syllabaries
Symbol-per-sound writing
Syllabaries are writing systems in which each symbol represents a syllable rather than an individual sound.
Japanese hiragana and katakana are syllabaries—each character stands for a consonant-vowel pair like "ka" or "to." Cherokee uses a syllabary created by Sequoyah in the 1820s.
Syllabaries contrast with alphabets, where symbols represent single sounds.
Indigenous Southeastern nation
- CreeAlgonquian people of Canada
- InuktitutInuit people's language
- hiraganaJapanese phonetic alphabet
- katakanaJapanese phonetic writing system
Cypriot · Mayan · cuneiform · hieratic · demotic · Phoenician · Mycenaean · Sumerian
Indigenous Southeastern nation
- CreeAlgonquian people of Canada
- InuktitutInuit people's language
- OjibweAlgonquian-speaking indigenous nation
- revitalizationRestoring vigor or vitality
preservation · documentation · missionaries · adaptation · community · transmission · endangered · oral
Ordered letter collections
- logogramsSymbols representing words
- ideogramsSymbols representing ideas directly
- pictogramsImages conveying meaning
- writingRecorded language on surface
script · characters · signs · marks · strokes · typography · calligraphy · fonts
Minimal sound distinctions
- graphemesUnits of writing systems
- charactersPersons in a narrative
- symbolsMarks conveying meaning
- glyphsCarved symbolic figures
morphemes · transcription · orthography · transliteration · phonology · vowels · consonants · segments
Cherokee
Indigenous Southeastern nation
katakana · Cypriot · Mayan · cuneiform · hieratic · demotic · Phoenician · Mycenaean · Sumerian · Akkadian
Cherokee
Indigenous Southeastern nation
- CreeAlgonquian people of Canada
- InuktitutInuit people's language
- OjibweAlgonquian-speaking indigenous nation
revitalization · preservation · documentation · missionaries · adaptation · community · transmission · endangered · oral · literacy
alphabets
Ordered letter collections
- logogramsSymbols representing words
- ideogramsSymbols representing ideas directly
- pictogramsImages conveying meaning
writing · script · characters · signs · marks · strokes · typography · calligraphy · fonts · letterforms
phonemes
Minimal sound distinctions
- graphemesUnits of writing systems
- charactersPersons in a narrative
- symbolsMarks conveying meaning
glyphs · morphemes · transcription · orthography · transliteration · phonology · vowels · consonants · segments · notation
syllabariesalphabets
Ordered letter collections
Latin alphabet · Greek alphabet · Cyrillic alphabet · Roman script · Chinese characters
syllable, syllables, syllabic, syllabary, monosyllable, syllabled, syllabification, trisyllable