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A guide to all the wonderful and interesting information about writing systems and languages you can find on Omniglot.

Contents

Writing systems | News | Articles | My blogs | Book store | Language learning | Useful phrases | Multilingual pages | Gallery | FAQs | Puzzles | Fonts used | Downloads | Bibliography | Statistics

Writing Systems

Information about over 150 different writing systems. Each page contains an illustration of a writing system; details of its origin, usage, notable features and the language(s) written with it; a sample text, and useful links.

This section is divided as follows:

• What is writing? (definitions of writing)
• Abjads/consonant alphabets
• Alphabets
• Syllabic alphabets/abugidas
• Syllabaries
• Complex writing systems (Chinese, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, etc.)
• Alternative writing systems (fictional and constructed alphabets and other communication systems)
• Writing systems invented by visitors to this site
• Undeciphered writing systems
• An index of all the writing systems and languages featured
• An index of writing systems by the direction in which they are written
• An index of languages arranged by the writing systems with which they are written

Some of the writing systems featured are used to write many different languages: notably the Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Devanagari scripts. Details of some of the languages written with these scripts can also be found in this section.

Omniglot news

Announcements of new pages/sections and significant improvements to existing pages. Also includes occasional links to writing and language-related news on other sites.

Language-related articles

Writing systems

• Revolutionary Scripts: The Politics of Writing Systems
• New Perspectives on Digraphia
• Globalization in the Information Age: Western, Chinese and Arabic Writing Systems

Language and language learning

• The language learning classroom
• SLANG - Are you In or Out?
• Language death and revival
• Reduplication in Filipino names and words
• That Squiggly Dash above an 'n' (and its linguistic significance)
• Why do many language courses not work?
• Lang-8 - language learning and social networking
• Spaced repetition learning systems (SRS)
• How to choose a good Italian language school in Italy
• Medvedev: hard to pronounce for some!
• Can Minority Languages Be Saved? Globalization vs. Culture
• How Not To Learn A Foreign Language
• 5 Reasons Why you Should Learn a New Language
• Secrets of Speaking with a Genuine Accent
• Language Teaching in Second Life
• First language attrition
• A little multilingualism please
• Short words, basic ideas
• The pleasure of learning languages
• Why learn French in France?
• Foreign Language Study for Homeschoolers: Problems and Solutions

English language

• Simpel-Fonetik Spelling
• English as a Universal Language
• Brief Etymological Review of the English Word-Stock
• Idioms: Piece of Cake or Hard Nut to Crack?
• A Glance at the Chinese 'English Learning Frenzy'

Spanish language

• What's the best way to learn Spanish?
• Spanish Prepositions - and Why You Need to Get These Right!
• 5 Top Tips For Learning Spanish
• Studying Spanish at Spanish Universities
• Learn Spanish While Studying Abroad to Broaden Your Mind
• Does anyone there speak Spanish?
• Learning Spanish to Improve Your Mind
• Latin American Spanish or Spanish For Latin America

Other languages

• The Last Livonian
• Konkani, A dialect? NO!
• 2008 Beijing Olympic Game Meets Challenge: Chicken without sexual life?
• Obrigado - how to express your thanks in Portuguese
• Why is Chinese so efficient? Good morning East Asia
• When Languages Combine

Raising Bilingual/Multilingual Children

• The First Five Steps to Success
• Fact or Fiction?
• The Snags
• The Different Methods to Success
• 10 Tips for Boosting The Minority language
• Is It Too Late?

Language and culture

• Islam And The West - We Are Culturally Closer Than We Accept

Translation

• Quebec's New Video Game Language Laws
• Avoid that workplace accident waiting to happen
• Translation Market Statistics (in Russian)
• How Eastern Europe fits into the European Translation Market
• How to get the most from your translation services provider
• Spanish Translation Translates To Higher Profits
• Polish immigrants' growing role in British consumer spending

Multilingual websites and databases

• Building multilingual websites
• Databases, SQL and Foreign Character Sets: It'll be O.K. in the N

Travel

• The Vanishing Batak Tribe
• Cham Muslims of Phnom Penh

Spoof articles

• Chinese characters to be phased out in China
• European Parliament to adopt Latin as official language

My blogs

Omniglot - the blog

My musings on language and languages, interesting words and phrases, details of my adventures in foreign parts, and various other bit and bobs. http://www.omniglot.com/blog/

Rywsut-rywfodd

My other blog which I use to practice writing in the languages I'm learning. At the moment I'm focusing particularly on Welsh and Irish, and write in both languages. http://www.omniglot.com/rywsut/

Book store

Books about writing, language and linguistics, plus language courses, dictionaries, grammars, etc. all gathered together in one place for your convenience and available from: amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, amazon.fr or World Language.

