Category Archives: Alphabet

Hangul — 1446 AD, Korea

Posted on March 12, 2011 by ducky

Chinese script didn’t work terribly well for Korean, even with Gugyeol, Hyangchul, or Idu additions.  Around 1440 AD, King Sejong the Great asked his board of scholarly advisers to advise him on a better writing system.  On October 9, 1446 … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, inventor known, previous script didn't quite work, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries | 2 Comments

Old Uyghur — 700 AD, China

Posted on February 26, 2011 by ducky

The Old Uyghur script descended from the “Uyghur” version of the Sogdian script, and was used from around 700 AD to around 1700 AD.  Woodblock printing and movable type printing was developed by Uyghurs in around 1250, around 200 years … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 2 Comments

Sogdian — 200 AD, Uzbekistan

Posted on February 25, 2011 by ducky

Sogdiana was an important nation on the Silk Road in Central Asia from around 400 BC to 1000 AD.  Sogdian traders went far and wide as merchants, similar to the Phoenicians; like the Phoenicians, they spread their language and their … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Alphabet, probably first in its area, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 2 Comments

Old Nubian — 700 AD, Sudan

Posted on February 24, 2011 by ducky

Old Nubian script started around 700 BC in Sudan, but it wasn’t common (especially at first).  Most official and/or formal writing was in Greek or Coptic for quite some time. Old Nubian script is mostly Coptic, but with three additional … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Coptic — 150 BC or 300 AD, Egypt

Posted on February 23, 2011 by ducky

Coptic is an alphabet which was and is used to write Egyptian.  Around 150 BC, Egyptians were writing Egyptian using the Greek script, occasionally with some Demotic characters for sounds that weren’t in Greek.  By around 300 AD, they had … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 1 Comment

Meroitic — 150 BC, Sudan

Posted on February 22, 2011 by ducky

The two Meroitic scripts (one from the hieroglyphic, one from the Demotic) seem like the bastard love children of Egyptian and Old Persian, and Old Persian was a bit of a bastard love-child itself. The two scripts have a one-to-one … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!", Syllabaries | 1 Comment

Shorthands — <300 BC, Greece?

Posted on February 16, 2011 by ducky

Shorthands — forms of writing that sacrifices accuracy and/or shared orthography for speed — are very old.  The earliest example of shorthand comes from Greece, and was sort of an inverse abugida: the vowels were primary, and consonants were noted … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Abugida, Alphabet, inventor known, Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 3 Comments

Paleohispanic scripts — 450 BC, Spain

Posted on February 10, 2011 by ducky

One of the places the Phoenicians colonized was the Mediterranean side of Spain, and their writing system spread around that peninsula.  Like in Italy, there were quite a few different, mostly related scripts.  Unlike in Italy, there wasn’t a hugely … Continue reading →

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Venetic — 690 BC, Italy

Posted on February 7, 2011 by ducky

Venetic was an Indo-European language related to Latin, spoken on the Italian peninsula in the vicinity of what became Venice.  Venetic was one of several scripts in what is now Italy, representing quite a few languages: Latin, Etruscan, Venetic, Faliscan … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Old Persian cuneiform — 525 BC?, Iran

Posted on February 6, 2011 by ducky

The earliest Old Persian cuneiform we know of is in a stupid-huge trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite cuneiform, and Babylonian cuneiform (basically well-aged Akkadian cuneiform).  The inscription, at Behistun, Iran, is 15m by 25m, 100m up the side of … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries | 2 Comments