Thai

en-noun

Thai (countable and uncountable, plural Thai or Thais)

Borrowed from Thai ไทย (tai). Doublet of Tai and Dai.

The Bangkok government indicated real concern over the developments in Communist China’s Yunnan province. Thai officials were afraid that Sibsongpanna would be a center where pro-Communist Thai in Southeast Asia would go and where subversive agitation could be directed against outside legitimate governments.

1958, Russell H. Fifield, The Diplomacy of Southeast Asia: 1945-1958, New York: Harper & Brothers, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 263:

(countable) A person living in or coming from Thailand.


romaji

romaji (countable and uncountable, plural romajis)

romajis (plural)
Romaji (alternative)
Rōmaji (alternative)
Roma-ji (alternative)
Rōma-ji (alternative)
roma-ji (alternative)
rōmaji (alternative)
romanji (alternative nonstandard)

/ˈɹəʊməd͡ʒi/

/ɹəʊˈmɑːd͡ʒi/

Transliteration from Japanese ローマ字(じ) (rōmaji, literally “Roman letters”).

ja-r

The romaji of the word ローマ字 is “rōmaji”.

The katakana and the hiragana are syllabic forms of writing derived from Chinese characters, while the romaji are the letters used in writing most European languages.

For example, in Japanese advertisements sexy and my house often appear in romaji, making the underlying concepts of eroticism and private ownership more exotic.

2006, Ralph Fasold, Jeffrey Connor-Linton, An Introduction to Language and Linguistics, page 410:

Today people ordinarily use kana-kanji conversion systems for inputting Japanese text. Because many of them can touch-type the romajis for the kanas, the O-code with kana-kanji conversion is more accessible.

2011, T Okadome, J Nakajima, S Ito, K Kakusho, “An Accessible Coded Input Method for Japanese Extensive Writing”, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Advances in Text Input Methods:

A representation of Japanese in Latin script.


hanja

Borrowed from Korean 한자(漢字) (hanja), from Middle Chinese 漢字 (MC xanH dziH, “Chinese character”, literally “Han Chinese + character”).
Compare Cantonese 漢字 /汉字 (hon³ zi⁶), Japanese 漢字 (kanji), Mandarin 漢字 /汉字 (hànzì), Vietnamese Hán tự. Doublet of kanji and Hanzi.

ltc-l

The Han character script used to write Korean, particularly in classical literature.

漢字 /汉字

Any individual Han character as used in the Korean language.


Kannada

From Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ (kannaḍa). Doublet of Canara.

The alphasyllabary used to write the aforementioned language, along with Konkani and Tulu.


Lao

en-noun

Lao (countable and uncountable, plural Lao or Laos)

(uncountable) The official language of Laos that is closely related to Thai.


Telugu

Telegu (alternative)
Telugoo (alternative)
Teloogoo (alternative)

The train rumbled between narrow buildings with flat roofs and multicoloured walls, Telugu script crawling like creepers over them.

2019, Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift, Hogarth, page 497:


Burmese

Of or relating to Burma (Myanmar) or its people or language.


kwukyel

Borrowed from kwūkyel, the Yale romanization of Korean 구결(口訣) (gugyeol), from Middle Chinese 口訣 (MC khuwX kwet, “mnemonic rhyme”), from 口 (kǒu, “mouth”) + 訣 /诀 (jué, “rhymed saying”).

compound

gugyeol (alternative)
kugyŏl (alternative)

Abbreviated Chinese characters used to represent Korean grammatical items, inserted into a Chinese-character (Classical Chinese or itwu) text.


Bengali

Equivalent to Bengal + -i. Compare Assamese বঙালী (boṅali), Bengali বাঙ্গালী (baṅgali), Hindi बंगाली (baṅgālī), Classical Persian بنگالی (bangālī).

Bangalee (alternative archaic)
Bengalee (alternative archaic)
Bangali (alternative uncommon)

A language spoken in Bangladesh and the states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal, India.

बंगाली भाषा

baṅgālī bhāṣā

बाङ्गला भाषा

bāṅgalā bhāṣā


Gujarati

/ˌɡʊd͡ʒəˈrɑːti/

/ˌɡuːd͡ʒəˈrɑːti/

Borrowed from Gujarati ગુજરાતી (gujrātī).

Gujerati (alternative dated)
Gujrati (alternative dated)
Goojratee (alternative dated)
Gujratee (alternative dated)
Guzarati (alternative dated)
Guzerati (alternative dated)

The Indic language spoken in the state of Gujarat, India


Malayalam

Borrowed from Malayalam മലയാളം (malayāḷaṁ), from മല (mala, “hill, mountain”) + അളം (aḷaṁ, “place”).

bor+

Padmanabhan uttered a command in Malayalam, the regional language.

2012 April 30, Jake Halpern, “The Secret of the Temple”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 2014-07-25:

A Dravidian language spoken in the states of Kerala and Lakshadweep, India.

Wiktionary’s coverage of Malayalam terms


Sinhalese

en-noun

Sinhalese (countable and uncountable, plural Sinhalese)

Sinhalese (plural)
Singalese (alternative)
Singhalese (alternative)
Cinghalese (alternative)
Cingalese (alternative)

(uncountable) The Indo-Aryan language of the Sinhalese people.


Tamil

Borrowed from Tamil தமிழ் (tamiḻ, “Tamil”); see that entry for theories.

“I go only to return,” I said, because Tamil has no words for last goodbyes.

2023, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Brotherless Night, Viking, page 303:

A Dravidian language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, India and in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia.


