such vowels.
</p><p>The boundaries between the three types of segmental scripts are not always
clear-cut. For example, <a href="/wiki/Sorani" title="Sorani">Sorani</a> <a
href="/wiki/Kurdish_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Kurdish
language">Kurdish</a> is written in the <a href="/wiki/Arabic_script" title="Arabic
script">Arabic script</a>, which is normally an abjad. However, in Kurdish, writing
the vowels is mandatory, and full letters are used, so the script is a true
alphabet. Other languages may use a Semitic abjad with mandatory vowel diacritics,
effectively making them abugidas. On the other hand, the <a
href="/wiki/Phagspa_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Phagspa script">Phagspa
script</a> of the <a href="/wiki/Mongol_Empire" title="Mongol Empire">Mongol
Empire</a> was based closely on the <a href="/wiki/Tibetan_script" title="Tibetan
script">Tibetan abugida</a>, but all vowel marks were written after the preceding
consonant rather than as diacritic marks. Although short <i>a</i> was not written,
as in the Indic abugidas, one could argue that the linear arrangement made this a
true alphabet. Conversely, the vowel marks of the <a href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_alphabet"
class="mw-redirect" title="Ge'ez alphabet">Tigrinya abugida</a> and the <a
href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Ge'ez
alphabet">Amharic abugida</a> (ironically, the original source of the term
"abugida") have been so completely assimilated into their consonants that the
modifications are no longer systematic and have to be learned as a syllabary rather
than as a segmental script. Even more extreme, the Pahlavi abjad eventually became
<a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">logographic</a>. (See below.)
</p>
href="/wiki/File:Ethiopic_genesis_(ch._29,_v._11-
16),_15th_century_(The_S.S._Teacher%27s_Edition-The_Holy_Bible_-_Plate_XII,_1).jpg"
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Ethiopic_genesis_
%28ch._29%2C_v._11-16%29%2C_15th_century_%28The_S.S._Teacher%27s_Edition-
The_Holy_Bible_-_Plate_XII%2C_1%29.jpg/220px-Ethiopic_genesis_%28ch._29%2C_v._11-
16%29%2C_15th_century_%28The_S.S._Teacher%27s_Edition-The_Holy_Bible_-_Plate_XII
%2C_1%29.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="326" class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Ethiopic_genesis_
%2C_1%29.jpg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Ethiopic_genesis_
%2C_1%29.jpg 2x" data-file-width="519" data-file-height="768" /></a> <div
class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a
href="/wiki/File:Ethiopic_genesis_(ch._29,_v._11-
16),_15th_century_(The_S.S._Teacher%27s_Edition-The_Holy_Bible_-_Plate_XII,_1).jpg"
class="internal" title="Enlarge"></a></div><a href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_Script"
class="mw-redirect" title="Ge'ez Script">Ge'ez Script</a> of <a
href="/wiki/Ethiopia" title="Ethiopia">Ethiopia</a> and <a href="/wiki/Eritrea"
title="Eritrea">Eritrea</a></div></div></div>
<p>Thus the primary <a href="/wiki/Categorisation" class="mw-redirect"
title="Categorisation">classification</a> of alphabets reflects how they treat
vowels. For <a href="/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)" title="Tone (linguistics)">tonal
languages</a>, further classification can be based on their treatment of tone,
though names do not yet exist to distinguish the various types. Some alphabets
disregard tone entirely, especially when it does not carry a heavy functional load,
as in <a href="/wiki/Somali_language" title="Somali language">Somali</a> and many
other languages of Africa and the Americas. Such scripts are to tone what abjads
are to vowels. Most commonly, tones are indicated with diacritics, the way vowels
are treated in abugidas. This is the case for <a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_alphabet"
title="Vietnamese alphabet">Vietnamese</a> (a true alphabet) and <a
href="/wiki/Thai_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Thai alphabet">Thai</a> (an
abugida). In Thai, tone is determined primarily by the choice of consonant, with
diacritics for disambiguation. In the <a href="/wiki/Pollard_script" title="Pollard
script">Pollard script</a>, an abugida, vowels are indicated by diacritics, but the
placement of the diacritic relative to the consonant is modified to indicate the
tone. More rarely, a script may have separate letters for tones, as is the case for
<a href="/wiki/Hmong_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Hmong alphabet">Hmong</a>
and <a href="/wiki/Zhuang_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Zhuang
alphabet">Zhuang</a>. For most of these scripts, regardless of whether letters or
diacritics are used, the most common tone is not marked, just as the most common
vowel is not marked in Indic abugidas; in <a href="/wiki/Zhuyin" class="mw-
redirect" title="Zhuyin">Zhuyin</a> not only is one of the tones unmarked, but
there is a diacritic to indicate lack of tone, like the <a href="/wiki/Virama"
title="Virama">virama</a> of Indic.
</p><p>The number of letters in an alphabet can be quite small. The Book <a
href="/wiki/Pahlavi_scripts" title="Pahlavi scripts">Pahlavi</a> script, an abjad,
had only twelve letters at one point, and may have had even fewer later on. Today
the <a href="/wiki/Rotokas_alphabet" title="Rotokas alphabet">Rotokas alphabet</a>
has only twelve letters. (The <a href="/wiki/Hawaiian_alphabet" title="Hawaiian
alphabet">Hawaiian alphabet</a> is sometimes claimed to be as small, but it
actually consists of 18 letters, including the <a href="/wiki/%CA%BBOkina"
title="ʻOkina">ʻokina</a> and five long vowels. However, <a
href="/wiki/Hawaiian_Braille" title="Hawaiian Braille">Hawaiian Braille</a> has
only 13 letters.) While Rotokas has a small alphabet because it has few phonemes to
represent (just eleven), Book Pahlavi was small because many letters had been
<i>conflated</i>—that is, the graphic distinctions had been lost over time, and
diacritics were not developed to compensate for this as they were in <a
href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic</a>, another script
that lost many of its distinct letter shapes. For example, a comma-shaped letter
represented <i>g</i>, <i>d</i>, <i>y</i>, <i>k</i>, or <i>j</i>. However, such
apparent simplifications can perversely make a script more complicated. In later
Pahlavi <a href="/wiki/Papyrus" title="Papyrus">papyri</a>, up to half of the
remaining graphic distinctions of these twelve letters were lost, and the script
could no longer be read as a sequence of letters at all, but instead each word had
to be learned as a whole—that is, they had become <a href="/wiki/Logogram"
title="Logogram">logograms</a> as in Egyptian <a href="/wiki/Demotic_Egyptian"
class="mw-redirect" title="Demotic Egyptian">Demotic</a>.
</p>
href="/wiki/File:Venn_diagram_showing_Greek,_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg"
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Venn_diagram_showing_Greek
%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg/263px-Venn_diagram_showing_Greek
%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg.png" decoding="async" width="263" height="254"
class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Venn_diagram_showing_Gr
eek%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg/395px-Venn_diagram_showing_Greek
%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg.png 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Venn_diagram_showing_Greek
%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg/526px-Venn_diagram_showing_Greek
%2C_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="1001" data-file-
href="/wiki/File:Venn_diagram_showing_Greek,_Latin_and_Cyrillic_letters.svg"
class="internal" title="Enlarge"></a></div>A <a href="/wiki/Venn_diagram"
title="Venn diagram">Venn diagram</a> showing the <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet"
title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a> (left), <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabet"
class="mw-redirect" title="Cyrillic alphabet">Cyrillic</a> (bottom) and <a
href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin</a> (right) alphabets,
which share many of the same <a href="/wiki/Letter_(alphabet)" title="Letter
(alphabet)">letters</a>, although they have different
pronunciations</div></div></div>
<p>The largest segmental script is probably an abugida, <a href="/wiki/Devanagari"
title="Devanagari">Devanagari</a>. When written in Devanagari, Vedic <a
href="/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a> has an alphabet of 53 letters,
including the <i>visarga</i> mark for final aspiration and special letters for
<i>kš</i> and <i>jñ,</i> though one of the letters is theoretical and not actually
used. The Hindi alphabet must represent both Sanskrit and modern vocabulary, and so
has been expanded to 58 with the <i>khutma</i> letters (letters with a dot added)
to represent sounds from Persian and English. Thai has a total of 59 symbols,
consisting of 44 consonants, 13 vowels and 2 syllabics, not including 4 diacritics
for tone marks and one for vowel length.
</p><p>The largest known abjad is <a href="/wiki/Sindhi_language" title="Sindhi
language">Sindhi</a>, with 51 letters. The largest alphabets in the narrow sense
include <a href="/wiki/Kabardian_language" title="Kabardian language">Kabardian</a>
and <a href="/wiki/Abkhaz_language" title="Abkhaz language">Abkhaz</a> (for <a
href="/wiki/Cyrillic" class="mw-redirect" title="Cyrillic">Cyrillic</a>), with 58
and 56 letters, respectively, and <a href="/wiki/Slovak_language" title="Slovak
language">Slovak</a> (for the <a href="/wiki/Latin_script" title="Latin
script">Latin script</a>), with 46. However, these scripts either count <a
href="/wiki/Digraph_(orthography)" title="Digraph (orthography)">di- and tri-
graphs</a> as separate letters, as Spanish did with <i>ch</i> and <i>ll</i> until
recently, or uses <a href="/wiki/Diacritic" title="Diacritic">diacritics</a> like
Slovak <i>č</i>.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Georgian_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Georgian
alphabet">Georgian alphabet</a> (<a href="/wiki/Georgian_language" title="Georgian
language">Georgian</a>: <span lang="ka" title="Georgian language
text">ანბანი</span> <i><i lang="ka-Latn" title="Georgian-language
romanization">Anbani</i></i>) is an alphabetic writing system. With 33 letters, it
is the largest true alphabet where each letter is graphically independent.<sup
class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="white-
space:nowrap;">[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"
title="Wikipedia:Citation needed"><span title="It is unclear why having 33 (or 34?
this one conflicts with the next sentence) graphically independent letters makes
the Georgian alphabet the largest true one? For example, the Armenian alphabet has
39 graphically independent letters. See 'Armenian alphabet' and
'Georgian scripts' pages for more information. (August 2016)">citation
needed</span></a></i>]</sup> The original Georgian alphabet had 38 letters but
5 letters were removed in the 19th century by <a href="/wiki/Ilia_Chavchavadze"
title="Ilia Chavchavadze">Ilia Chavchavadze</a>. The Georgian alphabet is much
closer to Greek than the other Caucasian alphabets. The letter order parallels the
Greek, with the consonants without a Greek equivalent organized at the end of the
alphabet. The origins of the alphabet are still unknown. Some Armenian and Western
scholars believe it was created by Mesrop Mashtots (Armenian: Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց Mesrop
Maštoc') also known as Mesrob the Vartabed, who was an early medieval Armenian
linguist, theologian, statesman and hymnologist, best known for inventing the
Armenian alphabet c. 405 AD;<sup id="cite_ref-Donald_Rayfield_20-0"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Donald_Rayfield-
20">[20]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference"><a
href="#cite_note-21">[21]</a></sup> other Georgian<sup id="cite_ref-
Javakhishvili_22-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Javakhishvili-
22">[22]</a></sup> and Western<sup id="cite_ref-Lig1_23-0"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Lig1-23">[23]</a></sup> scholars are
against this theory. Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the
process of <a href="/wiki/Christianization_of_Iberia" title="Christianization of
Iberia">Christianization of Iberia</a>, a core Georgian kingdom of <a
href="/wiki/Kartli" title="Kartli">Kartli</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-24"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-24">[24]</a></sup> The alphabet was
therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King <a
href="/wiki/Mirian_III_of_Iberia" title="Mirian III of Iberia">Mirian III</a> (326
or 337) and the <a href="/wiki/Bir_el_Qutt_inscriptions" title="Bir el Qutt
inscriptions">Bir el Qutt inscriptions</a> of 430,<sup id="cite_ref-25"
class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-25">[25]</a></sup> contemporaneously
with the Armenian alphabet.<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference"><a
href="#cite_note-26">[26]</a></sup>
</p><p>Syllabaries typically contain 50 to 400 glyphs, and the glyphs of
logographic systems typically number from the many hundreds into the thousands.
Thus a simple count of the number of distinct symbols is an important clue to the
nature of an unknown script.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian alphabet">Armenian
alphabet</a> (<a href="/wiki/Armenian_language" title="Armenian
language">Armenian</a>: <span lang="hy">Հայոց գրեր</span> <i><i lang="hy-Latn"
title="Armenian-language romanization">Hayots grer</i></i> or <span lang="hy"
title="Armenian language text">Հայոց այբուբեն</span> <i><i lang="hy-Latn"
title="Armenian-language romanization">Hayots aybuben</i></i>) is a graphically
unique alphabetical writing system that has been used to write the Armenian
language. It was created in year 405 A.D. originally contained 36 letters. Two more
letters, օ (o) and ֆ (f), were added in the Middle Ages. During the 1920s
orthography reform, a new letter և (capital ԵՎ) was added, which was a ligature
before ե+ւ, while the letter Ւ ւ was discarded and reintroduced as part of a new
letter ՈՒ ու (which was a digraph before).
</p>
href="/wiki/File:Ishkhani_inscription.jpg" class="image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Ishkhani_inscription.jpg/2
20px-Ishkhani_inscription.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="108"
class="thumbimage"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Ishkhani_inscription.jp
g/330px-Ishkhani_inscription.jpg 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Ishkhani_inscription.jpg/440px-
Ishkhani_inscription.jpg 2x" data-file-width="3252" data-file-height="1600" /></a>
<div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a
href="/wiki/File:Ishkhani_inscription.jpg" class="internal"
title="Enlarge"></a></div>Old Georgian alphabet inscription on Monastery
gate</div></div></div>
<p>The Armenian script's directionality is horizontal left-to-right, like the Latin
and Greek alphabets.<sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
27">[27]</a></sup> It also uses <a href="/wiki/Bicameral_script" class="mw-
redirect" title="Bicameral script">bicameral script</a> like those. The Armenian
word for "alphabet" is <span lang="hy" title="Armenian language
text">այբուբեն</span> <i><i lang="hy-Latn" title="Armenian-language
romanization">aybuben</i></i> (<small>Armenian pronunciation: </small><span
title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"><a
href="/wiki/Help:IPA/Armenian" title="Help:IPA/Armenian">[ɑjbubɛn]</a></span>),
named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet Ա այբ ayb and Բ բեն ben.
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Alphabetical_order">Alphabetical
order</span></h2>
href="/wiki/Alphabetical_order" title="Alphabetical order">Alphabetical
order</a></div>
<p>Alphabets often come to be associated with a standard ordering of their letters,
which can then be used for purposes of <a href="/wiki/Collation"
title="Collation">collation</a>—namely for the listing of words and other items in
what is called <i><a href="/wiki/Alphabetical_order" title="Alphabetical
order">alphabetical order</a></i>.
