Learning to speak a new language is just one part of becoming bilingual. You also need to learn to read and write in your new language. And depending on the language, you may even need to learn a whole new writing system!
But what is a writing system, and how many writing systems are there around the world? Take a quick trip through the international library to learn more about the writing systems of the world.
Table of Contents
What is a writing system?
A writing system is a group of symbols that represent the sounds or concepts of a language in writing. This group of symbols is called a script, and consists of graphemes, which are the smallest unit of writing. Graphemes can be letters (which represent sound) or characters (which represent syllables with meaning).
Also known as an orthography, a writing system uses structure systems to break complex thoughts into smaller parts. They can consist of a variety of elements that we list below.
- sentences: a group of words that create a complete thought, expression, command, etc. (The dog ran home.)
- words: a combination of letters or characters that create meaning for an object, person, action, etc. (father, jump, tree)
- syllables: a combination of sounds (derived of letters or characters) that make up one or more parts of a word (com-, -tion, -ten-, syl-)
- phonemes: the smallest unit of sound in a word (“cat” divides into phonemes /c/ or “kuh”, /a/ or “aah”, /t/ or “tuh”)
- morphemes: the smallest unit of a word that has meaning (“jumped” is made of morphemes “jump” and “ed”)
- grapheme: the smallest unit of writing, such as a letter or character (“dog” is made of letters “d”, “o”, and “g” in English, and the character 狗 in Mandarin)
Writing systems must be thorough enough to represent every sound and concept in a language. While they may evolve to better match their language or change to a new dialect, writing systems are generally consistent over time. Scripts don’t often add new letters or characters once they’re established.
Types of writing systems
Each writing system uses graphemes to convey meaning. These graphemes include letters, logograms, and syllabograms.
- letters: represents one sound in a word (“b” “a” “t” become the word “bat”)
- logograms: represents a word or phrase (树 in Mandarin represents “tree”)
- syllabograms: represents entire syllables (आदमी in Hindi represents the syllables “aad-mee” or “man” in English)
Most languages use of these five types of writing systems:
| Writing System | Type of Grapheme | Characteristics | Example Languages |
| alphabet | letters | letters represent single sounds | English, Greek |
| logography | logogram | characters represent words or phrases | Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese) |
| syllabary | syllabogram | symbols represent syllables | Japanese, Cherokee |
| abjad | letters | letters only represent consonants (not vowels), usually written right to left | Arabic, Hebrew |
| abugida | letters | letters represent syllables both consonant and vowel sounds | Hindi, Tamil |
How many writing systems are there around the world?
There are 293 recorded writing systems worldwide and around half of those languages are still used today. The other half are ancient scripts that exist only in historical artifacts and documents. But how can these living writing systems represent all 7,184 languages spoken in the world today?
Some writing systems represent only one language, while others represent many different languages. For example, the Armenian alphabet is only used in the Armenian language, while the Cyrillic alphabet is the writing system for most Slavic languages, including Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian.
You might be surprised to learn that not every language has a writing system! In fact, over 3,000 languages are unwritten, meaning that they’re mainly oral languages and are not recorded at all.
5 key writing systems used around the world
A culture’s writing system depends on its literary history and regional influences. For example, even though Vietnamese is in a different language family from Latin-based languages, its alphabet (the Quoc-ngu script) is based on Latin due to the spread of Roman Christianity in the 17th century.
While some languages have traits of more than one type of writing system, most fit into one primary category. Take a look at a few examples of writing systems of the world grouped by the type of writing system, and see if you can find any similarities within each group.
1. Alphabetic writing systems
The word “alphabet” comes from the Greek alphabētos, which combines alpha and beta—the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Alphabets use letters that represent one sound, such as how the letter “b” makes a “buh” sound in the English alphabet.
The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabet in the world. English, Spanish, French, and many other languages in the Indo-European language family use adapted versions of the Latin alphabet.