Khmer

From Khmer ខ្មែរ (khmae).
Attributed to the Pali term khemara (“one who is wholesome”). The elision form, ក្មេរ (kmera), is found in ancient stone inscriptions, or a borrowing from Northern Khmer เขมร (/khmɛːr/).

Despite my mother speaking Khmer to us at home, I hadn’t retained it through my formative years.

2024, Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time, Sceptre, page 6:

The national language of Cambodia, part of the Mon-Khmer language family.

An abugida used to write the Khmer language and sometimes Pali.


Khmer

A member of an ethnolinguistic group that constitutes most of the population of Cambodia.


Khmer

en-adj

Khmer (comparative more Khmer, superlative most Khmer)

more Khmer (comparative)
most Khmer (superlative)

Of or pertaining to the Khmer people or their language.

خِمِيرِيّ

of or pertaining to the Khmer people or their language


Cherokee

/ˌt͡ʃɛ.ɹəˈkiː/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Cherokee.wav

Most likely from the Cherokee autonym ᏣᎳᎩ (tsalagi). Derivation from a Choctaw exonym meaning "those who live in caves" (compare chiluk (“cave”)) has also been suggested — the Iroquois term for the Cherokee was Oyata'ge'ronon (“inhabitants of the cave country”) — as has derivation from a Creek term for "person(s) who speak(s) a non-Creek language" (see celokketv (“to speak a non-creek language”)).
Whatever its origin, the ethnonym entered European languages at an early date, perhaps as early as the 1670s; in Spanish, the people are called the Tchalaquei as early as 1755.

census-designated place
census-designated place

A census-designated place in Swain County and Jackson County, North Carolina, capital of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

A city, the county seat of Alfalfa County, Oklahoma.

unincorporated community
unincorporated community

An unincorporated community in Grainger County, Tennessee.

An unincorporated community in San Saba County, Texas.

An unincorporated community in Hull, Marathon County, Wisconsin.


katakana

en-noun

katakana (countable and uncountable, plural katakana or katakanas)

katakana (plural)
katakanas (plural)
katagana (alternative archaic)

/ˌkætəˈkænə/

/ˌkætəˈkɑːnə/

/ˌkɑtəˈkɑːnə/

(uncountable) A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, onomatopoeia, or to emphasize a word or phrase. Also used to write the Ainu language.


hiragana

hiragana (countable and uncountable, plural hiraganas or hiragana)

hiraganas (plural)
hiragana (plural)
hirakana (alternative archaic)
firagana (alternative archaic)

/ˌhɪ.ɹəˈɡæ.nə/

/ˌhɪ.ɹəˈɡɑː.nə/

(uncountable) The main syllabary for the Japanese language, used to represent native Japanese words, including particles, and when kanji is used, to represent verb and adjective endings.


shinjitai

Transliteration from Japanese 新(しん)字(じ)体(たい) (shinjitai).

However, when a traditional “correct” radical has been obscured by the postwar adoption of a simplified form (shinjitai), that radical is simply ignored.

1992, The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, volume 26, issue 1, page 47:

The simplified form of Japanese kanji used after 1947.


abugida

/ɑːbuˈɡiːdə/

First use appears c. 1961. See cite below.

азбугида

writing system — see also alphasyllabary

Words are entered under the Abugida system.

1961, Haile Sellassie I University (contributor), University College Review - Volume 1, Issue 1, page 137:

1997 [Routledge], Peter T. Daniels, 2: Scripts of Semitic Languages, Robert Hetzron (editor), The Semitic Languages, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2005, Transferred to Digital Printing, unnumbered page,
An abugida is a script that uses characters for CV syllables wherein the several characters for some consonant plus the language's array of vowels are modifications of the character for that consonant followed by the unmarked vowel (phonemically /a/).

In an abugida, each consonant carries an inherent vowel, usually /a/.

2007, Unicode Consortium, The Unicode Standard 5.0, Addison-Wesley, page 200:

(linguistics) A kind of syllabary (syllabic alphabet) in which a symbol or glyph representing a syllable contains parts representing a vowel and a consonant, such that symbols for syllables not including the default vowel are generated by adding a common notation to indicate the vowel that it does include.

1997 [Routledge], Peter T. Daniels, 2: Scripts of Semitic Languages, Robert Hetzron (editor), The Semitic Languages, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2005, Transferred to Digital Printing, unnumbered page,
For the scripts of the Semitic languages, five categories are needed: logography, syllabary, abjad, alphabet, and abugida. A sixth, featural script, appears when Arabic script is adapted to non-Semitic languages. […] (The English word "abugida" is borrowed from the Amharic term for the letters of the script when taken in the order known from the Ge'ez transliterations of the Hebrew letter names found in the superscriptions of the sections of Psalm 119, as used in the liturgy; it takes the first four consonants and the first four vowels in their traditional order of presentation.)

2015, Patricia Donegan, 1: The Emergence of Phonological Representation, Brian MacWhinney, William O'Grady (editors, The Handbook of Language Emergence, John Wiley & Sons (Wiley Blackwell), page 39,
The widespread use and easy learnability of alphabetic writing systems, the typical arrangement of syllabic or abugida phoneme classes (as with Japanese kana, or devanagari), rhyme and alliteration, folk naming of correlative phoneme sets (like the “hard” and “soft” consonant groups of Slavic languages), differential learning of L2 sounds that can and cannot be readily identified with an L1 phoneme (Best, McRoberts, and Sithole, Werker and Tees, 1984b; Best and Tyler, 2007) - all assure us that phonemic perception and representation are not merely a result of alphabetic writing.