</p><p>The basic ordering of the <a href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin
alphabet">Latin alphabet</a> (<a href="/wiki/A" title="A">A</a>
<a href="/wiki/B" title="B">B</a>
<a href="/wiki/C" title="C">C</a>
<a href="/wiki/D" title="D">D</a>
<a href="/wiki/E" title="E">E</a>
<a href="/wiki/F" title="F">F</a>
<a href="/wiki/G" title="G">G</a>
<a href="/wiki/H" title="H">H</a>
<a href="/wiki/I" title="I">I</a>
<a href="/wiki/J" title="J">J</a>
<a href="/wiki/K" title="K">K</a>
<a href="/wiki/L" title="L">L</a>
<a href="/wiki/M" title="M">M</a>
<a href="/wiki/N" title="N">N</a>
<a href="/wiki/O" title="O">O</a>
<a href="/wiki/P" title="P">P</a>
<a href="/wiki/Q" title="Q">Q</a>
<a href="/wiki/R" title="R">R</a>
<a href="/wiki/S" title="S">S</a>
<a href="/wiki/T" title="T">T</a>
<a href="/wiki/U" title="U">U</a>
<a href="/wiki/V" title="V">V</a>
<a href="/wiki/W" title="W">W</a>
<a href="/wiki/X" title="X">X</a>
<a href="/wiki/Y" title="Y">Y</a>
<a href="/wiki/Z" title="Z">Z</a>), which is derived from the Northwest Semitic
"Abgad" order,<sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
28">[28]</a></sup> is well established, although languages using this
alphabet have different conventions for their treatment of modified letters (such
as the <a href="/wiki/French_language" title="French language">French</a> <i>é</i>,
<i>à</i>, and <i>ô</i>) and of certain combinations of letters (<a
href="/wiki/Multigraph_(orthography)" title="Multigraph
(orthography)">multigraphs</a>). In French, these are not considered to be
additional letters for the purposes of collation. However, in <a
href="/wiki/Icelandic_language" title="Icelandic language">Icelandic</a>, the
accented letters such as <i>á</i>, <i>í</i>, and <i>ö</i> are considered distinct
letters representing different vowel sounds from the sounds represented by their
unaccented counterparts. In Spanish, <i>ñ</i> is considered a separate letter, but
accented vowels such as <i>á</i> and <i>é</i> are not. The <i>ll</i> and <i>ch</i>
were also considered single letters, but in 1994 the <a
href="/wiki/Real_Academia_Espa%C3%B1ola" class="mw-redirect" title="Real Academia
Española">Real Academia Española</a> changed the collating order so that <i>ll</i>
is between <i>lk</i> and <i>lm</i> in the dictionary and <i>ch</i> is between
<i>cg</i> and <i>ci</i>, and in 2010 the tenth congress of the <a
href="/wiki/Association_of_Spanish_Language_Academies" class="mw-redirect"
title="Association of Spanish Language Academies">Association of Spanish Language
Academies</a> changed it so they were no longer letters at all.<sup id="cite_ref-
29" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-29">[29]</a></sup><sup
</p><p>In German, words starting with <i>sch-</i> (which spells the German phoneme
<span class="IPA nowrap" title="Representation in the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA)">/<a href="/wiki/Voiceless_palato-alveolar_fricative" class="mw-
redirect" title="Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative">ʃ</a>/</span>) are inserted
between words with initial <i>sca-</i> and <i>sci-</i> (all incidentally loanwords)
instead of appearing after initial <i>sz</i>, as though it were a single letter—in
contrast to several languages such as <a href="/wiki/Albanian_alphabet"
title="Albanian alphabet">Albanian</a>, in which <i>dh-</i>, <i>ë-</i>, <i>gj-</i>,
<i>ll-</i>, <i>rr-</i>, <i>th-</i>, <i>xh-</i> and <i>zh-</i> (all representing
phonemes and considered separate single letters) would follow the letters <i>d</i>,
<i>e</i>, <i>g</i>, <i>l</i>, <i>n</i>, <i>r</i>, <i>t</i>, <i>x</i> and <i>z</i>
respectively, as well as Hungarian and Welsh. Further, German words with an <a
href="/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#Umlaut" title="Diaeresis (diacritic)">umlaut</a>
are collated ignoring the umlaut—contrary to <a href="/wiki/Turkish_alphabet"
title="Turkish alphabet">Turkish</a> that adopted the <a href="/wiki/Grapheme"
title="Grapheme">graphemes</a> <b>ö</b> and <b>ü</b>, and where a word like
<i>tüfek</i>, would come after <i>tuz</i>, in the dictionary. An exception is the
German telephone directory where umlauts are sorted like <i>ä</i> = <i>ae</i> since
names such as <i>Jäger</i> also appear with the spelling <i>Jaeger</i>, and are not
distinguished in the spoken language.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Danish_orthography" title="Danish orthography">Danish</a>
and <a href="/wiki/Norwegian_orthography" title="Norwegian
orthography">Norwegian</a> alphabets end with <i>æ</i>—<i>ø</i>—<i>å</i>, whereas
the Swedish and <a href="/wiki/Finnish_orthography" title="Finnish
orthography">Finnish</a> ones conventionally put <i>å</i>—<i>ä</i>—<i>ö</i> at the
end.
</p><p>It is unknown whether the earliest alphabets had a defined sequence. Some
alphabets today, such as the <a href="/wiki/Hanuno%27o_script" class="mw-redirect"
title="Hanuno'o script">Hanuno'o script</a>, are learned one letter at a time,
in no particular order, and are not used for <a href="/wiki/Collation"
title="Collation">collation</a> where a definite order is required. However, a
dozen <a href="/wiki/Ugaritic_alphabet" title="Ugaritic alphabet">Ugaritic</a>
tablets from the fourteenth century BC preserve the alphabet in two sequences. One,
the <i>ABCDE</i> order later used in Phoenician, has continued with minor changes
in <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian alphabet">Armenian</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Gothic_alphabet" title="Gothic alphabet">Gothic</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Cyrillic" class="mw-redirect" title="Cyrillic">Cyrillic</a>, and <a
href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin alphabet">Latin</a>; the other,
<i>HMĦLQ,</i> was used in southern Arabia and is preserved today in <a
href="/wiki/Ge%27ez_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Ge'ez
alphabet">Ethiopic</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-
31">[31]</a></sup> Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000
years.
</p><p><a href="/wiki/Runic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Runic
alphabet">Runic</a> used an unrelated <a href="/wiki/Elder_Futhark" title="Elder
Futhark">Futhark</a> sequence, which was later <a href="/wiki/Younger_Futhark"
title="Younger Futhark">simplified</a>. <a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet"
title="Arabic alphabet">Arabic</a> uses its own sequence, although Arabic retains
the traditional <a href="/wiki/Abjadi_order" class="mw-redirect" title="Abjadi
order">abjadi order</a> for numbering.
</p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Brahmic_family" class="mw-redirect" title="Brahmic
family">Brahmic family</a> of alphabets used in India use a unique order based on
<a href="/wiki/Phonology" title="Phonology">phonology</a>: The letters are arranged
according to how and where they are produced in the mouth. This organization is
used in Southeast Asia, Tibet, Korean <a href="/wiki/Hangul"
title="Hangul">hangul</a>, and even Japanese <a href="/wiki/Kana"
title="Kana">kana</a>, which is not an alphabet.
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Names_of_letters">Names of letters</span></h2>
<p>The Phoenician letter names, in which each letter was associated with a word
that begins with that sound (<a href="/wiki/Acrophony"
title="Acrophony">acrophony</a>), continue to be used to varying degrees in <a
href="/wiki/Samaritan_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Samaritan
alphabet">Samaritan</a>, <a href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic
alphabet">Aramaic</a>, <a href="/wiki/Syriac_alphabet" title="Syriac
alphabet">Syriac</a>, <a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew
alphabet">Hebrew</a>, <a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek
alphabet">Greek</a> and <a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabet" title="Arabic
alphabet">Arabic</a>.
</p><p>The names were abandoned in <a href="/wiki/Latin_alphabet" title="Latin
alphabet">Latin</a>, which instead referred to the letters by adding a vowel
(usually e) before or after the consonant; the two exceptions were <a
href="/wiki/Y" title="Y">Y</a> and <a href="/wiki/Z" title="Z">Z</a>, which were
borrowed from the Greek alphabet rather than Etruscan, and were known as <i>Y
Graeca</i> "Greek Y" (pronounced <i>I Graeca</i> "Greek I") and <i>zeta</i> (from
Greek)—this discrepancy was inherited by many European languages, as in the term
<i>zed</i> for Z in all forms of English other than American English. Over time
names sometimes shifted or were added, as in <i>double U</i> for <a href="/wiki/W"
title="W">W</a> ("double V" in French), the English name for Y, and American
<i>zee</i> for Z. Comparing names in English and French gives a clear reflection of
the <a href="/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift" title="Great Vowel Shift">Great Vowel
Shift</a>: A, B, C and D are pronounced <span title="Representation in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">/eɪ, biː, siː, diː/</span> in
today's English, but in contemporary French they are <span title="Representation in
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA">/a, be, se, de/</span>. The
French names (from which the English names are derived) preserve the qualities of
the English vowels from before the Great Vowel Shift. By contrast, the names of F,
L, M, N and S (<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA)" class="IPA">/ɛf, ɛl, ɛm, ɛn, ɛs/</span>) remain the same in both languages,
because "short" vowels were largely unaffected by the Shift.
</p><p>In Cyrillic originally the letters were given names based on Slavic words;
this was later abandoned as well in favor of a system similar to that used in
Latin.
</p><p>Letters of <a href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian
alphabet">Armenian alphabet</a> also have distinct letter names.
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Orthography_and_pronunciation">Orthography and
pronunciation</span></h2>
href="/wiki/Phonemic_orthography" title="Phonemic orthography">Phonemic
orthography</a></div>
<p>When an alphabet is adopted or developed to represent a given language, an <a
href="/wiki/Orthography" title="Orthography">orthography</a> generally comes into
being, providing rules for the <a href="/wiki/Spelling"
title="Spelling">spelling</a> of words in that language. In accordance with the
principle on which alphabets are based, these rules will generally map letters of
the alphabet to the <a href="/wiki/Phoneme" title="Phoneme">phonemes</a>
(significant sounds) of the spoken language. In a perfectly <a
href="/wiki/Phonemic_orthography" title="Phonemic orthography">phonemic
orthography</a> there would be a consistent one-to-one correspondence between the
letters and the phonemes, so that a writer could predict the spelling of a word
given its pronunciation, and a speaker would always know the pronunciation of a
word given its spelling, and vice versa. However this ideal is not usually achieved
in practice; some languages (such as <a href="/wiki/Spanish_language"
title="Spanish language">Spanish</a> and <a href="/wiki/Finnish_language"
title="Finnish language">Finnish</a>) come close to it, while others (such as
English) deviate from it to a much larger degree.
</p><p>The pronunciation of a language often evolves independently of its writing
system, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed
for, so the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a
language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single
language.
</p><p>Languages may fail to achieve a one-to-one correspondence between letters
and sounds in any of several ways:
</p>
<ul><li>A language may represent a given phoneme by a combination of letters rather
than just a single letter. Two-letter combinations are called <a
href="/wiki/Digraph_(orthography)" title="Digraph (orthography)">digraphs</a> and
three-letter groups are called <a href="/wiki/Trigraph_(orthography)"
title="Trigraph (orthography)">trigraphs</a>. <a href="/wiki/German_language"
title="German language">German</a> uses the <a href="/wiki/Tetragraph"
title="Tetragraph">tetragraphs</a> (four letters) "tsch" for the phoneme
<small></small><span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA)" class="IPA"><a href="/wiki/Help:IPA/Standard_German"
title="Help:IPA/Standard German">[tʃ]</a></span> and (in a few borrowed words)
"dsch" for <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA)" class="IPA">[dʒ]</span>. <a href="/wiki/Kabardian_language" title="Kabardian
language">Kabardian</a> also uses a tetragraph for one of its phonemes, namely
"кхъу". Two letters representing one sound occur in several instances in Hungarian
as well (where, for instance, <i>cs</i> stands for [tʃ], <i>sz</i> for [s],
<i>zs</i> for [ʒ], <i>dzs</i> for [dʒ]).</li>
<li>A language may represent the same phoneme with two or more different letters or
combinations of letters. An example is <a href="/wiki/Modern_Greek" title="Modern
Greek">modern Greek</a> which may write the phoneme <small></small><span
title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"><a
href="/wiki/Help:IPA/Greek" title="Help:IPA/Greek">[i]</a></span> in six different
ways: ⟨ι⟩, ⟨η⟩, ⟨υ⟩, ⟨ει⟩,
⟨οι⟩, and ⟨υι⟩ (though the last is rare).</li>
<li>A language may spell some words with unpronounced letters that exist for
historical or other reasons. For example, the spelling of the Thai word for "beer"
[เบียร์] retains a letter for the final consonant "r" present in the English word it
was borrowed from, but silences it.</li>
<li>Pronunciation of individual words may change according to the presence of
surrounding words in a sentence (<a href="/wiki/Sandhi"
title="Sandhi">sandhi</a>).</li>
<li>Different dialects of a language may use different phonemes for the same
word.</li>
<li>A language may use different sets of symbols or different rules for distinct
sets of vocabulary items, such as the Japanese <a href="/wiki/Hiragana"
title="Hiragana">hiragana</a> and <a href="/wiki/Katakana"
title="Katakana">katakana</a> syllabaries, or the various rules in English for
spelling words from Latin and Greek, or the original <a
href="/wiki/Germanic_languages" title="Germanic languages">Germanic</a>
vocabulary.</li></ul>
<p>National languages sometimes elect to address the problem of dialects by simply
associating the alphabet with the national standard. Some national languages like
<a href="/wiki/Finnish_language" title="Finnish language">Finnish</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Armenian_language" title="Armenian language">Armenian</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Turkish_language" title="Turkish language">Turkish</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language">Russian</a>, <a
href="/wiki/Serbo-Croatian_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Serbo-Croatian
language">Serbo-Croatian</a> (<a href="/wiki/Serbian_language" title="Serbian
language">Serbian</a>, <a href="/wiki/Croatian_language" title="Croatian
language">Croatian</a> and <a href="/wiki/Bosnian_language" title="Bosnian
language">Bosnian</a>) and <a href="/wiki/Bulgarian_language" title="Bulgarian
language">Bulgarian</a> have a very regular spelling system with a nearly one-to-
one correspondence between letters and phonemes. Strictly speaking, these national
languages lack a word corresponding to the verb "to spell" (meaning to split a word
into its letters), the closest match being a verb meaning to split a word into its
syllables. Similarly, the <a href="/wiki/Italian_language" title="Italian
language">Italian</a> verb corresponding to 'spell (out)', <i>compitare</i>, is
unknown to many Italians because spelling is usually trivial, as Italian spelling
is highly phonemic. In standard <a href="/wiki/Spanish_language" title="Spanish
language">Spanish</a>, one can tell the pronunciation of a word from its spelling,
but not vice versa, as certain phonemes can be represented in more than one way,
but a given letter is consistently pronounced. <a href="/wiki/French_language"
title="French language">French</a>, with its <a href="/wiki/Silent_letter"
title="Silent letter">silent letters</a> and its heavy use of <a
href="/wiki/Nasal_vowel" title="Nasal vowel">nasal vowels</a> and <a
href="/wiki/Elision" title="Elision">elision</a>, may seem to lack much
correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, but its rules on pronunciation,
though complex, are actually consistent and predictable with a fair degree of
accuracy.
</p><p>At the other extreme are languages such as English, where the pronunciations
of many words simply have to be memorized as they do not correspond to the spelling
in a consistent way. For English, this is partly because the <a
href="/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift" title="Great Vowel Shift">Great Vowel Shift</a>
occurred after the orthography was established, and because English has acquired a
large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at
varying levels. Even English has general, albeit complex, rules that predict
pronunciation from spelling, and these rules are successful most of the time; rules
to predict spelling from the pronunciation have a higher failure rate.
</p><p>Sometimes, countries have the written language undergo a <a
href="/wiki/Spelling_reform" title="Spelling reform">spelling reform</a> to realign
the writing with the contemporary spoken language. These can range from simple
spelling changes and word forms to switching the entire writing system itself, as
when <a href="/wiki/Turkey" title="Turkey">Turkey</a> switched from the Arabic
alphabet to a Latin-based <a href="/wiki/Turkish_alphabet" title="Turkish
alphabet">Turkish alphabet</a>.
</p><p>The standard system of symbols used by <a href="/wiki/Linguist" class="mw-
redirect" title="Linguist">linguists</a> to represent sounds in any language,
independently of orthography, is called the <a
href="/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet" title="International Phonetic
Alphabet">International Phonetic Alphabet</a>.
