The Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries are the most widely used writing systems of their kind today. Studied by millions of students around the world who have become enchanted with Japanese pop culture, one has to ask the burning question: Can I use the kana to write my own language? And the answer, of course, Continue reading Kana for English (かな を゚る いん゚ぐり゚す〫)
Out of all the Southeast Asian scripts, the Myanmar script is very easy to identify. Most letters are composed of a combination of circles, circle-based arcs and/or loops joined by straight lines, with the occasional irregular twist thrown in for some variety, resulting in a very round script boasting a distinctive circle-based design aesthetic. And Continue reading Myanmar script for English…
In the last century, a sizable amount of new writing systems have emerged from Africa. N Ko is one of them: originally developed in the late 1940s by Sulemaana Kante for writing the Manding languages of West Africa, it is one of the most successful of its kind and has been adapted for a few other Continue reading N Ko script for English ߒߞߏ ߛߞߙߌߔߕ ߝߐߙ ߌߒߜߟߌߛ߭
Greek was the first writing system ever devised in human history to indicate vowels. With thousands of years of history behind it, the Greek script conveys a sense of timeless elegance with its round lowercase letterforms, whose letters are widely used in the mathematics, science and engineering fields to represent a wide variety of concepts, Continue reading Yet Another Greek English Alphabet…
Arabic and Hebrew are the most well-known right-to-left scripts, but there are actually a few more RTL scripts in widespread use today. One of them is the Syriac script, a distant cousin of the Hebrew and Arabic scripts which is used to write the Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Christian communities in Iraq and Syria. Like Continue reading Syriac script for English ܣܝܼܪܝܥܹܩ ܣܩܪܝܦܛ ܦ݂ܘܿܪ ܝܟܓܠܝܫ
Africa is home to many unique writing systems. One of them is the Ge ez fidel syllabary/abugida used to write the languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which originally developed from a South Arabian offshoot of the highly influential Phoenician consonantal script (abjad) which is ancestral to both Arabic, Hebrew and the Western alphabets. Compared to its Continue reading Ge ez (Ethiopic) script for…
Hangul is a truly unique writing system in that it was created by humans almost from a blank slate, instead of evolving from an older pre-existing script. The script was created by King Sejong and his ministers of the Joseon dynasty of Korea in 1446 to improve literacy, being designed to represent the Korean language Continue reading Hangul for English: The Real Deal (HETRD, 한글 ᅗᅥᆯ 잉글맀:…
The Hebrew script has a blocky and angular aesthetic that makes it easy to recognise, being the only other widely used right-to-left script in the world besides Arabic. In fact, this relationship is not just co-incidental, as both the Hebrew and Arabic scripts share the same origins: both were once variants of the Aramaic script, Continue reading Yet Another Hebrew English Alphabet יעט אְנאדְּר…
The Arabic script, one of the most widely used writing systems in the world, is easy to recognise due to its very distinctive aesthetic: connected letterforms of swishes, lines, curves and loops, many of which are interconnected to each other in a stream of sorts, with dots above or below to distinguish each distinct letterform. Continue reading Yet Another Arabic English Alphabet يەط اَناذَر…
Indonesian is the standardised variety of the Malay language that is widely spoken across the Indonesian archipelago. Given that Malay was once written in the Indic Kawi script widely used across Maritime Southeast Asia from the 8th to the 16th century, it s actually straightforward to write it in the Javanese script, which is essentially a Continue reading Javanese script for Indonesian (Aksara…