(linguistics) A kind of syllabary (syllabic alphabet) in which a symbol or glyph representing a syllable contains parts representing a vowel and a consonant, typically such that symbols for different syllables are generated by adding, altering or removing the vowel portion, often by applying a diacritic to a stable consonant symbol.


Oriya

Oorya (alternative)
Ooriya (alternative)

Odia, the language spoken in the state of Odisha, India.


rune

→ Mandarin: 盧恩 /卢恩 (lú'ēn)

Borrowed from Old Norse rún, which is from Proto-Germanic *rūnō (“letter, literature, secret”), which is borrowed either from Proto-Celtic *rūnā or from the same source as it; compare Dutch rune, German Rune, Raune, Danish rune and Swedish runa. Compare roun.
; "code point"

der

Go language defines the type rune as an alias for the type int32 to represent a Unicode code point. A string in Go is a sequence of runes.

2016, Shiju Varghese, Go Recipes, Apress, →ISBN, page 12:

programming language
programming language

(programming, in the Go programming language) A Unicode code point.


shorthand

en-noun

shorthand (countable and uncountable, plural shorthands)

shorthands (plural)
short hand (alternative)
short-hand (alternative)

The noun is derived from short + hand (“handwriting; style of penmanship”). The verb is derived from the noun.

compound

There is a Notion prevails among many People, to yͤ prejudice of all kinds of Short-hand; which is this. That when a Person sets down a Memorandum in his pocket Book in Short-hand, it is lost, in caſe of Death or any other accident, to yͤ rest of yͤ World, though it may contain things of great Consequence to other People. [...] I affirm, [...] that if any Person makes use of my long Short hand, which he will certainly do, in caſe he deſigns that what he writes should be read by another Person, it will be as legible to any one acquainted with this Art, as if it was writ in Round Hand.

1747 November 30, Aulay Macaulay, “Advertisement”, in Polygraphy or Short-hand Made Easy to the Meanest Capacity: Being an Universal Character Fitted to All Languages: […], London: Printed for the author, […] also sold by T[homas] Osborne, […], →OCLC, page IV:

All ſhort Hands are ſubject to Ambiguity; for there being but 8 Marks to repreſent 24 Letters, and thoſe 8 being uſed for 8 of them in the Short Hand Alphabets, the other Letters muſt be deſcribed by Characters compounded of theſe 8.

1748 May 26, Samuel Jeake, “XIV. The Elements of a Short Hand.”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume XLV, number 487, London: Printed for C. Davis, […], printer to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 348:

A is denoted by a dot at the top of the Short-hand line; [...] The vowel a, in Short-hand, is used for the article a, or ah; [...]

1796, T[homas] M[olineux], “On the Vowels”, in An Abridgement of Mr. Byrom’s Universal English Short-hand; […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for the editor; and sold by H. Lowndes, […], →OCLC, 1st part:

[...] I was soon convinced, that our articles a an the should also be omitted: especially as the two former are comparatively infrequent, and the latter a perpetual incumbrance in other Short-hands.

1818, Edward Lawson, “General Plan”, in Chancery and Court-hand Explained, with an Easy, Rapid, and Distinct Short Hand, London: Printed by I. Colles, […]; for J[oseph] Butterworth, […], →OCLC, page 1:

In writing shorthand words are always to be spelled as they are sounded, and without any regard to orthography.

1821, P[eregrine] Bingham [the Younger], “On Shorthand Spelling and Punctuation, and on the Effect of the Position of Characters According to this System”, in A System of Shorthand on the Principle of the Association of Ideas, London: Printed by J[oseph] Butterworth and Son, […], →OCLC, section I, page 7:

A good Short-hand must be easy, swift, and legible.

1874, W. E. Scovil, A Short-hand Legible as the Plainest Writing, and Requiring No Teacher but the Book. With a Simplified System of Verbatim Reporting, 6th American edition, New York, N.Y.: W. E. Scovil, Jr., […], →OCLC, part I (Stenography), page 1:

Now, if you are wise, and would shorthand acquire, / Just throw your old text-books straight into the fire. / Then take up Light-Line—in the matter of speed, / There's nothing can beat it—of this take good heed. / 'Tis most easy to learn, to read and in fine— / No shorthand can equal GREGG'S MODERN LIGHT-LINE.

1898, Frank Rutherford, “A Song of Light-line”, in John Robert Gregg, Gregg’s Shorthand: A Light Line Phonography for the Million, 7th American edition, Chicago, Ill.: Published by the author […], →OCLC, page 120:

The origin of shorthand writing has been variously attributed to the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans. It is not unlikely that some form of stenography, or method of (comparatively) rapid writing by means of signs or characters briefer than those of the script ordinarily in use, was developed independently among the penmen or scribes of many early nations. [...] But the natural eagerness of stenographers to claim great antiquity for their art has sometimes tempted them to cite as references to shorthand passages which do not necessarily bear any such meaning.

1918, Isaac Pitman, A History of Shorthand, 4th edition, London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. […], →OCLC, page 1:

Right away you say that nobody learns how to read shorthand. People who want to know shorthand learn how to write it; the reading of it comes by the way.

1986, Rudolf Flesch, “A Letter to Johnny’s Mother”, in Why Johnny Can’t Read – and What You can Do about It, 1st Perennial Library edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, publishers, →ISBN, page 3:

A rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.


kyūjitai

Transliteration from Japanese 旧(きゅう)字(じ)体(たい) (kyūjitai, literally “old character form”).

ja-r

Although the kyūjitai kanji were not banned, the obsolete kyūjitai kanji have become unreadable to more and more readers over time, thus making texts including them difficult for modern readers, but at least there is a recognized mapping from new form to old form.