</p>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span></h2>
<div class="div-col columns column-width" style="-moz-column-width: 22em; -webkit-
column-width: 22em; column-width: 22em;">
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/A_Is_For_Aardvark" class="mw-redirect" title="A Is For
Aardvark">A Is For Aardvark</a></i></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abecedarium" title="Abecedarium">Abecedarium</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Acrophony" title="Acrophony">Acrophony</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Akshara" class="mw-redirect" title="Akshara">Akshara</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Alphabet_book" title="Alphabet book">Alphabet book</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Alphabet_effect" title="Alphabet effect">Alphabet
effect</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Alphabet_song" title="Alphabet song">Alphabet song</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Alphabetical_order" title="Alphabetical order">Alphabetical
order</a></li>
<li><i><a href="/wiki/Butterfly_Alphabet" title="Butterfly Alphabet">Butterfly
Alphabet</a></i></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Character_encoding" title="Character encoding">Character
encoding</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Constructed_script" title="Constructed script">Constructed
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cyrillic" class="mw-redirect" title="Cyrillic">Cyrillic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/English_alphabet" title="English alphabet">English
alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">Hangul</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet" title="NATO phonetic alphabet">ICAO
(NATO) spelling alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lipogram" title="Lipogram">Lipogram</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_alphabets" class="mw-redirect" title="List of
alphabets">List of alphabets</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pangram" title="Pangram">Pangram</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Thai_script#Alphabet_listing" title="Thai script">Thai
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Thoth" title="Thoth">Thoth</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Transliteration"
title="Transliteration">Transliteration</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Unicode" title="Unicode">Unicode</a></li></ul>
</div>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span></h2>
<div class="reflist columns references-column-width" style="-moz-column-width:
30em; -webkit-column-width: 30em; column-width: 30em; list-style-type: decimal;">
<ol class="references">
<li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-
1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFEdwin_JEANS1860"
class="citation book cs1">Edwin JEANS (1860). <a rel="nofollow" class="external
text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KQ1bAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA33"><i>A
Catalogue of Books, in all Branches of Literature, both Ancient & Modern ... on
sale at E. Jeans's, bookseller ... Norwich</i></a>. J. Fletcher.
pp. 33–.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=A+Catalogue+of+Books
%2C+in+all+Branches+of+Literature%2C+both+Ancient+%26+Modern+...+on+sale+at+E.
+Jeans%27s%2C+bookseller+...+Norwich&rft.pages=33-&rft.pub=J.
+Fletcher&rft.date=1860&rft.au=Edwin+JEANS&rft_id=https%3A%2F
%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DKQ1bAAAAcAAJ%26pg%3DPA33&rfr_id=info%3Asid
%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><style data-mw-
deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r951705291">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-
style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output
.id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background-
image:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-
Lock-green.svg.png");background-image:linear-
gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6
5/Lock-green.svg");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-
position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-
output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-
parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background-
image:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-
2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png");background-image:linear-
gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d
6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-
position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-
output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background-
image:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-
2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png");background-image:linear-
gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a
a/Lock-red-alt-2.svg");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-
position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output
.cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-
output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-
output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-
image:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-
logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png");background-image:linear-
gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4
c/Wikisource-logo.svg");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-
size:12px;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-
code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-
output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-
visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-
maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-
subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-
format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-
wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output
.cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-
selflink{font-weight:inherit}</style></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Coulmas_140-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a
href="#cite_ref-Coulmas_140_2-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-
Coulmas_140_2-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Coulmas_140_2-
2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a
href="#CITEREFCoulmas1989">Coulmas 1989</a>, pp. 140–141</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Daniels_9296-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a
href="#cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a
href="#cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a
href="#cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a
href="#cite_ref-Daniels_9296_3-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a></span> <span
class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFDanielsBright1996">Daniels & Bright
1996</a>, pp. 92–96</span>
</li>
4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFGoldwasser2012"
class="citation journal cs1">Goldwasser, O. (2012). <a rel="nofollow"
class="external text"
href="https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/16085/16030">"T
he Miners that Invented the Alphabet - a Response to Christopher Rollston"</a>.
<i>Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections</i>.</cite><span
title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Journal+of+Ancient+Egyptian+Interco
nnections&rft.atitle=The+Miners+that+Invented+the+Alphabet+-
+a+Response+to+Christopher+Rollston&rft.date=2012&rft.aulast=Goldwasser&amp
;rft.aufirst=O.&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.uair.arizona.edu%2Findex.php
%2Fjaei%2Farticle%2Fview%2F16085%2F16030&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org
%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style"
href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFGoldwasser2010"
class="citation journal cs1">Goldwasser, O. (2010). <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://www.academia.edu/6916402/Goldwasser_O._2010._How_the_Alphabet_was_Bor
n_from_Hieroglyphs._Biblical_Archaeology_Review_36_2_March_April_40-
53._Award_Best_of_BAR_award_for_2009-
2010._Discussion_with_Anson_Rainey_http_www.bib-arch.org_scholars-
study_alphabet.asp_">"How the Alphabet was Born from Hieroglyphs"</a>. <i>Biblical
Archaeology Review 36/2 (March/April): 40–53</i>.</cite><span
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Biblical+Archaeology+Review+36%2F2+
%28March%2FApril
%29%3A+40%E2%80%9353&rft.atitle=How+the+Alphabet+was+Born+from+Hieroglyphs.&amp
;rft.date=2010&rft.aulast=Goldwasser&rft.aufirst=O.&rft_id=https%3A%2F
%2Fwww.academia.edu
%2F6916402%2FGoldwasser_O._2010._How_the_Alphabet_was_Born_from_Hieroglyphs._Biblic
al_Archaeology_Review_36_2_March_April_40-53._Award_Best_of_BAR_award_for_2009-
2010._Discussion_with_Anson_Rainey_http_www.bib-arch.org_scholars-
study_alphabet.asp_&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
class="Z3988"></span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Blackwell-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a
href="#cite_ref-Blackwell_6-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite
id="CITEREFCoulmas1996" class="citation book cs1">Coulmas, Florian (1996). <i>The
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems</i>. Oxford: <a
href="/wiki/Blackwell_Publishing" class="mw-redirect" title="Blackwell
Publishing">Blackwell Publishing</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-
redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a
href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-631-21481-6" title="Special:BookSources/978-
0-631-21481-6"><bdi>978-0-631-21481-6</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Blackwell+Encyclopedia+of+Writing+Sys
tems&rft.place=Oxford&rft.pub=Blackwell+Publishing&rft.date=1996&rf
t.isbn=978-0-631-21481-
6&rft.aulast=Coulmas&rft.aufirst=Florian&rfr_id=info%3Asid
%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-
inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
7">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a
href="#CITEREFMillard1986">Millard 1986</a>, p. 396</span>
</li>
href="#CITEREFHaarmann2004">Haarmann 2004</a>, p. 96</span>
</li>
9">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a
rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.angmohdan.com/language-
largest-alphabet/">"What Language Has the Largest Alphabet?"</a>. 26 December 2014.
<q>Languages like Chinese, technically, do not use an alphabet but have an
ideographic writing system. There are thousands of symbols (pictographs) in Chinese
representing different words, syllables and concepts. [..] The language with the
most letters is Khmer (Cambodian), with 74 (including some without any current
use). According to Guinness Book of World Records, 1995, the Khmer alphabet is the
largest alphabet in the world. It consists of 33 consonants, 23 vowels and 12
independent vowels.</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info
%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=What+Language+Has+the+Largest+Alphabet
%3F&rft.date=2014-12-26&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.angmohdan.com%2Flanguage-
largest-alphabet%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
10">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a
rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/alphabet">"alphabet"</a>. <a href="/wiki/Merriam-
Webster.com" class="mw-redirect" title="Merriam-Webster.com">Merriam-
Webster.com</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=alphabet&rft.pub=Merriam-
Webster.com&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.merriam-webster.com%2Fdictionary
%2Falphabet&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
11">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite
id="CITEREFLynn,_Bernadette2004" class="citation web cs1">Lynn, Bernadette (8 April
2004). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2451890">"The Development of the Western
Alphabet"</a>. <i>h2g2</i>. BBC<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span
class="nowrap">4 August</span> 2008</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=h2g2&rft.atitle=The+Development
+of+the+Western+Alphabet&rft.date=2004-04-08&rft.au=Lynn
%2C+Bernadette&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fdna
%2Fh2g2%2FA2451890&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Daniels-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-
Daniels_12-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a
href="#CITEREFDanielsBright1996">Daniels & Bright 1996</a>, pp. 74–
75</span>
</li>
13">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFDarnellDobbs-
AllsoppLundbergMcCarter2005" class="citation journal cs1">Darnell, J. C.; <a
href="/wiki/F._W._Dobbs-Allsopp" title="F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp">Dobbs-Allsopp, F.
W.</a>; Lundberg, Marilyn J.; <a href="/wiki/P._Kyle_McCarter" class="mw-redirect"
title="P. Kyle McCarter">McCarter, P. Kyle</a>; Zuckerman, Bruce; Manassa, Colleen
(2005). "Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Ḥôl: New Evidence for
the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt". <i>The Annual of the
American Schools of Oriental Research</i>. <b>59</b>: 63, 65, 67–71, 73–113, 115–
124. <a href="/wiki/JSTOR_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="JSTOR
(identifier)">JSTOR</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="//www.jstor.org/stable/3768583">3768583</a>.</cite><span
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Annual+of+the+American+Schools+
of+Oriental+Research&rft.atitle=Two+Early+Alphabetic+Inscriptions+from+the+Wadi
+el-%E1%B8%A4%C3%B4l
%3A+New+Evidence+for+the+Origin+of+the+Alphabet+from+the+Western+Desert+of+Egypt&am
p;rft.volume=59&rft.pages=63%2C+65%2C+67-71%2C+73-113%2C+115-
124&rft.date=2005&rft_id=%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable
%2F3768583&rft.aulast=Darnell&rft.aufirst=J.+C.&rft.au=Dobbs-Allsopp
%2C+F.+W.&rft.au=Lundberg%2C+Marilyn+J.&rft.au=McCarter%2C+P.
+Kyle&rft.au=Zuckerman%2C+Bruce&rft.au=Manassa%2C+Colleen&rfr_id=info
%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint
citation-comment">CS1 maint: ref=harv (<a href="/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_ref
%3Dharv" title="Category:CS1 maint: ref=harv">link</a>)</span><link rel="mw-
deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
14">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>Ugaritic Writing</i> <a
rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="http://www.mazzaroth.com/ChapterThree/UgariticWriting.htm">online</a></span>
</li>
href="#CITEREFCoulmas1989">Coulmas 1989</a>, p. 142</span>
</li>
href="#CITEREFCoulmas1989">Coulmas 1989</a>, p. 147</span>
</li>
17">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">"上親制諺文二十八字…是謂訓民正音(His
majesty created 28 characters himself... It is <a href="/wiki/Hunminjeongeum"
title="Hunminjeongeum">Hunminjeongeum</a> (original name for <a href="/wiki/Hangul"
title="Hangul">Hangul</a>))", 《세종실록 (The Annals of the Choson Dynasty :
Sejong)》 25 년 12 월.</span>
</li>
18">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFKuiwon2013"
class="citation web cs1">Kuiwon (16 October 2013). <a rel="nofollow"
class="external text" href="https://kuiwon.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/on-hangul-
supremacy-exclusivity-mixed-script-predates-the-japanese-colonial-period/">"On
Hangul Supremacy & Exclusivity—Mixed Script Predates the Japanese Colonial
Period"</a>. <i>kuiwon.wordpress.com</i>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=kuiwon.wordpress.com&rft.atitle
=On+Hangul+Supremacy+%26+Exclusivity
%E2%80%94Mixed+Script+Predates+the+Japanese+Colonial+Period&rft.date=2013-10-
16&rft.au=Kuiwon&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fkuiwon.wordpress.com
%2F2013%2F10%2F16%2Fon-hangul-supremacy-exclusivity-mixed-script-predates-the-
japanese-colonial-period%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
19">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">For critics of the abjad-abugida-
alphabet distinction, see Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs
an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: The idea of writing: Writing across
borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012,
p. 11-52, esp p. 22-27</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Donald_Rayfield-20"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a
href="#cite_ref-Donald_Rayfield_20-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-
text"><cite id="CITEREFRayfield2013" class="citation book cs1"><a
href="/wiki/Donald_Rayfield" title="Donald Rayfield">Rayfield, Donald</a> (2013).
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?
id=VstdAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&vq=unlikely%20pre-
Christian&pg=PT18#v=onepage&q=pre-Christian&f=false"><i>The Literature
of Georgia: A History</i></a>. Caucasus World. Routledge. p. 19. <a
href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN
(identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7007-1163-5"
title="Special:BookSources/978-0-7007-1163-5"><bdi>978-0-7007-1163-5</bdi></a>.
<q>The Georgian alphabet seems unlikely to have a pre-Christian origin, for the
major archaeological monument of the first century first century AD, the bilingual
Armazi gravestone commemorating Serafita, daughter of the Georgian viceroy of
Mtskheta, is inscribed in Greek and Aramaic only. It has been believed, and not
only in Armenia, that all the Caucasian alphabets—Armenian, Georgian and Caucaso-
Albanian—were invented in the fourth century by the Armenian scholar Mesrop
Mashtots.... The Georgian chronicles <i>The Life of Kartli</i> (ქართლის ცხოვრება)
assert that a Georgian script was invented two centuries before Christ, an
assertion unsupported by archaeology. There is a possibility that the Georgians,
like many minor nations of the area, wrote in a foreign language—Persian, Aramaic,
or Greek—and translated back as they read.</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Literature+of+Georgia
%3A+A+History&rft.series=Caucasus+World&rft.pages=19&rft.pub=Routledge&
amp;rft.date=2013&rft.isbn=978-0-7007-1163-
5&rft.aulast=Rayfield&rft.aufirst=Donald&rft_id=https%3A%2F
%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DVstdAgAAQBAJ%26lpg%3DPP1%26vq%3Dunlikely
%2520pre-Christian%26pg%3DPT18%23v%3Donepage%26q%3Dpre-Christian%26f
%3Dfalse&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
href="/wiki/Glen_Warren_Bowersock" class="mw-redirect" title="Glen Warren
Bowersock">Glen Warren Bowersock</a>, <a href="/wiki/Peter_Robert_Lamont_Brown"
class="mw-redirect" title="Peter Robert Lamont Brown">Peter Robert Lamont
Brown</a>, <a href="/wiki/Oleg_Grabar" title="Oleg Grabar">Oleg Grabar</a>. <i>Late
Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World</i>. Harvard University Press, 1999.
<link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-
href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-674-51173-5" title="Special:BookSources/0-674-
51173-5">0-674-51173-5</a>. p. 289. <a href="/wiki/James_R._Russell" title="James
R. Russell">James R. Russell</a>. Alphabets. "Mastoc' was a charismatic visionary
who accomplished his task at a time when Armenia stood in danger of losing both its
national identity, through partition, and its newly acquired Christian faith,
through Sassanian pressure and reversion to paganism. By preaching in Armenian, he
was able to undermine and co-opt the discourse founded in native tradition, and to
create a counterweight against both Byzantine and Syriac cultural hegemony in the
church. Mastoc' also created the Georgian and Caucasian-Albanian alphabets, based
on the Armenian model."</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Javakhishvili-22"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a
href="#cite_ref-Javakhishvili_22-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-
text">Georgian: ივ. ჯავახიშვილი, ქართული პალეოგრაფია, გვ. 205–208, 240–245</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-Lig1-23"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-
Lig1_23-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFSeibt"
class="citation journal cs1">Seibt, Werner. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://www.academia.edu/1355678">"The Creation of the Caucasian Alphabets as
Phenomenon of Cultural History"</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The+Creation+of+the+Caucasian+Alpha
bets+as+Phenomenon+of+Cultural+History&rft.aulast=Seibt&rft.aufirst=Werner&
amp;rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.academia.edu%2F1355678&rfr_id=info%3Asid
%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span> <span class="cs1-hidden-error
error citation-comment">Cite journal requires <code class="cs1-
code">|journal=</code> (<a href="/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#missing_periodical"
title="Help:CS1 errors">help</a>)</span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style"
href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
id="CITEREFB._G._Hewitt1995" class="citation book cs1">B. G. Hewitt (1995). <a
rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?
id=MUBtUcqOF-AC&pg=PA4"><i>Georgian: A Structural Reference Grammar</i></a>.
John Benjamins Publishing. p. 4. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-
90-272-3802-3"><bdi>978-90-272-3802-3</bdi></a><span class="reference-accessdate">.
Retrieved <span class="nowrap">19 September</span> 2013</span>.</cite><span
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Georgian
%3A+A+Structural+Reference+Grammar&rft.pages=4&rft.pub=John+Benjamins+Publi
shing&rft.date=1995&rft.isbn=978-90-272-3802-3&rft.au=B.+G.
