Carpathian Basin Rovas

The Carpathian Basin Rovas script, or Kárpát-medencei rovás in Hungarian, was used in the Carpathian Basin between about the 7th and 11th centuries. Most of the inscriptions are in Hungarian, but some were in Onogur, As-Alan, Slavic or Eurasian Avar.

Carpathian Basin Rovas is thought to be a descendent of the Proto-Rovas script, which was used to the east of the Aral Sea between about the 1st century AD and 567, when the tribes who were using it, the Avars and Ogurs, started to move into the Carpathian Basin. That process took until about 670 AD, after which the Proto-Rovas script became the Carpathian Basin Rovas and the Khazarian Rovas scripts. The Proto-Rovas script was perhaps a descendent of the Aramaic script.

Since 2009 efforts have been made to revive the use of this alphabet. Some letters were added to it to represent sounds in modern Hungarian that weren't used historically.

Notable features

Type of writing system: alphabet
Direction of writing: right to left in horizontal lines
Used to write: Hungarian, Onogur, As-Alan, Slavic and Eurasian Avar.

Carpathian Basin Rovas

Letters in red were not used historically, and in most cases IPA transcriptions show the modern pronunciation of letters on the left and the historical pronunciation (where different) on the right.