2020, Stewart Arneil, “Encoding Disappearing Characters: The Case of Twentieth-Century Japanese-Canadian Names”, in Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, number 12, Text Encoding Initiative Consortium, →DOI, →ISSN:

The traditional form of Japanese kanji used before 1947.


Syriac

From Ancient Greek συριακός (suriakós), an adjective pertaining to Συρία (Suría), the Greek name for Aram, and probably based on the name Assyria.

Syriac Orthodox Church
Syriac Orthodox Church

Syriac Catholic Church
Syriac Catholic Church

A member of any of the Syriac churches, but especially the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church.


hieroglyph

/ˈhaɪ.ɹəˌɡlɪf/

/ˈhaɪ.ɹəʊˌɡlɪf/

/ˈhaɪɚ.əˌɡlɪf/

First attested around 1598, a back-formation from hieroglyphic (1580s), from Middle French hiéroglyphique, from Late Latin hieroglyphicus, from Ancient Greek ἱερογλυφικός (hierogluphikós) (Plutarch τά ἱερογλυφικά [γράμματα] "hieroglyphic [writing]), ἱερόγλυφος (hierógluphos, “carver of hieroglyphs”) (Ptolemy), a compound of ἱερός (hierós, “sacred, holy”) and γλυφή (gluphḗ, “carved work”), a calque of Egyptian mdw-nṯr (“the god’s word”), nTr-md. By surface analysis, hiero- + glyph.

der

ἱερογλυφικός

Hieroglyphs were discovered on the wall inside the temple.

An element (individual sign or glyph) of a hieroglyphic writing system.


Chinese character

en-noun

Chinese character (plural Chinese characters)

There are no Publick Schools in all China (though ſome Writers have erroneouſly ſet forth the contrary) but every perſon chuſes his own Maſter, by whom he is taught in his Houſe, at his own charge. And in regard of the great difficulty in teaching the Chineſe Characters, in reſpect of their vaſt number and variety, it is impoſſible for one to teach many ſeveral perſons ; and therefore every Maſter of a Family takes an Intſructer into his Houſe for his Children, of whom if there be two or three to learn, they are as many as one Tutor can well teach.

1669, John Nievhoff, translated by John Ogilby, An Embassy from the Eaſt-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China, London: John Macock, page 163:

Had it not been for the casual discovery in the year 1625 of a deeply buried black marble tablet near Hsi-an containing nearly 1,700 Chinese characters, and a long list of names of priests in Syriac, the fact that such a sect rooted itself in the Celestial Empire would never have been believed, as indeed after the tablet was unearthed it was for a long time discredited.

1912, Arthur Henderson Smith, “Uplifting Leaders”, in The Uplift of China, →OCLC, page 117:

Any character used in the written form of several languages of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

кита́йская гра́мота

can also be derogatory, "something unreadable"


syllabary

/ˈsɪləˌbɛɹi/

From Neo-Latin syllabārium, from syllaba.

It shouldn't be hard to come up with a musical syllabary in which pitches code for vowels and timbres code for consonants.

(orthography) A writing system where each character represents a complete syllable.


Hanzi

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 漢字 /汉字 (Hànzì). Doublet of kanji and hanja.

On May 21, 1957, the Jen min je pao published the text of the previous day’s discussions during which writers and scholars of various tendencies had examined before the Commission the proposed reform (which, in the opinion of certain “leftists,” entailed in fact the suppression of the han tzŭ, the Chinese characters).

[1959, Etiemble, “One China or Two?”, in Evergreen Review, volume 2, number 8, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 31:

Chinese character
Chinese character#English

Synonym of Chinese character (specifically in relation to Chinese)


cuneiform

From French cunéiforme or New Latin cuneifōrmis, from Classical Latin cuneus (“wedge”) + fōrma.

There, too, it was originally the vulgar script in contrast with the official cuneiform script employed for all official documents, compacts, etc.

1911, Alvin Sylvester Zerbe, The Antiquity of Hebrew Writing and Literature, page 182:

The text is inscribed on a clay tablet of a very unusual format. The only other known mathematical cuneiform text on a clay tablet of a similar format is also the only previously known Kassite (and therefore post-Old-Babylonian) mathematical cuneiform text.

2000, Jöran Friberg, A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts, page ix:

Written in the cuneiform writing system.


cuneiform

cuneiforms (plural)
cuniform (alternative)

An ancient Mesopotamian writing system, adapted within several language families, originating as pictograms in Sumer around the 30th century BC, evolving into more abstract and characteristic wedge shapes formed by a blunt reed stylus on clayen tablets.

釘頭文字 /钉头文字

ding¹ tau⁴ man⁴ zi⁶, deng¹ tau⁴ man⁴ zi⁶

(anatomy) A wedge-shaped bone, especially a cuneiform bone.


braille

braille (countable and uncountable, plural brailles)

Borrowed from French braille, named after French educator Louis Braille (1809–1852). The /eɪl/ seems to reflect a spelling pronunciation; French has /aj/ instead.

named-after

Another difficulty which causes literature in braille to remain scarce is the cumbersomeness of the process of producing braille books.

