List: Alphabetic writing systems

by likeorhate

•  Alphabet

  An alphabet is a standardized set of letters — basic written symbols or graphemes — each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which each character represents a syllable.

  

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•  Cirth

  The Cirth are the letters of an artificial script which was invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. The initial C in Cirth is pronounced as a K, never as an S. The runic alphabet used by the Dwarves of Middle-earth was adapted by J.R.R. Tolkien from real-life runes. In The Hobbit, the Anglo-Saxon futhorc was used in the publication with few changes; in The Lord of the Rings a new system of runes, the Cirth, was devised.

  

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•  Deseret alphabet

  The Deseret alphabet (

  

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•  Glagolitic alphabet

  The Glagolitic alphabet, also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" (also the origin of the Slavic name for the letter G). Since glagolati also means to speak, the glagolitsa poetically referred to "the marks that speak".

  

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•  Lower case

  Lower case (also lower-case or lowercase), minuscule, or small letters are the smaller form of letters, as opposed to upper case or capital letters, as used in European alphabets. For example, the letter "a" is lower case while the letter "A" is upper case. Originally alphabets were written entirely in capital letters, spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. When written quickly with a pen, these tended to turn into rounder and much simpler forms, like uncials.

  

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•  Old Turkic script

  The Old Turkic script is the alphabet used by the Göktürk and other early Turkic Khanates from at least the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. The alphabet was usually written from right to left.

  

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•  Tifinagh

  Tifinagh is an alphabetic script used by some Berber peoples, notably the Tuareg, to write their language. The Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. It is not in widespread use as a means of daily communication, but often serves to politically and symbolically assert a Berber identity.

  

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•  Tengwar

  Tengwar is a script that was invented by J.R.R. Tolkien. In his works, the tengwar script, invented by Fëanor, was used to write a number of the languages of Middle-earth, including Quenya and Sindarin. However, it can also be used to write other languages, such as English (most of Tolkien's tengwar samples are actually in English). The word tengwar is Quenya for "letters". The corresponding singular is tengwa, "letter".

  

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•  Coptic alphabet

  The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various dialects and subdialects of the Coptic language.

  

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•  Capital letter

  Capital letters or majuscules [IPA pronunciation: /məˈdʒʌskjuls, ˈmædʒəˌskjuls/], in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, etc. , may also be called capitals, or caps. Upper case, upper-case, or uppercase is also often used in this context as synonym of capital. Manual typesetters kept them in the upper drawers of a desk or in the upper type case, while keeping the more frequently used minuscule letters in the lower type case. This practice might date back to Johannes Gutenberg.

  

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•  Inuktitut writing

  The Inuktitut language is written in different ways in different places. In Greenland, Alaska, Labrador, the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories and in the western part of the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, it is written with the Latin alphabet. In most of Nunavut and in the Nunavik region of Quebec, Inuktitut is written using a special writing system called Inuktitut syllabics.

  

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•  N'Ko

  N'Ko (ߒߞߏ) is both a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa, and the name of the literary language itself written in the script. The term N'Ko means 'I say' in all Manding languages. The script has a few similarities to the Arabic alphabet, notably its direction (right-to-left) and the connected letters. It obligatorily marks both tone and vowels.

  

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•  Ol Chiki script

  The Ol Chiki script, also known as Ol Cemetʼ ("language of writing"), Ol Ciki, Ol (and sometimes as the Santali alphabet), was created in 1925 by Raghunath Murmu for the Santali language. Previously, Santali had been written with the Bengali alphabet, Oriya alphabet, or Latin alphabet, on the rare occasions it was written at all.

  

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•  Fraser alphabet

  The Fraser alphabet or Old Lisu Alphabet is an artificial script invented around 1915 by the Sara Ba Thaw, a Karen preacher from Myanmar, and improved by the missionary James O. Fraser, to write the Lisu language. It is a single-case alphabet. The alphabet uses uppercase letters from the Roman alphabet, and rotated versions thereof, to write consonants and vowels. Tones and nasalization are written with Roman punctuation marks, identical to those found on a typewriter.

  

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•  Gothic alphabet

  The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed to Ulfilas (or Wulfila) which was used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. Before its creation in the fourth century, the Goths had used runes to write their language.

  

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•  Runic alphabet

  The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same six letters). Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones, and their history.

  

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•  Ath (alphabet)

  

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•  Mandaic alphabet

  The Mandaic alphabet is based on the Aramaic alphabet, and is used for writing the Mandaic language. The Mandaic name for the script is Abagada or Abaga, after the first letters of the alphabet. Rather than the ancient Semitic names for the letters (alaph, beth, gimal), the letters are known as â, bâ, gâ and so on. The alphabet consists of 24 letters: the 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet with two additional letters at the end.

  

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•  Two-handed manual alphabets

  Several manual alphabets in use around the world employ two hands for some or all of the letters.

  

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•  Bhujimol

  Bhujimol is the name of the most ancient form of the Nepal script. It is used to write Nepal Bhasa.

  

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•  Manchu alphabet

  The Manchu alphabet was used for recording the now near-extinct Manchu language; a similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language descended from Manchu. It is written vertically from top to bottom, with columns proceeding from left to right.

  

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•  Old Permic script

  The Old Permic script, sometimes called Abur or Anbur, is an original ancient Permic writing system.

  

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•  Turkmen alphabet

  The current official Turkmen alphabet as used in Turkmenistan is a modified Latin alphabet based on the Turkish alphabet, but with notable differences: J is used instead of the Turkish C; Ž is used instead of the Turkish J; Y is used instead of the dotless i (I/ı); Ý is used instead of the Turkish consonantal Y; and the letters Ä and Ň have been added to represent the phonetic values [æ] and [ŋ], respectively.

  

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•  Theban alphabet

  The Theban alphabet is a writing system with unknown origins. It was first published in Johannes Trithemius' Polygraphia (1518), in which it was attributed to Honorius of Thebes. Trithemius' student Agrippa (1486-1535) attributed it to Pietro d'Abano (1250-1316).

  

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•  Alphabet of the Magi

  The Alphabet of the Magi was an alphabet invented by Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim for the use of engraving angelic names upon talismans. It was likely influenced by the various undefined alphabets from older Grimoires of the time.

  

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