+Hewitt&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DMUBtUcqOF-AC%26pg
%3DPA4&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
25">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Hewitt, p. 4</span>
</li>
id="CITEREFBarbara_A._WestOceania2010" class="citation book cs1">Barbara A. West;
Oceania (19 May 2010). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://books.google.com/books?
id=pCiNqFj3MQsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false"><i>Encyclopedi
a of the Peoples of Asia</i></a>. p. 230. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)"
class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a
href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781438119137"
title="Special:BookSources/9781438119137"><bdi>9781438119137</bdi></a>.
<q>Archaeological work in the last decade has confirmed that a Georgian alphabet
did exist very early in Georgia's history, with the first examples being dated from
the <b>fifth century</b> C.E.</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Encyclopedia+of+the+Peoples+of+Asia&r
ft.pages=230&rft.date=2010-05-
19&rft.isbn=9781438119137&rft.au=Barbara+A.
+West&rft.au=Oceania&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid
%3DpCiNqFj3MQsC%26printsec%3Dfrontcover%23v%3Donepage%26q%26f
%3Dfalse&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
</li>
27">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFAger2010"
class="citation web cs1">Ager, Simon (2010). <a rel="nofollow" class="external
text" href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/armenian.htm">"Armenian alphabet"</a>.
<i>Omniglot</i>. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100102062010/http://omniglot.com/writing/armeni
an.htm">Archived</a> from the original on 2 January 2010<span class="reference-
accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2 January</span>
2010</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Omniglot&rft.atitle=Armenian+al
phabet&rft.date=2010&rft.aulast=Ager&rft.aufirst=Simon&rft_id=http
%3A%2F%2Fwww.omniglot.com%2Fwriting%2Farmenian.htm&rfr_id=info%3Asid
inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></span>
</li>
28">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-
26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: The idea of
writing: Writing across borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich
Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012, p. 11-52</span>
</li>
29">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Real Academia Española. "Spanish
Pronto!: Spanish Alphabet." Spanish Pronto! 22 April 2007. January 2009 <a
href="http://www.spanishpronto.com/spanishpronto/spanishalphabet.html#english">Span
ish Pronto: Spanish ↔ English Medical Translators.</a> <a rel="nofollow"
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070906105503/https://www.spanishpronto.com/span
ishpronto/spanishalphabet.html">Archived</a> 6 September 2007 at the <a
href="/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a></span>
</li>
30">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">"La 'i griega' se llamará 'ye'".
Cuba Debate. 2010-11-05. Retrieved 12 December 2010. <a rel="nofollow"
class="external text" href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2010/11/05/la-i-
griega-se-llamara-ye-y-la-ch-y-la-ll-desaparecen-por-decreto-de-la-academia-
espanola/">Cubadebate.cu</a></span>
</li>
href="#CITEREFMillard1986">Millard 1986</a>, p. 395</span>
</li>
</ol></div>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Bibliography">Bibliography</span></h2>
<ul><li><cite id="CITEREFCoulmas1989" class="citation book cs1">Coulmas, Florian
(1989). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/?
id=VOywmavmZ3UC"><i>The Writing Systems of the World</i></a>. Blackwell Publishers
Ltd. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN
title="Special:BookSources/978-0-631-18028-9"><bdi>978-0-631-18028-
9</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Writing+Systems+of+the+World&rft.
pub=Blackwell+Publishers+Ltd.&rft.date=1989&rft.isbn=978-0-631-18028-
9&rft.aulast=Coulmas&rft.aufirst=Florian&rft_id=https%3A%2F
%2Fbooks.google.com%2F%3Fid%3DVOywmavmZ3UC&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org
%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint citation-comment">CS1
maint: ref=harv (<a href="/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_ref%3Dharv" title="Category:CS1
maint: ref=harv">link</a>)</span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFDanielsBright1996" class="citation book cs1">Daniels, Peter
T.; Bright, William (1996). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937"><i>The World's Writing
Systems</i></a>. <a href="/wiki/Oxford_University_Press" title="Oxford University
Press">Oxford University Press</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+World
%27s+Writing+Systems&rft.pub=Oxford+University+Press&rft.date=1996&rft.
isbn=978-0-19-507993-
7&rft.aulast=Daniels&rft.aufirst=Peter+T.&rft.au=Bright
%2C+William&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails
%2Fisbn_9780195079937&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint citation-comment">CS1 maint: ref=harv
(<a href="/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_ref%3Dharv" title="Category:CS1 maint:
ref=harv">link</a>)</span><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-
data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/> Overview of modern and some ancient writing
systems.</li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFDriver,_G._R.1976" class="citation book cs1"><a
href="/wiki/Godfrey_Rolles_Driver" title="Godfrey Rolles Driver">Driver, G. R.</a>
(1976). <a href="/wiki/Schweich_Lectures_on_Biblical_Archaeology" title="Schweich
Lectures on Biblical Archaeology"><i>Semitic Writing (Schweich Lectures on Biblical
Archaeology S.) 3Rev Ed</i></a>. Oxford University Press. <a
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Semitic+Writing+
%28Schweich+Lectures+on+Biblical+Archaeology+S.
%29+3Rev+Ed&rft.pub=Oxford+University+Press&rft.date=1976&rft.isbn=978-
0-19-725917-7&rft.au=Driver%2C+G.+R.&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org
href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFHaarmann2004" class="citation book cs1">Haarmann, Harald
(2004). <i>Geschichte der Schrift</i> [<i>History of Writing</i>] (in
German) (2nd ed.). München: C. H. Beck. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)"
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Geschichte+der+Schrift&rft.place=M
%C3%BCnchen&rft.edition=2nd&rft.pub=C.+H.
+Beck&rft.date=2004&rft.isbn=978-3-406-47998-
4&rft.aulast=Haarmann&rft.aufirst=Harald&rfr_id=info%3Asid
%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint
deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFHoffman,_Joel_M.2004" class="citation book cs1">Hoffman, Joel
M. (2004). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=momIk7nVNdkC"><i>In the Beginning: A Short
History of the Hebrew Language</i></a>. NYU Press. <a
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=In+the+Beginning
%3A+A+Short+History+of+the+Hebrew+Language&rft.pub=NYU+Press&rft.date=2004&
amp;rft.isbn=978-0-8147-3654-8&rft.au=Hoffman%2C+Joel+M.&rft_id=https%3A%2F
%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DmomIk7nVNdkC&rfr_id=info%3Asid
inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/> Chapter 3 traces and
summarizes the invention of alphabetic writing.</li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFLogan,_Robert_K.2004" class="citation book cs1">Logan, Robert
K. (2004). <i>The Alphabet Effect: A Media Ecology Understanding of the Making of
Western Civilization</i>. Hampton Press. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)"
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Alphabet+Effect
%3A+A+Media+Ecology+Understanding+of+the+Making+of+Western+Civilization&rft.pub
=Hampton+Press&rft.date=2004&rft.isbn=978-1-57273-523-1&rft.au=Logan
%2C+Robert+K.&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
<li><cite id="CITEREFMcLuhanLogan1977" class="citation journal cs1">McLuhan,
Marshall; Logan, Robert K. (1977). "Alphabet, Mother of Invention". <i>ETC: A
Review of General Semantics</i>. <b>34</b> (4): 373–383. <a
href="/wiki/JSTOR_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="JSTOR
href="//www.jstor.org/stable/42575278">42575278</a>.</cite><span
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=ETC
%3A+A+Review+of+General+Semantics&rft.atitle=Alphabet
%2C+Mother+of+Invention&rft.volume=34&rft.issue=4&rft.pages=373-
383&rft.date=1977&rft_id=%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable
%2F42575278&rft.aulast=McLuhan&rft.aufirst=Marshall&rft.au=Logan
%2C+Robert+K.&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
<li><cite id="CITEREFMillard1986" class="citation journal cs1">Millard, A. R.
(1986). "The Infancy of the Alphabet". <i>World Archaeology</i>. <b>17</b> (3):
390–398. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="Doi
(identifier)">doi</a>:<a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F00438243.1986.9979978">10.1080/00438243.1986.997997
8</a>. <a href="/wiki/JSTOR_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="JSTOR
href="//www.jstor.org/stable/124703">124703</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-
%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=World+Archaeology&rft.atitle=Th
e+Infancy+of+the+Alphabet&rft.volume=17&rft.issue=3&rft.pages=390-
398&rft.date=1986&rft_id=info%3Adoi
%2F10.1080%2F00438243.1986.9979978&rft_id=%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable
%2F124703&rft.aulast=Millard&rft.aufirst=A.+R.&rfr_id=info%3Asid
%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet" class="Z3988"></span><span class="cs1-maint
deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFOuaknin,_Marc-AlainBacon,_Josephine1999" class="citation book
cs1">Ouaknin, Marc-Alain; Bacon, Josephine (1999). <span class="cs1-lock-
registration" title="Free registration required"><a rel="nofollow" class="external
text" href="https://archive.org/details/mysteriesofalpha00ouak"><i>Mysteries of the
Alphabet: The Origins of Writing</i></a></span>. Abbeville Press. <a
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Mysteries+of+the+Alphabet
%3A+The+Origins+of+Writing&rft.pub=Abbeville+Press&rft.date=1999&rft.is
bn=978-0-7892-0521-6&rft.au=Ouaknin%2C+Marc-Alain&rft.au=Bacon
%2C+Josephine&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails
%2Fmysteriesofalpha00ouak&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
<li><cite id="CITEREFPowell,_Barry1991" class="citation book cs1">Powell, Barry
(1991). <i>Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet</i>. <a
href="/wiki/Cambridge_University_Press" title="Cambridge University
Press">Cambridge University Press</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Homer+and+the+Origin+of+the+Greek+Alphabe
t&rft.pub=Cambridge+University+Press&rft.date=1991&rft.isbn=978-0-521-
58907-9&rft.au=Powell%2C+Barry&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org
href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFPowell2009" class="citation book cs1">Powell, Barry B. (2009).
<i>Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization</i>. Oxford:
Blackwell. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Writing
%3A+Theory+and+History+of+the+Technology+of+Civilization&rft.place=Oxford&r
ft.pub=Blackwell&rft.date=2009&rft.isbn=978-1-4051-6256-
2&rft.aulast=Powell&rft.aufirst=Barry+B.&rfr_id=info%3Asid
inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/></li>
<li><cite id="CITEREFSacks,_David2004" class="citation book cs1">Sacks, David
(2004). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://archive.org/details/letterperfect00davi"><i>Letter Perfect: The
Marvelous History of Our Alphabet from A to Z</i></a>. Broadway Books. <a
%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Letter+Perfect
%3A+The+Marvelous+History+of+Our+Alphabet+from+A+to+Z&rft.pub=Broadway+Books&am
p;rft.date=2004&rft.isbn=978-0-7679-1173-3&rft.au=Sacks
%2C+David&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails
%2Fletterperfect00davi&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
<li><cite id="CITEREFSaggs,_H._W._F.1991" class="citation book cs1">Saggs, H. W. F.
(1991). <span class="cs1-lock-registration" title="Free registration required"><a
href="https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300050318"><i>Civilization Before Greece
and Rome</i></a></span>. <a href="/wiki/Yale_University_Press" title="Yale
University Press">Yale University Press</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)"
%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Civilization+Before+Greece+and+Rome&r
ft.pub=Yale+University+Press&rft.date=1991&rft.isbn=978-0-300-05031-
8&rft.au=Saggs%2C+H.+W.+F.&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails
%2Fisbn_9780300050318&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AAlphabet"
data:TemplateStyles:r951705291"/> Chapter 4 traces the invention of
writing</li></ul>
<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links">External links</span></h2>
<table role="presentation" class="mbox-small plainlinks sistersitebox"
style="background-color:#f9f9f9;border:1px solid #aaa;color:#000">
<tbody><tr>
<td class="mbox-image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-
v2.svg/40px-Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png" decoding="async" width="40" height="40"
class="noviewer"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-
v2.svg/60px-Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png 1.5x,
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg/80px-
Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="512" data-file-height="512"
/></td>
<td class="mbox-text plainlist">Look up <i><b><a
href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alphabet" class="extiw"
title="wiktionary:alphabet">alphabet</a></b></i> in Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table role="presentation" class="mbox-small plainlinks sistersitebox"
style="background-color:#f9f9f9;border:1px solid #aaa;color:#000">
<tbody><tr>
<td class="mbox-image"><img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-
logo.svg.png" decoding="async" width="30" height="40" class="noviewer"
srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/45px-
Commons-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-
logo.svg/59px-Commons-logo.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="1024" data-file-
height="1376" /></td>
<td class="mbox-text plainlist">Wikimedia Commons has media related to <i><b><a
href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Alphabets" class="extiw"
title="commons:Category:Alphabets"><span
style="">Alphabets</span></a></b></i>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="http://ilovetypography.com/2010/08/07/where-does-the-alphabet-come-from/">The
Origins of abc</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.uca.edu.ar/esp/sec-
ffilosofia/esp/docs-institutos/s-cehao/boletin/damqatum3_eng2007.pdf">"Language,
Writing and Alphabet: An Interview with Christophe Rico"</a>, <i>Damqātum 3</i>
(2007)</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Michael_Everson" title="Michael Everson">Michael Everson</a>'s
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/index.html">Alphabets of Europe</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080517075022/http://www.wam.umd.edu/
%7erfradkin/alphapage.html">Evolution of alphabets</a>, animation by Prof. Robert
Fradkin at the <a href="/wiki/University_of_Maryland" class="mw-redirect"
title="University of Maryland">University of Maryland</a></li>
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100429051634/http://www.bib-
arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=2&ArticleID=6">How
the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs</a>—Biblical Archaeology Review</li>
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171001194931/https://onedrive.live.com/view.asp
x?cid=E39B50D7D9EA3235&resid=E39B50D7D9EA3235!126&app=WordPdf">An Early
Hellenic Alphabet</a></li>
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160128234751/http://www.jaars.org/museum/alphab
et/index.htm">Museum of the Alphabet</a></li>
href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0054950">The Alphabet</a>, BBC Radio 4
discussion with Eleanor Robson, Alan Millard and Rosalind Thomas (<i>In Our
Time</i>, 18 Dec. 2003)</li></ul>
<div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Writing_systems"
style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-
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systems</a></div></th></tr><tr><td class="navbox-abovebelow" colspan="2"><div
id="Index_of_language_articles"><a href="/wiki/Index_of_language_articles"
title="Index of language articles">Index of language
articles</a></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group"
style="width:1%">Overview</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-
align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
style:solid;width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/History_of_writing" title="History of writing">History of
writing</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" title="History of the alphabet">History
of the alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Grapheme" title="Grapheme">Graphemes</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Script_(Unicode)" title="Script (Unicode)">Scripts in
Unicode</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group"
style="width:1%">Lists</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems" title="List of writing
systems">Writing systems</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_languages_by_writing_system" title="List of languages by
writing system">Languages by writing system</a> / <a
href="/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts" title="List of languages
by first written accounts">by first written account</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Undeciphered_writing_systems" title="Undeciphered writing
systems">Undeciphered writing systems</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_inventors_of_writing_systems" class="mw-redirect"
title="List of inventors of writing systems">Inventors of writing
systems</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%"><a
href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems" title="List of writing
systems">Types</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Featural_writing_system" title="Featural writing
system">Featural</a></li>
<li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Alphabets</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad">Abjads</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abugida"
title="Abugida">Alphasyllabaries / Abugidas</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Semi-syllabary" title="Semi-syllabary">Semi-syllabaries</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syllabary" title="Syllabary">Syllabaries</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ideogram" title="Ideogram">Ideogrammic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pictogram" title="Pictogram">Pictographic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">Logographic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Numeral_system" title="Numeral system">Numeral</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
<div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Types_of_writing_systems"
style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible autocollapse navbox-
inner" style="border-spacing:0;background:transparent;color:inherit"><tbody><tr><th
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padding:0;">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div><div id="Types_of_writing_systems"
style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems"
title="List of writing systems">Types</a> of <a href="/wiki/Writing_system"
title="Writing system">writing systems</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2"
class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div
style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup"
style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group"
style="width:10em">Overview</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-
align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;padding:0px"><div
style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/History_of_writing" title="History of writing">History of
writing</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Grapheme" title="Grapheme">Grapheme</a></li></ul>
style="width:10em">Lists</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems" title="List of writing
systems">Writing systems</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Undeciphered_writing_systems" title="Undeciphered writing
systems">undeciphered</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_creators_of_writing_systems" title="List of creators of
writing systems">inventors</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_constructed_scripts" title="List of constructed
scripts">constructed</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/List_of_languages_by_writing_system" title="List of languages by
writing system">Languages by writing system</a> / <a
href="/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts" title="List of languages
by first written accounts">by first written accounts</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"
style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible expanded
navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-
title" colspan="2"><div id="Types" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><span
style="font-size:105%;"><a href="/wiki/List_of_writing_systems" title="List of
writing systems">Types</a></span></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-
list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em
0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-
spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd"
style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table
class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-
spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div
id="Abjads" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Abjad"
title="Abjad">Abjads</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list
navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Abjad_numerals" title="Abjad
numerals">Numerals</a></i></li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet" title="Aramaic alphabet">Aramaic</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hatran_alphabet" title="Hatran
alphabet">Hatran</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Arabic_script" title="Arabic script">Arabic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" title="Egyptian hieroglyphs">Egyptian
hieroglyphs</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet" title="Hebrew alphabet">Hebrew</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ktav_Ashuri" title="Ktav Ashuri">Ashuri</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cursive_Hebrew" title="Cursive Hebrew">Cursive</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Rashi_script" title="Rashi script">Rashi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Solitreo" title="Solitreo">Solitreo</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tifinagh" title="Tifinagh">Tifinagh</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Manichaean_alphabet" title="Manichaean
alphabet">Manichaean</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Nabataean_alphabet" title="Nabataean
alphabet">Nabataean</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_North_Arabian_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Old North
Arabian script">Old North Arabian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pahlavi_scripts" title="Pahlavi scripts">Pahlavi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pegon_script" title="Pegon script">Pegon</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" title="Phoenician alphabet">Phoenician</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet" title="Paleo-Hebrew alphabet">Paleo-
Hebrew</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pitman_shorthand" title="Pitman shorthand">Pitman
shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script" title="Proto-Sinaitic script">Proto-
Sinaitic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Psalter_Pahlavi" title="Psalter Pahlavi">Psalter
Pahlavi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Punic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Punic
alphabet">Punic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Samaritan_script" title="Samaritan script">Samaritan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_South_Arabian_script" title="Ancient South Arabian
script">South Arabian</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_South_Arabian_script#Zabur_script" title="Ancient
South Arabian script">Zabur</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_South_Arabian_script#Musnad" title="Ancient South
Arabian script">Musnad</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sogdian_alphabet" title="Sogdian alphabet">Sogdian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syriac_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Syriac
script">Syriac</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Syriac_script#Classical_ʾEsṭrangēlā" class="mw-redirect"
title="Syriac script">ʾEsṭrangēlā</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syriac_script#West_Syriac_Serṭā" class="mw-redirect"
title="Syriac script">Serṭā</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Syriac_script#East_Syriac_Maḏnḥāyā" class="mw-redirect"
title="Syriac script">Maḏnḥāyā</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Teeline_Shorthand" title="Teeline Shorthand">Teeline
Shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ugaritic_alphabet" title="Ugaritic
alphabet">Ugaritic</a></li></ul>
class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div
style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-
collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col"
class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Abugidas" style="font-size:114%;margin:0
4em"><a href="/wiki/Abugida" title="Abugida">Abugidas</a></div></th></tr><tr><td
colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div
style="width:5em"><a href="/wiki/Brahmic_family_of_scripts" class="mw-redirect"
title="Brahmic family of scripts">Brahmic</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-
odd" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
style:solid;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table
class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th
scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:5em">Northern</th><td class="navbox-
list navbox-odd" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
style:solid;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Assamese_alphabet" title="Assamese
alphabet">Assamese</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bengali_alphabet" title="Bengali alphabet">Bengali</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bhaiksuki_script" title="Bhaiksuki script">Bhaiksuki</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bhujimol" class="mw-redirect" title="Bhujimol">Bhujimol</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Brahmi_script" title="Brahmi script">Brāhmī</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Devanagari" title="Devanagari">Devanāgarī</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Dogri_language#Script" title="Dogri language">Dogri</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gujarati_script" title="Gujarati script">Gujarati</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gupta_script" title="Gupta script">Gupta</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gurmukhi" title="Gurmukhi">Gurmukhī</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kaithi" title="Kaithi">Kaithi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kalinga_script" title="Kalinga script">Kalinga</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Karani_script" title="Karani script">Karani</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kharosthi" title="Kharosthi">Kharosthi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khojki_script" title="Khojki script">Khojki</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khudabadi_script" title="Khudabadi script">Khudawadi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/La%E1%B9%87%E1%B8%8D%C4%81_scripts" title="Laṇḍā
scripts">Laṇḍā</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lepcha_script" title="Lepcha script">Lepcha</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Limbu_script" title="Limbu script">Limbu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mahajani" title="Mahajani">Mahajani</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Meitei_script" title="Meitei script">Meitei</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Modi_script" title="Modi script">Modi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Multani_script" title="Multani script">Multani</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/N%C4%81gar%C4%AB_script" title="Nāgarī script">Nagari</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Nandinagari" title="Nandinagari">Nandinagari</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Odia_script" title="Odia script">Odia</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/%CA%BCPhags-pa_script" title="Phags-pa
ʼ script">Phags-pa</a></li>
ʼ
<li><a href="/wiki/Pracalit_script" title="Pracalit script">Pracalit
(Newar)</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ranjana_script" title="Ranjana script">Ranjana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sharada_script" title="Sharada script">Sharada</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Siddha%E1%B9%83_script" title="Siddhaṃ script">Siddhaṃ</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Soyombo_script" title="Soyombo script">Soyombo</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sylheti_Nagari" class="mw-redirect" title="Sylheti
Nagari">Sylheti Nagari</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Takri_script" title="Takri script">Takri</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tibetan_script" title="Tibetan script">Tibetan</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Uchen_script" title="Uchen script">Uchen</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Um%C3%AA_script" title="Umê script">Umê</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tirhuta_script" title="Tirhuta script">Tirhuta</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tocharian_alphabet" title="Tocharian
alphabet">Tocharian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Zanabazar_square_script" title="Zanabazar square
script">Zanabazar Square</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Zhang-Zhung_language#Scripts" title="Zhang-Zhung
language">Zhang-Zhung</a>
<ul><li>Drusha</li>
<li>Marchen</li>
<li>Marchung</li>
<li>Pungs-chen</li>
<li>Pungs-chung</li></ul></li></ul>
style="width:5em">Southern</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ahom_script" title="Ahom script">Ahom</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Balinese_script" title="Balinese script">Balinese</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Batak_script" title="Batak script">Batak</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Baybayin" title="Baybayin">Baybayin</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bhattiprolu_script" title="Bhattiprolu
script">Bhattiprolu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Buhid_script" title="Buhid script">Buhid</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Burmese_script" title="Burmese script">Burmese</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Chakma_script" title="Chakma script">Chakma</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cham_script" title="Cham script">Cham</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Grantha_script" title="Grantha script">Grantha</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Goykanadi" title="Goykanadi">Goykanadi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hanunuo_script" title="Hanunuo script">Hanunuo
(Hanunó'o)</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Javanese_script" title="Javanese script">Javanese</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kadamba_script" title="Kadamba script">Kadamba</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kannada_script" title="Kannada script">Kannada</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/S%27gaw_Karen_alphabet" title="S'gaw Karen
alphabet">Karen</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kawi_script" title="Kawi script">Kawi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khmer_script" title="Khmer script">Khmer</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kulitan_alphabet" title="Kulitan alphabet">Kulitan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tai_Tham_script" title="Tai Tham script">Lanna</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lao_script" title="Lao script">Lao</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Leke_script" title="Leke script">Leke</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lontara_script" title="Lontara script">Lontara</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Makassarese_language#Historical_writing_system"
title="Makassarese language">Makasar</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Malayalam_script" title="Malayalam script">Malayalam</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Maldivian_writing_systems" title="Maldivian writing systems">Old
Maldivian</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dhives_Akuru" title="Dhives Akuru">Dhives Akuru</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Eveyla_Akuru" title="Eveyla Akuru">Eveyla
Akuru</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mon_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Mon alphabet">Mon</a>
(<a href="/wiki/Old_Mon_script" title="Old Mon script">Old Mon</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/New_Tai_Lue_alphabet" title="New Tai Lue alphabet">New Tai
Lue</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pallava_script" title="Pallava script">Pallava</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pyu_script" title="Pyu script">Pyu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Rejang_script" title="Rejang script">Rejang</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Rencong_script" title="Rencong script">Rencong</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Saurashtra_script" title="Saurashtra script">Saurashtra</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Shan_language#Alphabet" title="Shan language">Shan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sinhala_script" title="Sinhala script">Sinhala</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sundanese_script" title="Sundanese script">Sundanese</a> (Old
Sundanese)</li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tagbanwa_script" title="Tagbanwa script">Tagbanwa</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tai_Le_script" title="Tai Le script">Tai Le</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tai_Tham_script" title="Tai Tham script">Tai Tham</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tai_Viet_script" title="Tai Viet script">Tai Viet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tamil_script" title="Tamil script">Tamil</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tamil-Brahmi" title="Tamil-Brahmi">Tamil-Brahmi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Telugu_script" title="Telugu script">Telugu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Thai_script" title="Thai script">Thai</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tigalari_script" title="Tigalari script">Tigalari</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Vatteluttu_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Vatteluttu
script">Vatteluttu</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Kolezhuthu" title="Kolezhuthu">Kolezhuthu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Malayanma" title="Malayanma">Malayanma</a></li></ul></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row"
class="navbox-group" style="width:5em">Others</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-
odd" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Boyd%27s_syllabic_shorthand" title="Boyd's syllabic
shorthand">Boyd's syllabic shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics" title="Canadian Aboriginal
syllabics">Canadian syllabics</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Blackfoot_language#Writing_system" title="Blackfoot
language">Blackfoot</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/D%C3%A9n%C3%A9_syllabics" class="mw-redirect" title="Déné
syllabics">Déné syllabics</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Fox_language#Writing_systems" title="Fox language">Fox
I</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ge%CA%BDez_script" title="Geʽez script">Geʽez</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gunjala_Gondi_script" title="Gunjala Gondi script">Gunjala
Gondi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Japanese_Braille" title="Japanese Braille">Japanese
Braille</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sunwar_language#Writing_Systems" title="Sunwar
language">Jenticha</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kharosthi" title="Kharosthi">Kharosthi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mandombe_script" title="Mandombe script">Mandombe</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gondi_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Gondi script">Masaram
Gondi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Meroitic_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Meroitic
alphabet">Meroitic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pollard_script" title="Pollard script">Miao</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mwangwego_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Mwangwego
alphabet">Mwangwego</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pahawh_Hmong" title="Pahawh Hmong">Pahawh Hmong</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sorang_Sompeng_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Sorang
Sompeng alphabet">Sorang Sompeng</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Thaana" title="Thaana">Thaana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Thomas_Natural_Shorthand" title="Thomas Natural
Shorthand">Thomas Natural Shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Warang_Citi" title="Warang Citi">Warang Citi</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></t
d></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd"
id="Alphabets" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a class="mw-selflink
selflink">Alphabets</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list
navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em
0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-
spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group"
style="width:10em">Linear</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Abkhaz_alphabet" title="Abkhaz alphabet">Abkhaz</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Adlam_script" title="Adlam script">Adlam</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Armenian_alphabet" title="Armenian alphabet">Armenian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Avestan_alphabet" title="Avestan alphabet">Avestan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Avoiuli" title="Avoiuli">Avoiuli</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bassa_script" title="Bassa script">Bassa Vah</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Borama_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Borama
script">Borama</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Carian_alphabets" title="Carian alphabets">Carian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Caucasian_Albanian_script" title="Caucasian Albanian
script">Caucasian Albanian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Coelbren_y_Beirdd" title="Coelbren y Beirdd">Coelbren</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Coorgi%E2%80%93Cox_alphabet" title="Coorgi–Cox alphabet">Coorgi–
Cox alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Coptic_alphabet" title="Coptic alphabet">Coptic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_script" title="Cyrillic script">Cyrillic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Deseret_alphabet" title="Deseret alphabet">Deseret</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Duployan_shorthand" title="Duployan shorthand">Duployan
shorthand</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Duployan_shorthand#Chinook_writing" title="Duployan
shorthand">Chinook writing</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Early_Cyrillic_alphabet" title="Early Cyrillic alphabet">Early
Cyrillic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Eclectic_shorthand" title="Eclectic shorthand">Eclectic
shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Elbasan_script" title="Elbasan script">Elbasan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Etruscan_alphabet" title="Etruscan alphabet">Etruscan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Evenki_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Evenki
alphabet">Evenki</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Fox_language#Writing_systems" title="Fox language">Fox
II</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Fraser_script" title="Fraser script">Fraser</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gabelsberger_shorthand" title="Gabelsberger
shorthand">Gabelsberger shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Wolof_language#Orthography_and_pronunciation" title="Wolof
language">Garay</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Georgian_scripts" title="Georgian scripts">Georgian</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Asomtavruli" class="mw-redirect"
title="Asomtavruli">Asomtavruli</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Nuskhuri" class="mw-redirect" title="Nuskhuri">Nuskhuri</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mkhedruli" class="mw-redirect"
title="Mkhedruli">Mkhedruli</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Glagolitic_script" title="Glagolitic script">Glagolitic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gothic_alphabet" title="Gothic alphabet">Gothic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gregg_shorthand" title="Gregg shorthand">Gregg
shorthand</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Greek_alphabet" title="Greek alphabet">Greek</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Greco-Iberian_alphabet" title="Greco-Iberian alphabet">Greco-
Iberian alphabet</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">Hangul</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hanifi_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Hanifi
script">Hanifi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet" title="International Phonetic
Alphabet">IPA</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sunwar_language#Writing_Systems" title="Sunwar
language">Jenticha</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kaddare_script" title="Kaddare script">Kaddare</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kayah_Li_alphabet" title="Kayah Li alphabet">Kayah Li</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Klingon_scripts" title="Klingon scripts">Klingon</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Latin_script" title="Latin script">Latin</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Beneventan_script" title="Beneventan
script">Beneventan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Blackletter" title="Blackletter">Blackletter</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Carolingian_minuscule" title="Carolingian minuscule">Carolingian
minuscule</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Fraktur" title="Fraktur">Fraktur</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gaelic_type" title="Gaelic type">Gaelic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Insular_script" title="Insular script">Insular</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kurrent" title="Kurrent">Kurrent</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Merovingian_script" title="Merovingian
script">Merovingian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Scribal_abbreviation" title="Scribal
abbreviation">Sigla</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin" title="Sütterlin">Sütterlin</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tironian_notes" title="Tironian notes">Tironian notes</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Visigothic_script" title="Visigothic
script">Visigothic</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Luo_script" title="Luo script">Luo</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lycian_alphabet" title="Lycian alphabet">Lycian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lydian_alphabet" title="Lydian alphabet">Lydian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Manchu_alphabet" title="Manchu alphabet">Manchu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mandaic_script" title="Mandaic script">Mandaic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Medefaidrin" title="Medefaidrin">Medefaidrin</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Molodtsov_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Molodtsov
alphabet">Molodtsov</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mongolian_script" title="Mongolian script">Mongolian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mru_language#Script" title="Mru language">Mru</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Neo-Tifinagh" class="mw-redirect" title="Neo-Tifinagh">Neo-
Tifinagh</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/N%27Ko_script" title="N'Ko script">N'Ko</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ogham" title="Ogham">Ogham</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Clear_Script" title="Clear Script">Oirat</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ol_Chiki_script" title="Ol Chiki script">Ol Chiki</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Hungarian_script" title="Old Hungarian script">Old
Hungarian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Italic_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Old Italic
script">Old Italic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Permic_script" title="Old Permic script">Old Permic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Turkic_script" title="Old Turkic script">Orkhon</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Uyghur_alphabet" title="Old Uyghur alphabet">Old
Uyghur</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Osage_script" title="Osage script">Osage</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Osmanya_script" title="Osmanya script">Osmanya</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pau_Cin_Hau_script" title="Pau Cin Hau script">Pau Cin
Hau</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Runes" title="Runes">Runic</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_runes" title="Anglo-Saxon runes">Anglo-
Saxon</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cipher_runes" title="Cipher runes">Cipher</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Dalecarlian_runes" title="Dalecarlian
runes">Dalecarlian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Elder_Futhark" title="Elder Futhark">Elder Futhark</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Younger_Futhark" title="Younger Futhark">Younger
Futhark</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Gothic_runic_inscriptions" title="Gothic runic
inscriptions">Gothic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Marcomannic_runes" class="mw-redirect" title="Marcomannic
runes">Marcomannic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Medieval_runes" title="Medieval runes">Medieval</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Staveless_runes" title="Staveless