1963, S. C. Ashcroft, Freda Henderson, Programmed Instruction in Braille, Stanwix House, →ISBN, page 6:

A system of writing in which letters and some combinations of letters are represented by raised dots arranged in three or four rows of two dots each and are read by the blind and partially sighted using the fingertips.


braille

en-verb

braille (third-person singular simple present brailles, present participle brailling, simple past and past participle brailled)

brailles (present singular third-person)
brailling (participle present)
brailled (participle past)
brailled (past)
Braille (alternative)

I played back my recorded notes and brailled them.

the sponsorship statement on respondent's brailled volumes [...] He admittedly had no knowledge of just how respondent's book [...] came to be brailled

1967, Carlton Fredericks, Federal Trade Commission Decisions, volume 71, page 237:

To write in, or convert into, the braille writing system.


Devanagari

/ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡ(ə)ɹɪ/

/ˌdɛvəˈnɑːɡ(ə)ɹɪ/

/ˌdeɪvəˈnɑɡəɹi/

Borrowed from Sanskrit देवनागरी (devanāgarī), compound of देव (deva, “deity, divine”) + नगर (nagara, “town, city”).

bor+

An abugida script used to write many languages originating in India and Nepal, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Maithili, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri, and Nepali.


pictograph

A picture that represents a word or an idea.

A graph that represents numerical data using pictures.


Gurmukhi

Borrowed from Punjabi ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ (gurmukhī) / گُرْمُکھی (gurmukhī), commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru", since it was standardised by Guru Angad in the 16th century.

An abugida script, or writing system, designed for writing the Punjabi language used primarily in Punjab, India


abjad

From Arabic أبجد (ʔabjad), the term for the traditional ordering of the Arabic script (from the first four letters: أ (ʔ), ب (b), ج (j), د (d)). Compare English ABC and alphabet.
Linguistics sense coined by Peter T. Daniels.

consonantary

writing system with a glyph for each consonant

In Rabghuzi's Stories of the Prophets, a teacher asked Jesus, who was seven years old at the time, to repeat the alphabet and the abjad by rote.

2014, Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia: Conversion, Apostasy, and Literacy, Cornell University Press, unnumbered page:

Abjad is the writing system used in this book, and it's also the writing system used throughout the Arabic world. For instance, most newspapers you pick up in the Middle East use the abjad writing system, whereby the consonants are included but not the vowels.

2018, Amine Bouchentouf, Arabic for Dummies, 3rd edition, Wiley, page 16:

A writing system for Arabic, historically also employed as a numeral system, in which there is one glyph (symbol or letter) for each consonant but vowels are not specified.


Ge'ez

Ge’ez (canonical)
Geez (alternative)
Gi'iz (alternative)
Giiz (alternative)
Geʿez (alternative)
Gəʿəz (alternative)

He takes out a leather-bound Bible, written in Ge'ez, illuminated by drawings of angels with large, soulful eyes.

2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books (2020), page 328:

An Ethiopian language which is extinct but still used liturgically.

The writing system originally used for the Ge’ez language.


aljamiado

From Spanish aljamiado (composed of aljamía + -ado), from Arabic عَجَمِيَّة (ʕajamiyya) or اَلْعَجَمِيَّة (al-ʕajamiyya), from عَجَم (ʕajam, “non-Arabs, esp. Persians”) + ـِي (-ī, “relative adjective (nisba) suffix”) + ـَة (-a, “feminine marker, also used to mark language names or to generally form nouns from the adjectives”).

Aljamiado (alternative)
Aljamia (alternative)
aljamia (alternative)

Text of non-Semitic language, especially European languages, written in Arabic letters.

aljamia

non-Semitic language written in Arabic letters


Zhuyin fuhao

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 注音符號 /注音符号 (zhùyīn fúhào, literally “symbol(s) for annotation of sounds”).

bor

A phonetic alphabet used to transcribe Mandarin for students of that language and for inputting Chinese, now used primarily only in Taiwan. Variants also exist for other Chinese lects spoken in Taiwan.

注音符号

ちゅういんふごう, chūin fugō, ちゅうおんふごう, chūon fugō


Lontara

A syllabary used in writing the Buginese language.


Linear B

Named by British archaeologist Arthur Evans, to distinguish it from the other linear script, Linear A.

(archaeology, linguistics) A syllabary used to write Mycenaean Greek in the second millennium BC, before the invention of the Greek alphabet.


Linear A

Named by British archaeologist Arthur Evans, to distinguish it from the other linear script, Linear B.

(archaeology, linguistics) A syllabary used to write the as-yet-undeciphered Minoan language, and an apparent predecessor to other scripts, such as Linear B.


Tibetan script

An abugida writing system of Indic origin used to write Tibetan as well as Dzongkha, Ladakhi, and sometimes Balti.


Thaana

The modern writing system of the Dhivehi language spoken in the Maldives.


Limbu

Their Tibeto-Burman language, written in a unique script.


Kaithi

Borrowed from Hindi कैथी (kaithī). Doublet of Kayasthi.

Kayathi (alternative)
Kythee (alternative obsolete)

A script historically used in parts of North India to write legal and administrative records.


Cham

The Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by these people.


Romanization

en-noun

Romanization (countable and uncountable, plural Romanizations)

Romanizations (plural)
romanization (alternative)
Romanisation (alternative)
romanisation (alternative)

/ˌɹəʊmənaɪˈzeɪʃən/

(usually uncountable) The act or process of putting text into the Latin (Roman) alphabet, by means such as transliteration and transcription.


Visible Speech

An early phonetic alphabet, devised by Alexander Melville Bell in 1867, with the characters intended to suggest the articulations of the speech organs when uttering them.


