The world's 228 writing systems span 64 script families across 10 historical clusters — reflecting shared ancestry, geographic spread, and typological kinship. Of these, 131 scripts have a known family assignment; 97 have no family data and do not appear below.
Brahmic
Scripts descending from the ancient Brāhmī script of South Asia — the world's most linguistically diverse script family.
Brahmic (Ancestor)
1 scriptBrahmic / Aramaic
1 scriptBrahmic / Bengali
1 scriptBrahmic / Indic
20 scriptsBrahmic / Philippine
4 scriptsBrahmic / Southeast Asian
16 scriptsBrahmic / Tibeto-Burman
2 scriptsTibeto-Burman (Indigenous)
1 scriptSemitic
Scripts descended from ancient Semitic abjads — Arabic, Hebrew, and their ancestors from the Fertile Crescent.
Arabic-derived
1 scriptEthiopic / South Semitic
1 scriptSemitic / Derived
1 scriptSemitic / Phoenician
2 scriptsSemitic / Proto-Sinaitic
1 scriptSouth Semitic
1 scriptEast Asian
Scripts of East Asia — Han ideographs, Japanese kana syllabaries, Hangul, and related logographic systems.
Chinese (Script isolate)
1 scriptChinese Phonetic
1 scriptEast Asian (Logographic)
1 scriptEast Asian / Han
1 scriptJapanese / Kana
2 scriptsKorean
1 scriptSino-Tibetan (Logographic)
1 scriptSino-Tibetan / Southeast Asian
1 scriptSino-Tibetan / Yi
1 scriptEuropean
Scripts used across Europe — from the ancient Greek alphabet through Latin, Cyrillic, and their many derivatives.
Albanian (historical)
1 scriptArmenian
1 scriptCeltic / Latin-derived
1 scriptCyrillic / Greek
1 scriptCyrillic-derived
1 scriptGermanic / Greek
1 scriptGermanic / Latin
1 scriptGreek
1 scriptGreek / Egyptian
1 scriptKartvelian
1 scriptLatin
1 scriptSlavic / Greek
1 scriptAfrican
Scripts indigenous to Africa — modern West African inventions, ancient Meroitic, and the Tifinagh tradition.
Berber / Afro-Asiatic
1 scriptCentral African
1 scriptEast African
1 scriptEgyptian / African
2 scriptsCentral Asian
Scripts spread along Silk Road trade routes — Sogdian, Manichaean, Mongolian, and the Iranian Aramaic tradition.
Aramaic / Silk Road
3 scriptsMongolian / Uyghur
1 scriptOld Turkic
1 scriptTurkic / Runic
1 scriptAncient
Scripts of early civilisations — Mesopotamian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Aegean syllabaries.
Aegean / Prehistoric
2 scriptsAnatolian / Phoenician
1 scriptAnatolian Hieroglyphic
1 scriptCuneiform
2 scriptsCuneiform / Semitic
1 scriptEgyptian
1 scriptOld Italic / Etruscan
1 scriptAmericas
Writing systems developed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, including Canadian Syllabics and Cherokee.
Indigenous North American
3 scriptsConstructed
Scripts deliberately invented in the modern era for specific communities, languages, or artistic purposes.
Constructed
1 scriptIndo-Aryan (Created)
2 scriptsIndo-Burmese (Created)
1 scriptLatin-derived (Constructed)
1 scriptSino-Tibetan (Created)
3 scriptsSoutheast Asian (Created)
2 scriptsTibeto-Burman (Created)
1 scriptNotation
Specialised notation systems — stenographic shorthands and sign language writing systems.