runes">Staveless</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sidetic_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Sidetic
script">Sidetic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Shavian_alphabet" title="Shavian alphabet">Shavian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Somali_alphabets" title="Somali alphabets">Somali</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sorang_Sompeng_alphabet" class="mw-redirect" title="Sorang
Sompeng alphabet">Sorang Sompeng</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tifinagh" title="Tifinagh">Tifinagh</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kurukh_language#Writing_systems" title="Kurukh language">Tolong
Siki</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Vagindra_script" title="Vagindra script">Vagindra</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_alphabet" title="Vietnamese
alphabet">Vietnamese</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Visible_Speech" title="Visible Speech">Visible Speech</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Vithkuqi_script" title="Vithkuqi script">Vithkuqi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Wancho_language#Orthography" title="Wancho
language">Wancho</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Warang_Citi" title="Warang Citi">Warang Citi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Zaghawa_script" title="Zaghawa script">Zaghawa</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:10em">Non-
linear</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-align:left;border-left-
width:2px;border-left-style:solid;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Braille" title="Braille">Braille</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/International_maritime_signal_flags" title="International
maritime signal flags">Maritime flags</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Telegraph_code" title="Telegraph code">Telegraph code</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/New_York_Point" title="New York Point">New York Point</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Flag_semaphore" title="Flag semaphore">Flag semaphore</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Moon_type" title="Moon type">Moon type</a></li></ul>
id="Ideograms_and_pictograms" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a
href="/wiki/Ideogram" title="Ideogram">Ideograms</a> and <a href="/wiki/Pictogram"
title="Pictogram">pictograms</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-
list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Adinkra_symbols" title="Adinkra symbols">Adinkra</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Aztec_writing" title="Aztec writing">Aztec</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Blissymbols" title="Blissymbols">Blissymbol</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Dongba_symbols" title="Dongba symbols">Dongba</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ersu_Shaba_script" title="Ersu Shaba script">Ersu Shaba</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Emoji" title="Emoji">Emoji</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/IConji" title="IConji">IConji</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Isotype_(picture_language)" title="Isotype (picture
language)">Isotype</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kaid%C4%81_glyphs" title="Kaidā glyphs">Kaidā</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mi%EA%9E%8Ckmaq_hieroglyphic_writing" title="Miꞌkmaq
hieroglyphic writing">Míkmaq</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mixtec_writing" title="Mixtec writing">Mixtec</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/New_Epoch_Notation_Painting" class="mw-redirect" title="New
Epoch Notation Painting">New Epoch Notation Painting</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Nsibidi" title="Nsibidi">Nsibidi</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ojibwe_writing_systems#Ojibwe_"hieroglyphs""
title="Ojibwe writing systems">Ojibwe Hieroglyphs</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Siglas_poveiras" title="Siglas poveiras">Siglas
poveiras</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Testerian" title="Testerian">Testerian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Yerkish" title="Yerkish">Yerkish</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Zapotec_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Zapotec
script">Zapotec</a></li></ul>
class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Logograms" style="font-size:114%;margin:0
4em"><a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">Logograms</a></div></th></tr><tr><td
style="width:10em"><a href="/wiki/Chinese_family_of_scripts" title="Chinese family
of scripts">Chinese family of scripts</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd"
style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
style:solid;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em"></div><table
class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th
scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:10em"><a
href="/wiki/Chinese_characters" title="Chinese characters">Chinese
Characters</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters" title="Simplified Chinese
characters">Simplified</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters" title="Traditional Chinese
characters">Traditional</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Oracle_bone_script" title="Oracle bone script">Oracle bone
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions" title="Chinese bronze
inscriptions">Bronze Script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Seal_script" title="Seal script">Seal Script</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Large_seal_script" title="Large seal script">large</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Small_seal_script" title="Small seal script">small</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bird-worm_seal_script" title="Bird-worm seal script">bird-
worm</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hanja" title="Hanja">Hanja</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Idu_script" title="Idu script">Idu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kanji" title="Kanji">Kanji</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m" title="Chữ Nôm">Chữ Nôm</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sawndip" title="Sawndip">Zhuang</a></li></ul>
style="width:10em">Chinese-influenced</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even"
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jurchen_script" title="Jurchen script">Jurchen</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khitan_large_script" title="Khitan large script">Khitan large
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sui_language#Script" title="Sui language">Sui</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Tangut_script" title="Tangut script">Tangut</a></li></ul>
class="navbox-group" style="width:10em"><a href="/wiki/Cuneiform"
title="Cuneiform">Cuneiform</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Akkadian_cuneiform" class="mw-redirect" title="Akkadian
cuneiform">Akkadian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Assyrian_cuneiform" class="mw-redirect" title="Assyrian
cuneiform">Assyrian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Elamite_cuneiform" title="Elamite cuneiform">Elamite</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hittite_cuneiform" title="Hittite cuneiform">Hittite</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cuneiform_Luwian" class="mw-redirect" title="Cuneiform
Luwian">Luwian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sumerian_cuneiform" class="mw-redirect" title="Sumerian
cuneiform">Sumerian</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:10em">Other
logo-syllabic</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Anatolian_hieroglyphs" title="Anatolian
hieroglyphs">Anatolian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bagam_script" title="Bagam script">Bagam</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cretan_hieroglyphs" title="Cretan hieroglyphs">Cretan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Isthmian_script" title="Isthmian script">Isthmian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Maya_script" title="Maya script">Maya</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Proto-Elamite_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Proto-Elamite
script">Proto-Elamite</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Yi_script#Classical_Yi" title="Yi script">Yi
(Classical)</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:10em">Logo-
consonantal</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-align:left;border-
left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em
0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Demotic_(Egyptian)" title="Demotic
(Egyptian)">Demotic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hieratic" title="Hieratic">Hieratic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" title="Egyptian
hieroglyphs">Hieroglyphs</a></li></ul>
style="width:10em">Numerals</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system" title="Hindu–Arabic
numeral system">Hindu-Arabic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Abjad_numerals" title="Abjad numerals">Abjad</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Attic_numerals" title="Attic numerals">Attic (Greek)</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Muisca_numerals" title="Muisca numerals">Muisca</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Roman_numerals" title="Roman numerals">Roman</a></li></ul>
id="Semi-syllabaries" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Semi-
syllabary" title="Semi-syllabary">Semi-syllabaries</a></div></th></tr><tr><td
style="width:10em">Full</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Celtiberian_script" title="Celtiberian
script">Celtiberian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Northeastern_Iberian_script" title="Northeastern Iberian
script">Northeastern Iberian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Southeastern_Iberian_script" title="Southeastern Iberian
script">Southeastern Iberian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khom_script" title="Khom script">Khom</a></li></ul>
style="width:10em">Redundant</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="text-
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Espanca_script" title="Espanca script">Espanca</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Pahawh_Hmong" title="Pahawh Hmong">Pahawh Hmong</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Khitan_small_script" title="Khitan small script">Khitan small
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Southwest_Paleohispanic_script" title="Southwest Paleohispanic
script">Southwest Paleohispanic</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bopomofo" title="Bopomofo">Zhuyin fuhao</a></li></ul>
id="Somacheirograms" style="font-size:114%;margin:0
4em">Somacheirograms</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-
odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/ASLwrite" title="ASLwrite">ASLwrite</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/SignWriting" title="SignWriting">SignWriting</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Si5s" title="Si5s">si5s</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Stokoe_notation" title="Stokoe notation">Stokoe
Notation</a></li></ul>
class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Syllabaries" style="font-
size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Syllabary"
title="Syllabary">Syllabaries</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-
list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Afaka_syllabary" title="Afaka syllabary">Afaka</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Bamum_script" title="Bamum script">Bamum</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/B%C3%A9t%C3%A9_syllabary" title="Bété syllabary">Bété</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Byblos_syllabary" title="Byblos syllabary">Byblos</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics" title="Canadian Aboriginal
syllabics">Canadian Aboriginal</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary" title="Cherokee syllabary">Cherokee</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cypriot_syllabary" title="Cypriot syllabary">Cypriot</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Cypro-Minoan_syllabary" title="Cypro-Minoan syllabary">Cypro-
Minoan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Ditema_tsa_Dinoko" title="Ditema tsa Dinoko">Ditema tsa
Dinoko</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Eskayan_script" title="Eskayan script">Eskayan</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Geba_syllabary" title="Geba syllabary">Geba</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Great_Lakes_Algonquian_syllabics" title="Great Lakes Algonquian
syllabics">Great Lakes Algonquian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Iban_language#Alphabet" title="Iban language">Iban</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kana" title="Kana">Japanese</a>
<ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hiragana" title="Hiragana">Hiragana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Katakana" title="Katakana">Katakana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dgana" title="Man'yōgana">Man'yōgana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Hentaigana" title="Hentaigana">Hentaigana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sogana" class="mw-redirect" title="Sogana">Sogana</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Jindai_moji" title="Jindai moji">Jindai moji</a></li></ul></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Mende_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Mende
script">Kikakui</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Kpelle_syllabary" title="Kpelle syllabary">Kpelle</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Linear_B" title="Linear B">Linear B</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Linear_Elamite" title="Linear Elamite">Linear Elamite</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Lisu_language#Lisu_syllabary" title="Lisu
language">Lisu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Loma_language#writing_systems" title="Loma
language">Loma</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/N%C3%BCshu_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Nüshu
script">Nüshu</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Nwagu_Aneke_script" title="Nwagu Aneke script">Nwagu Aneke
script</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform" title="Old Persian cuneiform">Old Persian
Cuneiform</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Sumerian_cuneiform" class="mw-redirect" title="Sumerian
cuneiform">Sumerian</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Vai_syllabary" title="Vai syllabary">Vai</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Woleai_script" title="Woleai script">Woleai</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Yi_script#Modern_Yi" title="Yi script">Yi (Modern)</a></li>
<li><a href="/wiki/Yugtun_script" title="Yugtun script">Yugtun</a></li></ul>
d></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list
navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em
0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible autocollapse navbox-
subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title"
colspan="2"><div class="plainlinks hlist navbar mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a
href="/wiki/Template:Braille" title="Template:Braille"><abbr title="View this
webkit-box-shadow:none;box-shadow:none; padding:0;">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-
talk"><a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Braille" title="Template talk:Braille"><abbr
title="Discuss this template" style=";;background:none transparent;border:none;-
moz-box-shadow:none;-webkit-box-shadow:none;box-shadow:none;
padding:0;">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a class="external text"
title=Template:Braille&action=edit"><abbr title="Edit this template"
id="Braille_⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Braille"
title="Braille">Braille</a><span style="padding-
left:0.5em;"> </span>⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑</div></th></tr><tr><th scope="row"
class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Braille cell</th><td class="navbox-list
navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/1829_braille" title="1829 braille">1829
braille</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a
href="/wiki/International_uniformity_of_braille_alphabets" title="International
uniformity of braille alphabets">International uniformity</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_ASCII" title="Braille ASCII">ASCII
braille</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_Patterns" title="Braille
Patterns">Unicode braille patterns</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Braille
scripts</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-
left-width:2px;border-left-style:solid;width:100%;padding:0px"><div
style="width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Category:French-ordered_braille_alphabets"
title="Category:French-ordered braille alphabets">French-ordered</a></th><td
class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="text-align:left;border-left-
width:2px;border-left-style:solid;width:100%;padding:0px"><div style="padding:0em
0.25em">
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Albanian_Braille" title="Albanian
Braille">Albanian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Azeri_Braille" class="mw-redirect"
title="Azeri Braille">Azerbaijani</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_Braille" title="Cantonese
Braille">Cantonese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Catalan_Braille" title="Catalan
Braille">Catalan</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Mainland_Chinese_Braille" title="Mainland
Chinese Braille">Chinese (mainland Mandarin)</a> (largely reassigned)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Czech_Braille" title="Czech
Braille">Czech</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Dutch_Braille" title="Dutch
Braille">Dutch</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/English_Braille" title="English
Braille">English</a> (<a href="/wiki/Unified_English_Braille" title="Unified
English Braille">Unified English</a>)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Esperanto_Braille" title="Esperanto
Braille">Esperanto</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/French_Braille" title="French
Braille">French</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/German_Braille" title="German
Braille">German</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Ghanaian_braille" title="Ghanaian
braille">Ghanaian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Guarani_Braille" title="Guarani
Braille">Guarani</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Hawaiian_Braille" title="Hawaiian
Braille">Hawaiian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Hungarian_Braille" title="Hungarian
Braille">Hungarian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/I%C3%B1upiaq_Braille" title="Iñupiaq
Braille">Iñupiaq</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/IPA_Braille" title="IPA
Braille">IPA</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Irish_Braille" title="Irish
Braille">Irish</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Italian_Braille" title="Italian
Braille">Italian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Latvian_Braille" title="Latvian
Braille">Latvian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Lithuanian_Braille" title="Lithuanian
Braille">Lithuanian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Luxembourgish_Braille" title="Luxembourgish
Braille">Luxembourgish</a> (extended to 8-dots)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Maltese_Braille" title="Maltese
Braille">Maltese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/M%C4%81ori_Braille" title="Māori
Braille">Māori</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Navajo_Braille" title="Navajo
Braille">Navajo</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Nigerian_braille" title="Nigerian
braille">Nigerian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Philippine_Braille" title="Philippine
Braille">Philippine</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Polish_Braille" title="Polish
Braille">Polish</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Portuguese_Braille" title="Portuguese
Braille">Portuguese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Romanian_Braille" title="Romanian
Braille">Romanian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Samoan_Braille" title="Samoan
Braille">Samoan</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Slovak_Braille" title="Slovak
Braille">Slovak</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/South_African_braille" title="South African
braille">South African</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Spanish_Braille" title="Spanish
Braille">Spanish</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Braille" title="Taiwanese
Braille">Taiwanese Mandarin</a> (largely reassigned)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Turkish_Braille" title="Turkish
Braille">Turkish</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_Braille" title="Vietnamese
Braille">Vietnamese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Welsh_Braille" title="Welsh
Braille">Welsh</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Yugoslav_Braille" title="Yugoslav
Braille">Yugoslav</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Zambian_Braille" title="Zambian
Braille">Zambian</a></span></li></ul>
</div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-
spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Nordic
family</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Estonian_Braille" title="Estonian
Braille">Estonian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Faroese_Braille" title="Faroese
Braille">Faroese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Icelandic_Braille" title="Icelandic
Braille">Icelandic</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Northern_Sami_Braille" title="Northern Sami
Braille">Northern Sami</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Scandinavian_Braille" title="Scandinavian
Braille">Scandinavian</a></span>
<ul><li><span class="nowrap">Danish</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap">Finnish</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap">Greenlandic</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap">Norwegian</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap">Swedish</span></li></ul></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Russian
lineage family<br />i.e. <a href="/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabets" title="Cyrillic
alphabets">Cyrillic</a>-mediated scripts</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even
hlist" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Belarusian_Braille" title="Belarusian
Braille">Belarusian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Bulgarian_Braille" title="Bulgarian
Braille">Bulgarian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Kazakh_Braille" title="Kazakh
Braille">Kazakh</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Kyrgyz_Braille" title="Kyrgyz
Braille">Kyrgyz</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Mongolian_Braille" title="Mongolian
Braille">Mongolian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Russian_Braille" title="Russian
Braille">Russian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Tatar_Braille" title="Tatar
Braille">Tatar</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Ukrainian_Braille" title="Ukrainian
Braille">Ukrainian</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Egyptian
lineage family<br />i.e. <a href="/wiki/Arabic_alphabets" class="mw-redirect"
title="Arabic alphabets">Arabic</a>-mediated scripts</th><td class="navbox-list
navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Arabic_Braille" title="Arabic
Braille">Arabic</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Persian_Braille" title="Persian
Braille">Persian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Urdu_Braille" title="Urdu Braille">Urdu</a>
(Pakistan)</span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Indian
lineage family<br />i.e. <a href="/wiki/Bharati_Braille" title="Bharati
Braille">Bharati Braille</a><br />(see <a
href="/wiki/Category:Bharati_braille_alphabets" title="Category:Bharati braille
alphabets">here</a> for more)</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist"
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Devanagari_Braille" title="Devanagari
Braille">Devanagari (Hindi / Marathi / Nepali)</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Bengali_Braille" title="Bengali
Braille">Bengali</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Punjabi_Braille" title="Punjabi
Braille">Punjabi</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Sinhala_Braille" title="Sinhala
Braille">Sinhala</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Tamil_Braille" title="Tamil
Braille">Tamil</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Urdu_Braille" title="Urdu Braille">Urdu</a>
(India)</span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Other
scripts</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Amharic_Braille" class="mw-redirect"
title="Amharic Braille">Amharic</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Armenian_Braille" title="Armenian
Braille">Armenian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Burmese_Braille" title="Burmese
Braille">Burmese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Cambodian_Braille" title="Cambodian
Braille">Cambodian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Dzongkha_Braille" title="Dzongkha
Braille">Dzongkha</a> (Bhutanese)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Georgian_Braille" title="Georgian
Braille">Georgian</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Greek_Braille" title="Greek
Braille">Greek</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Hebrew_Braille" title="Hebrew
Braille">Hebrew</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Inuktitut_Braille" title="Inuktitut
Braille">Inuktitut</a> (reassigned vowels)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Thai_and_Lao_Braille" title="Thai and Lao
Braille">Thai & Lao</a> (Japanese vowels)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Tibetan_Braille" title="Tibetan
Braille">Tibetan</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table><div>
style="width:1%">Reordered</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist"
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Algerian_Braille" title="Algerian
Braille">Algerian Braille</a> (obsolete)</span></li></ul>
style="width:1%">Frequency-based</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist"
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/American_Braille" title="American
Braille">American Braille</a> (obsolete)</span></li></ul>
style="width:1%">Independent</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist"
<ul><li><span class="nowrap">Chinese semi-syllabaries</span>
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_Braille" title="Cantonese
Braille">Cantonese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Mainland_Chinese_Braille" title="Mainland
Chinese Braille">Mainland Chinese Mandarin</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Braille" title="Taiwanese
Braille">Taiwanese Mandarin</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Two-Cell_Chinese_Braille" class="mw-
redirect" title="Two-Cell Chinese Braille">Two-Cell Chinese
(Shuangpin)</a></span></li></ul></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Japanese_Braille" title="Japanese
Braille">Japanese</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Korean_Braille" title="Korean
Braille">Korean</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Eight-
dot</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-align:left;border-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Luxembourgish_Braille"
title="Luxembourgish Braille">Luxembourgish</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_kanji" title="Braille
kanji">Kanji</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Gardner%E2%80%93Salinas_braille_codes"
title="Gardner–Salinas braille codes">Gardner–Salinas braille codes</a>
(GS8)</span></li></ul>
class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Symbols in braille</th><td class="navbox-list
navbox-even hlist" style="text-align:left;border-left-width:2px;border-left-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_music" title="Braille
music">Braille music</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Canadian_currency_tactile_feature"
title="Canadian currency tactile feature">Canadian currency marks</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Computer_Braille_Code" title="Computer
Braille Code">Computer Braille Code</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Gardner%E2%80%93Salinas_braille_codes"
title="Gardner–Salinas braille codes">Gardner–Salinas braille codes</a> (science;
GS8/GS6)</span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/IPA_Braille" title="IPA
Braille">International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Nemeth_Braille" title="Nemeth
Braille">Nemeth braille code</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%"><a
href="/wiki/Braille_technology" title="Braille technology">Braille
technology</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="text-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_e-book" title="Braille e-
book">Braille e-book</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_embosser" title="Braille
embosser">Braille embosser</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_translator" title="Braille
translator">Braille translator</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_watch" title="Braille
watch">Braille watch</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Mountbatten_Brailler" title="Mountbatten
Brailler">Mountbatten Brailler</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Optical_braille_recognition" title="Optical
braille recognition">Optical braille recognition</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Perforation"
title="Perforation">Perforation</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Perkins_Brailler" title="Perkins
Brailler">Perkins Brailler</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display"
title="Refreshable braille display">Refreshable braille display</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Slate_and_stylus" title="Slate and
stylus">Slate and stylus</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braigo"
title="Braigo">Braigo</a></span></li></ul>
style="width:1%">Persons</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="text-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Louis_Braille" title="Louis
Braille">Louis Braille</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Charles_Barbier" title="Charles
Barbier">Charles Barbier</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Valentin_Ha%C3%BCy" title="Valentin
Haüy">Valentin Haüy</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Thakur_Vishva_Narain_Singh" title="Thakur
Vishva Narain Singh">Thakur Vishva Narain Singh</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Sabriye_Tenberken" title="Sabriye
Tenberken">Sabriye Tenberken</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/William_Bell_Wait" title="William Bell
Wait">William Bell Wait</a></span></li></ul>
style="width:1%">Organisations</th><td class="navbox-list navbox-odd hlist"
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_Institute_of_America"
title="Braille Institute of America">Braille Institute of America</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Braille_Without_Borders" title="Braille
Without Borders">Braille Without Borders</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Japan_Braille_Library" title="Japan Braille
Library">Japan Braille Library</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/National_Braille_Association"
title="National Braille Association">National Braille Association</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Category:Blindness_organizations"
title="Category:Blindness organizations">Blindness organizations</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Category:Schools_for_the_blind"
title="Category:Schools for the blind">Schools for the blind</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/American_Printing_House_for_the_Blind"
title="American Printing House for the Blind">American Printing House for the
Blind</a></span></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Other <a
href="/wiki/Tactile_alphabet" title="Tactile alphabet">tactile
alphabets</a></th><td class="navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="text-
<ul><li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Decapoint"
title="Decapoint">Decapoint</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Moon_type" title="Moon type">Moon
type</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/New_York_Point" title="New York Point">New
York Point</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Night_writing" title="Night writing">Night
writing</a></span></li>
<li><span class="nowrap"><a href="/wiki/Vibratese"
title="Vibratese">Vibratese</a></span></li></ul>
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B6" title="Այբուբեն – Western Armenian" lang="hyw" hreflang="hyw"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Արեւմտահայերէն</a></li><li class="interlanguage-
link interwiki-ast"><a href="https://ast.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabetu"
title="Alfabetu – Asturian" lang="ast" hreflang="ast" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Asturianu</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-gn"><a
href="https://gn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achegety" title="Achegety – Guarani" lang="gn"
hreflang="gn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Avañe'ẽ</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-az"><a
href="https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C6%8Flifba" title="Əlifba – Azerbaijani"
lang="az" hreflang="az" class="interlanguage-link-target">Azərbaycanca</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-azb"><a
href="https://azb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%DB%8C%D9%81%D8%A8%D8%A7" title="
‫ – الیفبا‬South Azerbaijani" lang="azb" hreflang="azb" class="interlanguage-link-
target">‫<تۆرکجه‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bn"><a
href="https://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%85%E0%A6%B6%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%8D
%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC_%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A3%E0%A6%AE
%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE_%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%E0%A6%BF" title="অশব্দীয়
বর্ণমালা লিপি – Bangla" lang="bn" hreflang="bn" class="interlanguage-link-
target">বাংলা</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bjn"><a
href="https://bjn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfab%C3%A9t" title="Alfabét – Banjar"
lang="bjn" hreflang="bjn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Banjar</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-zh-min-nan"><a href="https://zh-min-
nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%AB-b%C3%B3-h%C4%93" title="Jī-bó-hē – Chinese (Min
Nan)" lang="nan" hreflang="nan" class="interlanguage-link-target">Bân-lâm-
gú</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ba"><a
href="https://ba.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82"
title="Алфавит – Bashkir" lang="ba" hreflang="ba" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Башҡортса</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-be"><a
href="https://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%96%D1%82"
title="Алфавіт – Belarusian" lang="be" hreflang="be" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Беларуская</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-be-x-old"><a
href="https://be-tarask.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%8C
%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8D%D1%82" title="Альфабэт – Belarusian (Taraškievica
orthography)" lang="be-tarask" hreflang="be-tarask" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Беларуская (тарашкевіца)</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-
bg"><a href="https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B7%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%B0"
title="Азбука – Bulgarian" lang="bg" hreflang="bg" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Български</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bar"><a
href="https://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – Bavarian"
lang="bar" hreflang="bar" class="interlanguage-link-target">Boarisch</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bs"><a
href="https://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeceda" title="Abeceda – Bosnian" lang="bs"
hreflang="bs" class="interlanguage-link-target">Bosanski</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-br"><a
href="https://br.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizherenneg" title="Lizherenneg – Breton"
lang="br" hreflang="br" class="interlanguage-link-target">Brezhoneg</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bxr"><a
href="https://bxr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D2%AE%D0%B7%D1%8D%D0%B3_%D0%B1%D1%8D
%D1%88%D1%8D%D0%B3" title="Үзэг бэшэг – Russia Buriat" lang="bxr" hreflang="bxr"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Буряад</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-ca"><a href="https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet –
Catalan" lang="ca" hreflang="ca" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Català</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-cv"><a
href="https://cv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82"
title="Алфавит – Chuvash" lang="cv" hreflang="cv" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Чӑвашла</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ceb"><a
href="https://ceb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpabeto" title="Alpabeto – Cebuano"
lang="ceb" hreflang="ceb" class="interlanguage-link-target">Cebuano</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-cs"><a
href="https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeceda" title="Abeceda – Czech" lang="cs"
hreflang="cs" class="interlanguage-link-target">Čeština</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-cy"><a
href="https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwyddor_(iaith)" title="Gwyddor (iaith) –
Welsh" lang="cy" hreflang="cy" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Cymraeg</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-da"><a
href="https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Danish" lang="da"
hreflang="da" class="interlanguage-link-target">Dansk</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-se"><a
href="https://se.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabehta" title="Alfabehta – Northern Sami"
lang="se" hreflang="se" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Davvisámegiella</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-de"><a
href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – German" lang="de"
hreflang="de" class="interlanguage-link-target">Deutsch</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-dv"><a href="https://dv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DE
%87%DE%A6%DE%8D%DE%A8%DE%8A%DE%AA%DE%84%DE%A7" title="ާ‫ – އަލިފުބ‬Divehi" lang="dv"
hreflang="dv" class="interlanguage-link-target">ް‫ދވެހިބަސ‬
ި </a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-et"><a href="https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/T
%C3%A4hestik" title="Tähestik – Estonian" lang="et" hreflang="et"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Eesti</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-el"><a href="https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91%CE%BB%CF%86%CE%AC%CE
%B2%CE%B7%CF%84%CE%BF" title="Αλφάβητο – Greek" lang="el" hreflang="el"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Ελληνικά</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-es"><a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto –
Spanish" lang="es" hreflang="es" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Español</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-eo"><a
href="https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Esperanto"
lang="eo" hreflang="eo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Esperanto</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ext"><a
href="https://ext.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabetu" title="Alfabetu – Extremaduran"
lang="ext" hreflang="ext" class="interlanguage-link-target">Estremeñu</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-eu"><a
href="https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Basque" lang="eu"
hreflang="eu" class="interlanguage-link-target">Euskara</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fa"><a
href="https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%A8%D8%A7" title="‫– الفبا‬
Persian" lang="fa" hreflang="fa" class="interlanguage-link-target">‫<فارسی‬/a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-hif"><a
href="https://hif.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akchhar" title="Akchhar – Fiji Hindi"
lang="hif" hreflang="hif" class="interlanguage-link-target">Fiji Hindi</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fo"><a
href="https://fo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavra%C3%B0" title="Stavrað – Faroese"
lang="fo" hreflang="fo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Føroyskt</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fr"><a
href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – French" lang="fr"
hreflang="fr" class="interlanguage-link-target">Français</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fy"><a
href="https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Western Frisian"
lang="fy" hreflang="fy" class="interlanguage-link-target">Frysk</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fur"><a
href="https://fur.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Friulian" lang="fur"
hreflang="fur" class="interlanguage-link-target">Furlan</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ga"><a href="https://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aib
%C3%ADtir" title="Aibítir – Irish" lang="ga" hreflang="ga"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Gaeilge</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-gv"><a href="https://gv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbyrlhit" title="Abbyrlhit –
Manx" lang="gv" hreflang="gv" class="interlanguage-link-target">Gaelg</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-gd"><a
href="https://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aibidil" title="Aibidil – Scottish Gaelic"
lang="gd" hreflang="gd" class="interlanguage-link-target">Gàidhlig</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-gl"><a
href="https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Galician" lang="gl"
hreflang="gl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Galego</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-gan"><a
href="https://gan.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E6%AF%8D" title="字母 – Gan Chinese"
lang="gan" hreflang="gan" class="interlanguage-link-target">贛語</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ko"><a href="https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC
%9D%8C%EC%86%8C%EB%AC%B8%EC%9E%90" title="음소문자 – Korean" lang="ko" hreflang="ko"
class="interlanguage-link-target">한국어</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-hy"><a
href="https://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D4%B1%D5%B5%D5%A2%D5%B8%D6%82%D5%A2%D5%A5%D5%B
6" title="Այբուբեն – Armenian" lang="hy" hreflang="hy" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Հայերեն</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-hi"><a
href="https://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A3%E0%A4%AE
%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE" title="वर्णमाला – Hindi" lang="hi" hreflang="hi"
class="interlanguage-link-target">हिन्दी</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-hr"><a href="https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeceda" title="Abeceda –
Croatian" lang="hr" hreflang="hr" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Hrvatski</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-io"><a
href="https://io.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Ido" lang="io"
hreflang="io" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ido</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ilo"><a
href="https://ilo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpabeto" title="Alpabeto – Iloko" lang="ilo"
hreflang="ilo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ilokano</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-bpy"><a
href="https://bpy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC
%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%95" title="মেয়েক – Bishnupriya" lang="bpy" hreflang="bpy"
class="interlanguage-link-target">বিষ্ণুপ্রিয়া মণিপুরী</a></li><li class="interlanguage-
link interwiki-id"><a href="https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet –
Indonesian" lang="id" hreflang="id" class="interlanguage-link-target">Bahasa
Indonesia</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ia"><a
href="https://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabeto" title="Alphabeto – Interlingua"
lang="ia" hreflang="ia" class="interlanguage-link-target">Interlingua</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ik"><a
href="https://ik.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchagat" title="Atchagat – Inupiaq" lang="ik"
hreflang="ik" class="interlanguage-link-target">Iñupiak</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-os"><a
href="https://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82"
title="Алфавит – Ossetic" lang="os" hreflang="os" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Ирон</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-is"><a
href="https://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafr%C3%B3f" title="Stafróf – Icelandic"
lang="is" hreflang="is" class="interlanguage-link-target">Íslenska</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-it"><a
href="https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Italian" lang="it"
hreflang="it" class="interlanguage-link-target">Italiano</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-he"><a
href="https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%A4%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA" title="
‫ – לאפבית‬Hebrew" lang="he" hreflang="he" class="interlanguage-link-target">
‫<עברית‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-jv"><a
href="https://jv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfab%C3%A8t" title="Alfabèt – Javanese"
lang="jv" hreflang="jv" class="interlanguage-link-target">Jawa</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-kn"><a
href="https://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%85%E0%B2%95%E0%B3%8D
%E0%B2%B7%E0%B2%B0%E0%B2%AE%E0%B2%BE%E0%B2%B2%E0%B3%86" title="ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ – Kannada"
lang="kn" hreflang="kn" class="interlanguage-link-target">ಕನ್ನಡ</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-krc"><a
href="https://krc.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82"
title="Алфавит – Karachay-Balkar" lang="krc" hreflang="krc" class="interlanguage-
link-target">Къарачай-малкъар</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-
ka"><a href="https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%83%90%E1%83%9C