Kawi

The theory that Balinese religion was a branch of Indian Hinduism led the society to believe that the literature of ancient Bali should be in the classical language of India, but in fact the Kawi language has absolutely no grammatical connection to Sanskrit.

2012, Adrian Vickers, Bali: A Paradise Created, 2nd edition, Tuttle, page 118:

A literary and prose language based on Old Javanese with a large number of Sanskrit loanwords, and used on the islands of Java, Bali, and Lombok; or the script used in writing this language.


moonrunes

From moon + runes. Apparently coined based from moonspeak, an anime reference (of which see there), ultimately associating East Asian languages with celestial levels of foreignness.

Can anyone here read moonrunes?

I'm still learning moonrunes.

This imported box of Pocky is covered in moonrunes; I can barely read it.

(Internet slang, sometimes derogatory, sometimes humorous) An incomprehensible writing script, or the language associated with it, usually referring to Japanese, but may also refer to Chinese, Korean and other East Asian writing scripts.


Lepcha

Lepcha language
Lepcha people
Lepcha script

Their language, a Himalayish language in the Sino-Tibetan family, spoken by about 30,000-50,000 people.


Brahmi

Borrowed from Sanskrit ब्राह्मी (brāhmī, “speech, narrative”)

bor+

(linguistics) A script once used in south and central Asia.


Chakma

Borrowed from Bengali চাকমা (cakma), from Chakma 𑄌𑄇𑄴𑄟 (cakma), 𑄌𑄋𑄴𑄟𑄳𑄦 (caṅmha), ultimately from Sanskrit शक्तिमान (śaktimāna, literally “powerful”), composed of शक्ति (śakti, “power”) + -मान (-māna).

der

The Bengali-Assamese language and abugida of the Chakmas. In the early medieval period, they underwent a language shift from their original Jingpho-Luish tongue (of the Tibeto-Burman family).


Tangut

Bilgä Qaǧan
Ming dynasty
Richard Hakluyt
Secret History of the Mongols
Tangut language
Tangut people
Tangut script
William of Rubruck

From a Middle Mongol exonym used by the Mongols, which would become the Classical Mongolian ᠲᠠᠩᠭᠤᠳ (tangɣud) that was phonetically transcribed in Ming-era Early Mandarin Chinese as 唐兀_惕 (/*tʰaŋ(ŋ)ut/) in the Chinese edition of the Secret History of the Mongols (《元朝秘史》). The designation ultimately derives from Old Turkic 𐱃𐰭𐰆𐱃 (t¹ŋut¹) as attested in the 8th-century Bilgä Qaǧan stele. The English word, and similar forms in European languages, derives from Medieval Latin Tangut (*Tangunt in the Leiden manuscript) from the accounts of William of Rubruck compiled in the 1250s. The English form was attested in the writings of Richard Hakluyt who translated parts of William's accounts in the late 16th century.


Bamum

One of the Benue-Congo languages of Cameroon.


Pollard script

Invented by Methodist missionary Sam Pollard.

An abugida loosely based on the Latin alphabet, designed for use with the Miao language A-Hmao.


Arebica

(linguistics) A Bosniak variant of the Perso-Arabic script, once used to write the Bosnian dialect of Serbo-Croatian.


extended shinjitai

en-noun

extended shinjitai (plural extended shinjitai)

Calque of Japanese 拡張新字体 (kakuchō shinjitai).

clq

An unofficial shinjitai (new character form) created by analogy.


Kharoshthi

From Sanskrit खरोष्ठी (kharoṣṭhī, “Kharoshthi script”).

bor

A script used in ancient Gandhara (primarily modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan) to write the Gandhari Prakrit and Sanskrit.


N'ko

A writing system invented for the Manding languages of West Africa.


snake case

Coined in 2004 by Ruby programmer Gavin Kistner, from its resemblance to the long body of a snake, and by analogy with other naming schemes based on lower- and upper-case letters.

Some evidence shows that coders are better able to read code (their code and code written by others) when using snake_case, not camelCase naming.

2018, Camille McCue, Sarah Guthals, Helping Kids with Coding For Dummies®, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 130:

While both camelCase and snake_case are perfectly valid syntax in Java, the development community functions better when everyone adopts the same style convention.

2020, Jeanne Boyarsky, Scott Selikoff, OCP Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 11 Programmer I: Study Guide, Exam 1Z0-815, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 49:

We were incorporating third-party Python libraries for some of our projects, leading to a mix within our codebase of our own CamelCase format with the externally preferred snake_case style.

2020, Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, Hyrum Wright, Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time, O’Reilly Media, Inc., →ISBN:

(programming) The practice of writing identifiers using underscores to separate words.


Anatolian hieroglyphs

The ideographic script used to write the Luwian language, found in several inscriptions across Anatolia.


Garay

A writing system for the Wolof language introduced in the year 1961.


Kolezhuthu

Borrowed from Malayalam കോലെഴുത്ത് (kōleḻuttŭ).

bor+

One of the oldest writing systems in South India, formerly used to write Malayalam and Tamil.


Vatteluttu

An abugida writing system originating from the ancient Tamil people of South India.


Clear Script

An alphabet created in 1648, based on the Mongolian script, with the goal of distinguishing all sounds in the spoken language, and to make it easier to transcribe Sanskrit and the Tibetic languages.


chu nom

chữ nôm (alternative)
Chu Nom (alternative)

Chữ nôm was known only by the 5 percent or less of Vietnam's educated population, who used it not as a primary medium but rather as an aid to learning Chinese and for recording folk literature.

