Marchen

Marchen is an abudiga or syllabic alphabet that developed from the Tibetan script in about the 7th century AD. It was used until about the 10th century AD to write Zhang-Zhung, an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken mainly in western Tibet. It is also known as the Zhang-zhung alphabet, Greater Mar script, or སྨར་ཆེན (mar chen) in Tibetan.

Other scripts were used to write Zhang-Zhung, including the Marchung or Lesser Mar script, the Pungchen or Greater Pung script, the Pungchung or Lesser Pung script, and the Drusha script.

Notable features

Type of writing system: Abugida / Syllabic Alphabet
Writing direction: left to right in horizontal lines
Script family: Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Brāhmī, Gupta, Tibetan, Marchen
Consonant clusters are written by stacking the letters vertically using subjoined letters. The subjoined letters are the same shape as the standard consonants, except la and ra.

Marchen script

Download a script chart for Marchen (Excel)

Sample text

Sample text in the Marchen script

Source: https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Marchen.html

Links

Information about Marchen script
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchen_script
https://babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2008/01/zhang-zhung-royal-seal.html
https://www.charactercodes.net/script/marchen

Marchen fonts
https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans+Marchen
https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Marchen.html

Abugidas / Syllabic alphabets

Ahom, Aima, Arleng, Badagu, Badlit, Basahan, Balinese, Balti-A, Balti-B, Batak, Baybayin, Bengali, Bhaiksuki, Bhujimol, Bilang-bilang, Bima, Blackfoot, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese, Carrier, Chakma, Cham, Cree, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Dham Lipi, Dhankari / Sirmauri, Ditema, Dives Akuru, Dogra, Ethiopic, Evēla Akuru, Fox, Fraser, Gond, Goykanadi, Grantha, Gujarati, Gunjala Gondi, Gupta, Gurmukhi, Halbi Lipi, Hanifi, Hanuno'o, Hočąk, Ibalnan, Incung, Inuktitut, Jaunsari Takri, Javanese, Kaithi, Kadamba, Kamarupi, Kannada, Kawi, Kharosthi, Khema, Khe Prih, Khmer, Khojki, Khom Thai, Khudabadi, Kirat Rai, Kōchi, Kodava Lipi, Komering, Kulitan, Kurukh Banna, Lai Tay (Tai Yo), Lampung, Lanna, Lao, Leke, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Lota Ende, Magar Akkha, Mahajani, Malayalam, Meitei (Modern), Manpuri (Old), Marchen, Meetei Yelhou Mayek, Meroïtic, Masarm Gondi, Modi, Mon, Mongolian Horizontal Square Script, Multani, Nandinagari, Newa, New Tai Lue, Ojibwe, Odia, Ogan, Pahawh Hmong, Pallava, Phags-pa, Purva Licchavi, Qiang / Rma, Ranjana, Rejang (Kaganga), Sasak, Savara, Satera Jontal, Shan, Sharda, Sheek Bakrii Saphaloo, Siddham, Sinhala, Sorang Sompeng, Sourashtra, Soyombo, Sukhothai, Sundanese, Syloti Nagri, Tagbanwa, Tai Noi, Takri, Tamil, Tanchangya (Ka-Pat), Tani, Thaana, Telugu, Thai, Thirke, Tibetan, Tigalari, Tikamuli, Tocharian, Tolong Siki, Vatteluttu, Warang Citi

Other writing systems

Page created: 13.03.23. Last modified: 09.02.26

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