Get an Audiobook for FREE from Audible.com

Language learning - some tips

Why learn a language? | Which language? | What is the best way to study? | General tips | Learning pronunciation | Learning vocabulary | Spaced repetition learning systems (SRS) | Learning grammar | Learning a new writing system | Learning Chinese characters | Careers using languages | My experiences of learning languages

Useful phrases in many languages

Greetings and small talk

Welcome | Hello | Good morning | Good afternoon | Good evening | Good night | Good bye | How are you? | Long time no see | What's your name? | Where are you from? | Pleased to meet you | Good luck | Cheers/Good health | Bon appetit | Bon voyage | Excuse me | Sorry | How much is this? | Thank you | Where's the toilet? | Have a nice day | Get well soon | Would you like to dance with me? | I love you

Language difficulties

I don't understand | Please say that again | Please speak more slowly | Can you please write it down? | How do you say ... in [your language]? | Do you speak ...?

Special occasions

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year | Happy Easter | Happy Birthday

Emergencies

Leave me alone! | Help! Fire! Stop! | Call the police!

Time expressions

Days of the week | Months of the year | Seasons

'Useful' phrases

My hovercraft is full of eels | One language is never enough | Stop the world, I want to get off! | This gentleman/lady will pay for everything

Idioms

It's all Greek to me | It's raining cats and dogs | As easy as falling off a log | A sandwich short of a picnic | It's small world | When pigs fly | Out of sight, out of mind

Idioms in: Czech | Russian | Slovak

Tongue twisters

Proverbs, quotations and sayings about language

Phrases for individual languages

Afrikaans | Albanian | Aleut | Amharic | Arabic (Egyptian) | Arabic (Modern Standard) | Armenian | Azerbaijani | Basque | Belarusian | Bengali | Breton | Bulgarian | Cantonese | Catalan | Cebuano | Chabacano | Chamorro | Chechen | Cornish | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | Esperanto | Estonian | Faroese | Fijian | Finnish | French | Friulian | Galician | Georgian | German | Greek | Greenlandic | Hakka | Hawaiian | Hebrew | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Ilocano | Indonesian | Inuktitut | Iñupiaq | Irish | Italian | Japanese | Javanese | Jenesch | Jèrriais | Kazakh | Korean | Kurdish | Lakota | Lao | Latin | Latvian | Lingua Franca Nova | Lithuanian | Low Saxon | Luxembourgish | Macedonian | Malay | Maltese | Mandarin | Manx | Māori | Mongolian | Nepali | Norwegian | Occitan | Pashto | Persian (Farsi) | Polish | Portuguese (Brazilian) | Portuguese (European) | Romanian | Russian | Scots | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Sesotho | Shanghainese | Shona | Slovak | Slovenian | Spanish | Swedish | Tagalog | Taiwanese | Thai | Tsotsil | Turkish | Ukrainian | Urdu | Uzbek | Venetian | Vietnamese | Welsh | Xhosa | Yiddish | Yoruba | Zulu |

Multilingual pages

• Language names in their own scripts
• Country/region names in local languages
• Numerals in many different scripts
• Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in over 300 languages
• Tower of Babel story in over 100 languages
• Omniglot in various scripts and languages
• Colour words in many languages
• Songs in a number of different languages
• Celtic languages

Multilingual computing

A brief introduction to Unicode, how to type accented letters and other special characters and a number of pages designed to demonstrate Unicode:

• Unicode
• Accents & special characters - Mac O/S
• Accents & special characters - Windows
• Accents & special characters - HTML
• Foreign language software

Gallery

Gallery of language and writing-related art sent in by visitors to this site. If you would like to contribute to this section, please contact me.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Answers to the questions I receive most often. Please read this page before contacting me.

Puzzles

Questions submitted by visitors to this site which I'm unable to answer.

Links

Writing | Language | Sign languages | Chinese | English | German | Irish | Japanese | Spanish | Hieroglyphs | Elvish | Foreign fonts | Online dictionaries | Online language courses | Bilingual and multilingual resources | Phrases | Software | Online radio | Online translation | Online news | Your name in... | Conlangs | Calligraphy | Jobs using languages

Font list

A list of the fonts used on this site.

Downloads

Fonts for some of the constructed writing systems on this site.

Script charts - the Excel spreadsheets I use to produce the alphabet and pronunciation charts.

Audio recordings - a list of some of the sound files available for download on this site, including collections of useful phrases in various phrases.

Bibliography

Details of the books used as sources of information for this site.

Omniglot statistics

Find out how many people visit this site, how many times they visit and how many pages they look at.

About the author

Information about me, the author of Omniglot in many different languages.

Photo gallery

A few photos of me and my friends, and the places I've visted and lived in.

Contact me

Contact form and other ways to contact me.

Search this site

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web www.omniglot.com

Please note

Omniglot is not affiliated with any academic or other institution. It is the creation of one man, Simon Ager, with corrections, suggestions and additional material provided by visitors. It started way back in 1998 as a hobby which I worked on in my spare time, but since June 2008 I have been working on it full-time and it is now my main source of income.

While I make every effort to ensure that the information is accurate, there will inevitably be some errors and mistakes. If you spot any, please contact me. Your input is always welcome and very much appreciated.

If you would like to use any of the information or images from this site, please contact me.

All the material is available to you free of charge. I also do my best to answer your questions and provide advice on a range of writing and language-related topics.

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