1997, Wm. C. Hannas, Asia's Orthographic Dilemma, page 83:

To write a vernacular word, Chu Nom used two Chinese ideograms—one to indicate the meaning, the other the sound.

1998, Kevin Bowen, Ba Chung Nguyen, Bruce Weigl, editors, Mountain River, page xxiv:

[P]olitical reforms along Western lines […] included […] developing modern science, agriculture, and commerce, and even creating a national writing system based on chu nom: ‘Have we not talented persons able to devise a script which will transcribe our national language?’

2016, Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, published 2017, page 106:

(historical) A writing system formerly used for Vietnamese, based on Chinese characters.


Uyghurjin

An early form of the traditional Mongolian script.

уйгаржин

Early form of the traditional Mongolian script.


Tanchangya

bor

Tanchangya 𑄖𑄧𑄐𑄴𑄌𑄧𑄁𑄉𑄴𑄡

Tangchangya (alternative)
Tonchongya (alternative)
Tongchongya (alternative)

Wiktionary’s coverage of Tanchangya terms

The Indo-European language of this people


quoc ngu

Promoters of quoc ngu were Vietnamese intellectuals who were either collaborators or anticolonial revolutionaries.

2003, Thaveeporn Vasavakul, edited by Brown & Ganguly, Fighting Words, page 223:

Students studied French and quoc ngu. Most (not all) agreed that Chinese characters no longer sufficed.

2016, Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, published 2017, page 107:

The romanized writing system used to write Vietnamese.


gukja

From Korean 국자(國字) (gukja). Doublet of kokuji.

Han characters invented and used only in Korea


Neo-Tifinagh

A modern, alphabetic variation of the Berber Tifinagh script.


Baybayin

A writing system used in the Philippines.


Takri

First, “it may be connected with the word ṭankā, which suggests its origins as a commercial alphabet.” Second, it may be connected with ṭhakur, “in which case it may originally have been the script used by Rajput landlords.” George A. Grierson writes that the name means “the alphabet of the ṭakkas”, who “ruled the greater part of the northern Panjāb.

An abugida script (nearly extinct) used to write many languages originating in India, including Jammu Dogri, Chambeali, Kangri, Kahluri, Mandeali, Kullui, Gaddi, Mahasui, Kashtwari, Churahi, and Bhateali.


Dogra

From Dogri डोगरा (ḍogrā), from Sanskrit द्विगर्त (dvigarta). The script was officially referred to as Sanskrit द्विगर्त अक्षर (dvigarta akṣara, “Dogra letters”). Another indigenous name for the script is Dogri [script needed] (dogra akkharor, “New Dogra letters”).

m+

द्विगर्त अक्षर

An abugida script (nearly extinct) used to write Dogri, a language originating in India.


Bhaiksuki

An ancient writing system used to write Buddhist texts in Sanskrit.


Nandinagari

Borrowed from Sanskrit नन्दिनागरी (nandināgarī). By surface analysis, Nandi + Nagari.

bor+

A writing system used to write in Sanskrit.


Pinyinize

en-verb

Pinyinize (third-person singular simple present Pinyinizes, present participle Pinyinizing, simple past and past participle Pinyinized)

Pinyinizes (present singular third-person)
Pinyinizing (participle present)
Pinyinized (participle past)
Pinyinized (past)
Pinyinise (alternative)
pinyinise (alternative)
pinyinize (alternative)

The move to Pinyinise Chinese names in schools meant technically switching to a different system of spelling for names to which people were unaccustomed to.

1983, Ministry of Culture, The Mirror, numbers 19-20:

I'm not Chinese, but I can tell you that Mao Zedong's Chinese name, 毛泽东, would be officially Pinyinized as "Mao2 Ze2 Dong1", Deng Xiaoping's name, 邓小平, is "Deng4 Xiao3 Ping2" and Beijing's kanji, 北京, is "Bei3 Jing1".

2000 August 10, Your Name Here:, “MAO SAYDONG???”, in alt.tv.game-shows (Usenet), retrieved 2022-04-23:

A quick Google on "French Revolution" "too soon" turns up scads of references to this famous and highly quotable remark, attributed variously to Chou and Mao; some of them even pinyinise the names to Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong.

2002 January 20, Phil Edwards, “Mao (or Chou) and the French Revolution”, in alt.folklore.urban (Usenet), retrieved 2022-04-23:

To understand why many Singaporeans remained unimpressed with the state's call to Pinyinize personal names, particularly their family names, we need first to appreciate that the more successfully implemented SMC measures were successful precisely because Singaporeans were convinced of their pragmatic and communitarian rationales.

2011, Lionel Wee, Language Without Rights, page 119:

At the height of the movement to pinyinise place names in Singapore, Bukit Panjang, now a Housing and Development Board New Town, was known as Zhenghua, along with Yisbun for Nee Soon, and Zhujiao market for tek kha market in Kandang Kerbau.

2013, Victor R Savage, Brenda Yeoh, Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics, page 55:

However, this distinctive dialect market is slowly being eroded as new parents choose to englishize and pinyinize their children's names.

2015, Jessieca Leo, Global Hakka: Hakka Identity in the Remaking, page 181:

(transitive) To romanize Standard Mandarin using the Pinyin system.


pinyinize

pinyinize (third-person singular simple present pinyinizes, present participle pinyinizing, simple past and past participle pinyinized)

pinyinizes (present singular third-person)
pinyinizing (participle present)
pinyinized (participle past)
pinyinized (past)

(transitive) Alternative letter-case form of Pinyinize.