The Cyrillic writing system is another commonly used alphabet with 50 languages using the Cyrillic alphabet or a modified version of it. And while the Greek alphabet only represents the Greek language, it has influenced many other alphabets throughout history, including both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets.
| Language | Alphabet | “Good morning” |
| Armenian | Armenian | Բարի լույս |
| English | Latin | Good morning |
| Georgian | Georgian | დილა მშვიდობისა |
| Greek | Greek | Καλημέρα |
| Korean | Hangul | 좋은 아침이에요 |
| Mongolian | Cyrillic | Өглөөний мэнд |
| Polish | Latin | Dzień dobry |
| Russian | Cyrillic | Доброе утро |
| Spanish | Latin | Buenos días |
| Ukrainian | Cyrillic | доброго ранку |
| Vietnamese | Quoc-ngu | Chào buổi sáng |
| Yiddish | Ktav Ashuri | גוט מאָרגן |
You may notice that Yiddish, a Germanic language that uses the Hebrew script Ktav Ashuri, is written from right to left. However, unlike Hebrew, Yiddish uses an alphabetic writing system that includes vowels, rather than an abjad that only represents consonants.
2. Logographic writing systems
The word “logography” comes from the Greek logographikós, meaning “word that is drawn.” Logographies are made up of logograms, which are characters that represent an entire word or phrase. The Mandarin logogram 天, for example, means “sky,” which is an entire word.
Cuneiform, the world’s oldest form of writing, was a logography used by many ancient cultures in the Middle East, including the Sumerians and Hittites. Egyptian hieroglyphics are another example of an ancient logographic writing system.
Logograms are similar to pictographs, which are characters that represent an idea with a picture that looks like the idea. But logograms don’t usually look like the word they’re representing, and readers have to memorize each logogram to its distinctive meaning.
| Language | Script | “Good morning” |
| Cantonese | Hanzi | 早晨 |
| Japanese | Kanji | おはよう |
| Mandarin | Hanzi | 早上好 |
Note that the written examples are much shorter than the alphabet examples, even though they share the same meaning. Each logogram represents one word of the phrase “good morning.”
3. Syllabic writing systems
While letters in an alphabet represent one sound, symbols in a syllabary represent a syllable block with a consonant and a vowel (and sometimes another consonant). For example, the English letter “b” represents the sound “buh,” but the Cherokee symbol Ꮖ represents the syllable “qua,” rather than one individual sound.
Linear B, an ancient syllabary used by the Macenean Greeks, is known as the oldest Greek dialect. Historians have even traced elements of Linear B in Homer’s poetry, making it a linguistically significant writing system for the Greek language, which went on to influence many other languages in the world.
| Language | Syllabary | “Good morning” |
| Cherokee | Cherokee | ᎣᏍᏓ ᏌᎾᎴᎢ |
| Japanese | Hiragana, Katakana | おはよう |
| Korean | Hangul | 좋은 아침이에요 |
Korean is included on the list of syllabaries as well as alphabets because it shares elements of both. It’s often referred to as a “featural writing system,” meaning that its letters and symbols show how speakers should position their mouth when pronouncing each word (which is one reason why it’s the language with the most words)
Japanese is also considered to be two types of writing systems (logographies and syllabaries). That’s because there are three scripts in the Japanese writing system: kanji, which are logographic characters, hiragana, and katakana, which are syllabic characters.
4. Abjads
Abjads are often called “consonant alphabets” because like alphabets, they consist of letters that represent single sounds. But unlike alphabets, they only have letters that represent consonants, leaving readers to infer which vowel sound they should use in each word.
The word abjad comes from the first four letters in Arabic (corresponding to the English “a,” “b,” “j,” and “d”). Abjads are usually written right to left in cursive, and the shape of each letter depends on its positioning in the word.
