Writing systems

any conventional method of visually representing verbal or signed communication

Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of sight or touch.

An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek + ) is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech and thus are independent of any particular language.) Some ideograms are more arbitrary than others: some are only meaningful assuming preexisting familiarity with some convention; others more directly resemble their signifieds. Ideograms that represent physical objects by visually illustrating them are called pictograms.

Hieratic (; ) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid-first millennium BCE. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus.

defines codes (alpha-4, numerical) and names (en, fr) for writing systems

In philology and linguistics, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of the symbols found in extinct languages and/or alphabets. Decipherment is possible with respect to languages and scripts. One can also study or try to decipher how spoken languages that no longer exist were once pronounced, or how living languages used to be pronounced in prior eras.

thumb|Basic Blissymbols. thumb|The Lord's Prayer in [[John Wilkins's Real Character.]] A pasigraphy (from Greek πᾶσι pasi "to all" and γράφω grapho "to write") is a writing system where each written symbol represents a concept (rather than or not just a word or sound or series of sounds in a spoken language).

alphabet used to write the Lycian language

thumb| rendered with or without a looptail are allographs of each other|class=skin-invert-image

style of writing without spaces between words

writing system whose symbols encode phonological features of the phonemes that they represent

writing systems used before the Latin alphabet

ancient writing system from the Iberian peninsula

thumb|A digraphic Gaj's Latin alphabet|Latin/Cyrillic street sign in [[Gaboš, Croatia]] thumb|A digraphic Latin/Jawi script|Jawi street sign in [[Pekanbaru, Indonesia]] In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of more than one writing system for the same language. Synchronic digraphia is the coexistence of two or more writing systems for the same language, while diachronic digraphia or sequential digraphia is the replacement of one writing system by another for a particular language.

wordless open semantic form of writing

indigenous semi-syllabic script, invented to write two Hmong languages spoken in Laos

alphabet used to write the Lydian language

writing system

Pazend () or Pazand (; ) is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used to write Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.

logogram consisting of the embedded written representation of a word in a foreign language, which does not have a spoken counterpart in the main language of the text; e.g. the symbol &, derived from the Latin "et", is read as the English word "and"

unicameral alphabet script for Bhumij language

writing system used to write naxi

alphabet developed by the linguist Gregg M. Cox and is used by a number of individuals within Kodagu

writing system

thumb|upright=1.35|Akkadian language syllabograms

the indigenous scripts of various ethno-linguistic groups in the Philippines

historic abugida

Semasiography ('writing with signs', from Greek 'signification' + 'writing') is the use of symbols, called semasiographs, to "communicate information without the necessary intercession of forms of speech". This non-phonetic based technique is studied in semasiology within the field of linguistics.