Pinyinise

Pinyinise (third-person singular simple present Pinyinises, present participle Pinyinising, simple past and past participle Pinyinised)

Pinyinises (present singular third-person)
Pinyinising (participle present)
Pinyinised (participle past)
Pinyinised (past)

(transitive) Alternative spelling of Pinyinize.


pinyinise

pinyinise (third-person singular simple present pinyinises, present participle pinyinising, simple past and past participle pinyinised)

pinyinises (present singular third-person)
pinyinising (participle present)
pinyinised (participle past)
pinyinised (past)

(transitive) Alternative letter-case form of Pinyinise.


Pinyinization

en-noun

Pinyinization (countable and uncountable, plural Pinyinizations)

Pinyinizations (plural)
Pinyinisation (alternative)
pinyinisation (alternative)
pinyinization (alternative)

In Chinese, the speakability-readability problem is capable of various solutions depending on the audience for which the Pinyinized material is intended. A dilemma exists in the fact that the work of Pinyinization must be undertaken by people who are already literate—which means literate in characters—and Chinese literati, even of the newer generation, have displayed even less capacity than their Western counterparts to write in a style capable of ready comprehension by ordinary people.

1986, John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, page 198:

There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that official pinyinization only applies to PRC placenames. This lets out Taipei and, until recently, Hong Kong and Kowloon.

2000 June 18, Mike Wright, “一、台北市路牌；二、漢語拼音”, in sci.lang (Usenet), retrieved 2022-04-23:

Chinese doesn't have any capitals, so it really doesn't matter :-)
If you're talking Pinyinization, I guess the only capitals would be Ni and Zhongwen.

2000 November 13, Dalai Lama, “Election Results...”, in alt.roundtable (Usenet), retrieved 2022-04-23:

His rationale was that pinyinization was necessary to reduce dialect-based identity and to unite the Chinese community.

2003, Roxy Harris, Ben Rampton, The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader, page 184:

No it's our good friend Juli Zhang who promotes pinyinisation of Chinese.

2005 July 23, Dylan Sung, “accoustic^([sic]) evidence for uninterruption of speech”, in sci.lang (Usenet), retrieved 2022-04-23:

Two other interventions in bilingual education should be noted here: (1) the introduction of a few other Indian languages as mother tongues for Indian learners; and (2) the not too successful attempt at Hanyu Pinyinization of Chinese pupils' names.

2011, Andrew W. Conrad, Alma Rubal-Lopez, Post-Imperial English: Status Change in Former British and American Colonies, 1940-1990, page 451:

(uncountable) The Romanization of Standard Mandarin using the Pinyin system.


pinyinization

pinyinization (countable and uncountable, plural pinyinizations)

Alternative letter-case form of Pinyinization.


Pinyinisation

Pinyinisation (countable and uncountable, plural Pinyinisations)

From Pinyin + -isation or Pinyinise + -ation.


pinyinisation

pinyinisation (countable and uncountable, plural pinyinisations)

Alternative letter-case form of Pinyinisation.


Mandombe

(linguistics, writing system) A script intended for writing African languages such as Kikongo, as well as the four national languages of the Congo.


hyangchal

Borrowed from Korean 향찰(鄕札) (hyangchal), either Revised Romanization or Yale romanization.

A method of using Chinese characters to write pure ancient Korean texts, used in Sillan hyangka / hyangga poetry. It is similar to the Japanese practice of Man'yōgana.

Revised Romanization
Yale romanization of Korean


itwu

Borrowed from Korean 이두(吏讀) (idu), in the Yale romanization.

A method of annotating Classical Chinese text so that it can be read as Korean, using additional characters that represent Korean grammatical items.


Nagari

Borrowed from Sanskrit नागरी (nāgarī), feminine of नागर (nāgara, “of the city”, adjective), from नगर (nagara). Related to negara, Angkor.

An ancient Indian script, the ancestor of Devanagari and Nandinagari.


consonantary

A script or writing system which has glyphs only for consonants.


Warang Citi

Borrowed from Ho 𑣙𑣗𑣁𑣜𑣊 𑣏𑣂𑣕𑣂 (warang citi, “undying writing”).

bor+

Varang Kshiti (alternative)
Barang Kshiti (alternative)

an alphabet designed for writing the Ho language


semisyllabary

A writing system that uses a combined alphabet and syllabary.


Bassa Vah

(linguistics) An alphabetic script for writing the Bassa language of Liberia.


Sorang Sompeng

Borrowed from Sora 𑃐𑃦𑃝𑃗 𑃐𑃦𑃖𑃛𑃣𑃗 (sorang sompeng).

The alphabet used to write the Sora language.


Pallava

An ancient writing system used to write several languages of India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.


Thirke

An abugida used to write the Kodava language.


Pahawh Hmong

the writing system used for languages White Hmong and Green Hmong.


Khudabadi

An abugida script used to write the Sindhi language.


picturegraph

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-picturegraph.wav


Afaka

Named after its inventor, Afáka Atumisi.


Khitan small script

From Khitan + small + script, from a calque of Chinese 小字 (xiǎozì, “small script”), in reference to the script's comparatively small number of characters when contrasted with Khitan large script.

cal

(historical) A logographic and syllabaric script, used to write the Khitan language.


Khitan large script

From Khitan + large + script, from a calque of Chinese 大字 (dàzì, “large script”), in reference to the script's comparatively large number of characters when contrasted with Khitan small script.

(historical) A logographic script, used to write the Khitan language.