Most modern abjads are based on the Arabic writing system, as are many ancient abjads (including Aramaic and Phoenician). The majority of languages represented by abjads are in the Semitic language family.
| Language | Script | “Good morning” |
| Arabic | Arabic | صباح الخي |
| Hebrew | Ktav Ashuri | בוקר טוב |
| Pashto | Arabic Naskh | سهار مو پخیر |
| Persian (Farsi) | Perso-Arabic | صبح بخیر |
| Urdu | Nastaliq | صبح بخیر |
Although Ktav Ashuri was mentioned above as an alphabet for Yiddish, it’s considered an abjad when representing the Hebrew language. Unlike Yiddish, Hebrew doesn’t include vowels in its alphabet.
5. Abugidas
The word abugida comes from the first four letters of the Geʽez script (ä, bu, gi, da)
Abugidas are similar to syllabaries because their symbols represent syllables with both a consonant and vowel sound. However, symbols in abugidas resemble each other when they share a consonant, while symbols in syllabaries have no relation to each other.
Characters and words in abugidas also follow the same sequence as Semitic languages like Arabic or Hebrew. The most common abugida writing system is Devanagari, used in South Asian languages such as Hindi and Marathi.
| Language | Script | “Good morning” |
| Amharic | Geʽez | ን صباح ሰላም |
| Bengali | Bengali-Assamese | সুপ্রভাত |
| Cree | Cree | ᒥᔪ ᑮᑭᓭᐹᔮᐤ |
| Gujarati | Gujarati | શુભ સવાર |
| Hindi | Devanagari | शुभ प्रभात |
| Marathi | Devanagari | शुभ सकाळ |
| Punjabi | Gurmukhi | ਸ਼ੁਭ ਸਵੇਰ |
| Sinhalese | Sinhala | සුභ උදෑසනක්hi |
| Tamil | Tamil | காலை வணக்கம் |
| Telugu | Telugu | శుభోదయం |
Cree, a language spoken by some indigenous people in North America, mainly uses the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics in its writing system. Some Cree speakers also use the Latin alphabet to communicate in Cree, but its main syllable structure puts this script in the abugida category.
What are the most common writing systems?
The most common writing systems used in the world represent multiple modern languages you probably already speak or encounter often. They correspond with the most commonly spoken languages, which have billions of speakers all over the globe.
- Latin alphabet: The Latin alphabet and its modified forms are used by almost 70% of the world’s population, including English, Spanish, French, German, and Vietnamese speakers.
- Chinese hanzi: Chinese characters are used by the majority of East Asian languages, including Mandarin and Japanese, which are spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people.
- Arabic abjad: Nearly 660 million people use the Arabic abjad and its variations, including Perso-Arabic and Arabic Naskh.
Other kinds of writing systems
Not all languages are represented by the five main types of writing systems. Find out how other cultures communicate in the written word—or without writing a word at all.
Rongorongo glyphs
Dating back to the 15th century, the hieroglyphic Rongorongo script was discovered on Easter Island (Rupi Nui) by European explorers. Unlike other scripts from the same time period, Rongorongo does not resemble European alphabets or letters, suggesting that residents of Rupi Nui independently invented the writing system. Since it has no similar scripts, Rongorongo can’t be translated, and no one is sure which category it should go into.
Mongolian script
Modern-day Mongolian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, but prior to the 20th century, it used a writing system that was written vertically and left to right. Many medieval religious texts were translated into Mongolian using this script, known as Hudum Mongol Bichig. Mongolian script is still in use in some traditional Mongolian communities today.
Inca knot language
The Incan empire writing system isn’t a writing system at all. This South American system of recording communication involved tying knots on cords, known as quipus. Common messages found on historical quipu are census records, calendars, and other records involving numbers.
Ideographic writing systems
Ideograms, which represent ideas, are another way for languages to communicate in the written word. Unlike logograms that represent words or ideas, ideograms don’t usually extend to full languages.
Emoji in texting vocabularies is a good example of ideographic writing systems, as they stand for ideas (like “happy” or “cold”) but not the word itself. Many writing systems that use Chinese characters, including Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean, include some ideograms in their scripts.
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