%E1%83%91%E1%83%90%E1%83%9C%E1%83%98" title="ანბანი – Georgian" lang="ka"
hreflang="ka" class="interlanguage-link-target">ქართული</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-kk"><a
href="https://kk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D3%98%D0%BB%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B1%D0%B8"
title="Әліпби – Kazakh" lang="kk" hreflang="kk" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Қазақша</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-kw"><a
href="https://kw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytherennek" title="Lytherennek – Cornish"
lang="kw" hreflang="kw" class="interlanguage-link-target">Kernowek</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sw"><a
href="https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeti" title="Alfabeti – Swahili" lang="sw"
hreflang="sw" class="interlanguage-link-target">Kiswahili</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ht"><a
href="https://ht.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfab%C3%A8" title="Alfabè – Haitian Creole"
lang="ht" hreflang="ht" class="interlanguage-link-target">Kreyòl
ayisyen</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-gcr"><a
href="https://gcr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalfab%C3%A9" title="Lalfabé – Guianan Creole"
lang="gcr" hreflang="gcr" class="interlanguage-link-target">Kriyòl
gwiyannen</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ku"><a
href="https://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabe" title="Alfabe – Kurdish" lang="ku"
hreflang="ku" class="interlanguage-link-target">Kurdî</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ky"><a
href="https://ky.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82"
title="Алфавит – Kyrgyz" lang="ky" hreflang="ky" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Кыргызча</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lad"><a
href="https://lad.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alefbet" title="Alefbet – Ladino" lang="lad"
hreflang="lad" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ladino</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-la"><a
href="https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abecedarium" title="Abecedarium – Latin"
lang="la" hreflang="la" class="interlanguage-link-target">Latina</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lv"><a
href="https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfab%C4%93ts" title="Alfabēts – Latvian"
lang="lv" hreflang="lv" class="interlanguage-link-target">Latviešu</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lb"><a
href="https://lb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – Luxembourgish"
lang="lb" hreflang="lb" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Lëtzebuergesch</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lt"><a
href="https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C4%97c%C4%97l%C4%97" title="Abėcėlė –
Lithuanian" lang="lt" hreflang="lt" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Lietuvių</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-li"><a
href="https://li.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Limburgish" lang="li"
hreflang="li" class="interlanguage-link-target">Limburgs</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ln"><a href="https://ln.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afab
%C9%9B%CC%81" title="Afabɛ́ – Lingala" lang="ln" hreflang="ln" class="interlanguage-
link-target">Lingála</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lfn"><a
href="https://lfn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeta" title="Alfabeta – Lingua Franca
Nova" lang="lfn" hreflang="lfn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Lingua Franca
Nova</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lmo"><a
href="https://lmo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abecee" title="Abecee – Lombard" lang="lmo"
hreflang="lmo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Lumbaart</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-hu"><a
href="https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81b%C3%A9c%C3%A9" title="Ábécé – Hungarian"
lang="hu" hreflang="hu" class="interlanguage-link-target">Magyar</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mai"><a
href="https://mai.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A3%E0%A4%AE
%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE" title="वर्णमाला – Maithili" lang="mai" hreflang="mai"
class="interlanguage-link-target">मैथिली</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-mk"><a href="https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B7%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%BA
%D0%B0" title="Азбука – Macedonian" lang="mk" hreflang="mk" class="interlanguage-
link-target">Македонски</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mg"><a
href="https://mg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abidy" title="Abidy – Malagasy" lang="mg"
hreflang="mg" class="interlanguage-link-target">Malagasy</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ml"><a
href="https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D
%E0%B4%B7%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2" title="അക്ഷരമാല – Malayalam"
lang="ml" hreflang="ml" class="interlanguage-link-target">മലയാളം</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mt"><a
href="https://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabett" title="Alfabett – Maltese" lang="mt"
hreflang="mt" class="interlanguage-link-target">Malti</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mr"><a
href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B3%E0%A4%BE
%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%B0" title="मुळाक्षर – Marathi" lang="mr"
hreflang="mr" class="interlanguage-link-target">मराठी</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ms"><a
href="https://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad" title="Abjad – Malay" lang="ms"
hreflang="ms" class="interlanguage-link-target">Bahasa Melayu</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mwl"><a
href="https://mwl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abc"
title="Abc – Mirandese" lang="mwl" hreflang="mwl" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Mirandés</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mn"><a
href="https://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A6%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%B0%D0%BD_
%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B9" title="Цагаан толгой – Mongolian" lang="mn"
hreflang="mn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Монгол</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-my"><a
href="https://my.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%80%A1%E1%80%80%E1%80%B9%E1%80%81%E1%80%9B
%E1%80%AC" title="အက္ခရာ – Burmese" lang="my" hreflang="my" class="interlanguage-
link-target">မြန်မာဘာသာ </a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fj"><a
href="https://fj.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vola" title="Vola – Fijian" lang="fj"
hreflang="fj" class="interlanguage-link-target">Na Vosa Vakaviti</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nl"><a
href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Dutch" lang="nl"
hreflang="nl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Nederlands</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ne"><a
href="https://ne.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A3%E0%A4%AE
%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE" title="वर्णमाला – Nepali" lang="ne" hreflang="ne"
class="interlanguage-link-target">नेपाली</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-new"><a href="https://new.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%96%E0%A4%83"
title="आखः – Newari" lang="new" hreflang="new" class="interlanguage-link-
target">नेपाल भाषा</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ja"><a
href="https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB
%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%83%99%E3%83%83%E3%83%88" title="アルファベット – Japanese"
lang="ja" hreflang="ja" class="interlanguage-link-target">日本語</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nap"><a
href="https://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arfabeto" title="Arfabeto – Neapolitan"
lang="nap" hreflang="nap" class="interlanguage-link-target">Napulitano</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ce"><a
href="https://ce.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%82" title="Абат –
Chechen" lang="ce" hreflang="ce" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Нохчийн</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-frr"><a
href="https://frr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeet" title="Alfabeet – Northern Frisian"
lang="frr" hreflang="frr" class="interlanguage-link-target">Nordfriisk</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-no"><a
href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Norwegian Bokmål"
lang="nb" hreflang="nb" class="interlanguage-link-target">Norsk bokmål</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nn"><a
href="https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Norwegian Nynorsk"
lang="nn" hreflang="nn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Norsk nynorsk</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-nrm"><a
href="https://nrm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – Norman" lang="nrf"
hreflang="nrf" class="interlanguage-link-target">Nouormand</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-oc"><a
href="https://oc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Occitan" lang="oc"
hreflang="oc" class="interlanguage-link-target">Occitan</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-mhr"><a
href="https://mhr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B8%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80"
title="Тиштер – Eastern Mari" lang="mhr" hreflang="mhr" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Олык марий</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-uz"><a
href="https://uz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alifbo" title="Alifbo – Uzbek" lang="uz"
hreflang="uz" class="interlanguage-link-target">Oʻzbekcha/ўзбекча</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pa"><a
href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BE
%E0%A8%B2%E0%A8%BE" title="ਵਰਨਮਾਲਾ – Punjabi" lang="pa" hreflang="pa"
class="interlanguage-link-target">ਪੰਜਾਬੀ</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-pnb"><a
href="https://pnb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%B9" title="
‫ – الفابٹ‬Western Punjabi" lang="pnb" hreflang="pnb" class="interlanguage-link-
target">‫<پنجابی‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ps"><a
href="https://ps.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DB%8C%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A_
%D8%A7%D8%A8%DB%8C%DA%85%D9%8A" title="‫ – یوناني ابیڅي‬Pashto" lang="ps" hreflang="ps"
class="interlanguage-link-target">‫<پښتو‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-jam"><a href="https://jam.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet –
Jamaican Creole English" lang="jam" hreflang="jam" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Patois</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pcd"><a
href="https://pcd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Picard" lang="pcd"
hreflang="pcd" class="interlanguage-link-target">Picard</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pms"><a
href="https://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Piedmontese"
lang="pms" hreflang="pms" class="interlanguage-link-target">Piemontèis</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pl"><a
href="https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Polish" lang="pl"
hreflang="pl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Polski</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pt"><a
href="https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Portuguese"
lang="pt" hreflang="pt" class="interlanguage-link-target">Português</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ksh"><a
href="https://ksh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeet" title="Alfabeet – Colognian"
lang="ksh" hreflang="ksh" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ripoarisch</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ro"><a
href="https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Romanian" lang="ro"
hreflang="ro" class="interlanguage-link-target">Română</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-qu"><a href="https://qu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siq
%27i_llumpa" title="Siq'i llumpa – Quechua" lang="qu" hreflang="qu"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Runa Simi</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-rue"><a href="https://rue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB
%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%96%D1%82" title="Алфавіт – Rusyn" lang="rue" hreflang="rue"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Русиньскый</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-ru"><a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB
%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82" title="Алфавит – Russian" lang="ru" hreflang="ru"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Русский</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-sah"><a href="https://sah.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%BF
%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8B%D1%8B%D1%82" title="Алпабыыт – Sakha" lang="sah" hreflang="sah"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Саха тыла</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-sa"><a href="https://sa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D
%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE" title="अक्षरमाला – Sanskrit"
lang="sa" hreflang="sa" class="interlanguage-link-target">संस्कृ तम्</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sc"><a
href="https://sc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabetu" title="Alfabetu – Sardinian"
lang="sc" hreflang="sc" class="interlanguage-link-target">Sardu</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sco"><a
href="https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – Scots" lang="sco"
hreflang="sco" class="interlanguage-link-target">Scots</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sq"><a
href="https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeti" title="Alfabeti – Albanian" lang="sq"
hreflang="sq" class="interlanguage-link-target">Shqip</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-scn"><a
href="https://scn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabbetu" title="Alfabbetu – Sicilian"
lang="scn" hreflang="scn" class="interlanguage-link-target">Sicilianu</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-simple"><a
href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet – Simple English"
lang="en-simple" hreflang="en-simple" class="interlanguage-link-target">Simple
English</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sd"><a
href="https://sd.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A2%D8%A6%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%BD%D8%A7" title="
‫ – آئيوٽا‬Sindhi" lang="sd" hreflang="sd" class="interlanguage-link-target">
‫<سنڌي‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sk"><a
href="https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeceda_(jazykoveda)" title="Abeceda
(jazykoveda) – Slovak" lang="sk" hreflang="sk" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Slovenčina</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sl"><a
href="https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeceda" title="Abeceda – Slovenian" lang="sl"
hreflang="sl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Slovenščina</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-szl"><a
href="https://szl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabyt" title="Alfabyt – Silesian" lang="szl"
hreflang="szl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ślůnski</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-so"><a
href="https://so.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alifbeet" title="Alifbeet – Somali" lang="so"
hreflang="so" class="interlanguage-link-target">Soomaaliga</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ckb"><a
href="https://ckb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A6%DB%95%D9%84%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A8%DB%8E"
title="‫ – ئەلفوبێ‬Central Kurdish" lang="ckb" hreflang="ckb" class="interlanguage-
link-target">‫<کوردی‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sr"><a
href="https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%82"
title="Алфабет – Serbian" lang="sr" hreflang="sr" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Српски / srpski</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sh"><a
href="https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Serbo-Croatian"
lang="sh" hreflang="sh" class="interlanguage-link-target">Srpskohrvatski /
српскохрватски</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-su"><a
href="https://su.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpab%C3%A9t" title="Alpabét – Sundanese"
lang="su" hreflang="su" class="interlanguage-link-target">Sunda</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fi"><a
href="https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakkoset" title="Aakkoset
– Finnish" lang="fi" hreflang="fi" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Suomi</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-sv"><a
href="https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Swedish" lang="sv"
hreflang="sv" class="interlanguage-link-target">Svenska</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-tl"><a
href="https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpabeto" title="Alpabeto – Tagalog" lang="tl"
hreflang="tl" class="interlanguage-link-target">Tagalog</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ta"><a
href="https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE
%B0%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%88" title="அகரவரிசை – Tamil" lang="ta" hreflang="ta"
class="interlanguage-link-target">தமிழ்</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-kab"><a href="https://kab.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agemmay" title="Agemmay –
Kabyle" lang="kab" hreflang="kab" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Taqbaylit</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-roa-tara"><a
href="https://roa-tara.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabb%C3%A8te" title="Alfabbète –
Tarantino" lang="nap-x-tara" hreflang="nap-x-tara" class="interlanguage-link-
target">Tarandíne</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-tt"><a
href="https://tt.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84lifba" title="Älifba – Tatar" lang="tt"
hreflang="tt" class="interlanguage-link-target">Татарча/tatarça</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-te"><a
href="https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%85%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%8D
%E0%B0%B7%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%AE%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2" title="అక్షరమాల – Telugu" lang="te"
hreflang="te" class="interlanguage-link-target">తెలుగు</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-th"><a
href="https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%A3"
title="อั กษร – Thai" lang="th" hreflang="th" class="interlanguage-link-
target">ไทย</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-tr"><a
href="https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabe" title="Alfabe – Turkish" lang="tr"
hreflang="tr" class="interlanguage-link-target">Türkçe</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-tk"><a
href="https://tk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elipbi%C3%BD" title="Elipbiý – Turkmen"
lang="tk" hreflang="tk" class="interlanguage-link-target">Türkmençe</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-din"><a href="https://din.wikipedia.org/wiki/K
%C3%AFn%C3%ABg%C3%A4%C3%A4r" title="Kïnëgäär – Dinka" lang="din" hreflang="din"
class="interlanguage-link-target">Thuɔŋjäŋ</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link
interwiki-uk"><a href="https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BA
%D0%B0" title="Абетка – Ukrainian" lang="uk" hreflang="uk" class="interlanguage-
link-target">Українська</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-ur"><a
href="https://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%81_%D8%AA%DB%81%D8%AC%DB
%8C" title="‫ – حروف تہجی‬Urdu" lang="ur" hreflang="ur" class="interlanguage-link-
target">‫<اردو‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-vec"><a
href="https://vec.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto" title="Alfabeto – Venetian"
lang="vec" hreflang="vec" class="interlanguage-link-target">Vèneto</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-vi"><a href="https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/B
%E1%BA%A3ng_ch%E1%BB%AF_c%C3%A1i" title="Bảng chữ cái – Vietnamese" lang="vi"
hreflang="vi" class="interlanguage-link-target">Tiếng Việt</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-vo"><a
href="https://vo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafab" title="Lafab – Volapük" lang="vo"
hreflang="vo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Volapük</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-fiu-vro"><a href="https://fiu-
vro.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A4hist%C3%BC" title="Tähistü – Võro" lang="vro"
hreflang="vro" class="interlanguage-link-target">Võro</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-wa"><a
href="https://wa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Walloon" lang="wa"
hreflang="wa" class="interlanguage-link-target">Walon</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-war"><a
href="https://war.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abakadahan" title="Abakadahan – Waray"
lang="war" hreflang="war" class="interlanguage-link-target">Winaray</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-wuu"><a
href="https://wuu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E6%AF%8D%E7%B3%BB%E7%BB%9F"
title="字母系统 – Wu Chinese" lang="wuu" hreflang="wuu" class="interlanguage-link-
target">吴语</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-yi"><a
href="https://yi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%A4%D7%90%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%98"
title="‫ – לאפאבעט‬Yiddish" lang="yi" hreflang="yi" class="interlanguage-link-target">
‫<יִידיש‬/a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-yo"><a
href="https://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81b%C3%ADd%C3%AD" title="Ábídí – Yoruba"
lang="yo" hreflang="yo" class="interlanguage-link-target">Yorùbá</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-zh-yue"><a href="https://zh-
yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80%E5%A5%97%E5%AD%97%E6%AF%8D" title="一套字母 –
Cantonese" lang="yue" hreflang="yue" class="interlanguage-link-target">粵語
</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-diq"><a
href="https://diq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabe" title="Alfabe – Zazaki" lang="diq"
hreflang="diq" class="interlanguage-link-target">Zazaki</a></li><li
class="interlanguage-link interwiki-zh"><a
href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E6%AF%8D%E7%B3%BB%E7%B5%B1" title="字
母系統 – Chinese" lang="zh" hreflang="zh" class="interlanguage-link-target">中文
</a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-lld"><a
href="https://lld.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabet" title="Alfabet – Ladin" lang="lld"
hreflang="lld" class="interlanguage-link-target">Ladin</a></li></ul>
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Understanding Alphabet

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