Standard galactic alphabet

Standard Galactic Alphabet Origin The Standard Galactic Alphabet or SGA is used in the Commander Keen series of computer games. It was created by Tom Hall, who originally just wanted to make the writing on signs in the games look futuristic or alien. Then he realised that he could create a whole alternative alphabet and…

Shabaki

Shabaki (زِوان شَبَكي) Shabaki is a language spoken by Shabak people in Mosul, Iraq. It is part of the northwestern group of the Iranian part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. The Shabaki language belongs to the Zaza-Gorani group and is supposed to share major similarities with Gorani dialects such as Hewremi, Bajelani…

Shan

Shan   Shan is a Tai language spoken by about 3.3 million people in the Shan States of Burma in the northeast of the country, and also in parts of northern Thailand and in the Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna) Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan province in southwestern China. The language is also known as Tai-Yai, Tai-Long and…

Shandanese

Shandanese    The Shandanese script was invented by Javier Miranda in 2001 while he was on vacation in Puerto Rico. He uses it to write his conlang, also called Shandanese, which was inspired by the Ancient Egyptian language and has pronunciation similiar to Arabic and Greek. Notable features Type of writing system: alphabet Direction of…

Shanghainese

Shanghainese (上海闲话 / Zanhe-ëwo) Shanghainese is a dialect of Wu spoken by about 15 million people in Shanghai. There are also many Shanghainese speakers in Hong Kong. There is no standard written form of Shanghainese and it rarely appears in writing. Though the language is the everyday spoken language of Shanghai, it isn’t used in…

Sharda

Sharda alphabet   Origins The Sharda or Śāradā alphabet developed from the Brahmi script during the second half of the 8th century AD. The earliest known inscription in the Sharda alphabet dates from 774 AD and was discovered in a village called Hund in the west of Pakistan. Today only a small group of Brahmins…

Sharjastani

Sharjastani (الخط الشارجستاني) The Sharjastani script was conceived in 2008 by UC Berkeley student, Sharja Khan, as an alternative script for writing Arabic and can be adapted to any language that uses the Arabic alphabet. The concept of writing vertically originated primarily out of convenience, as he found it more practical for taking class notes…

Shavante

h1>Shavante (aʼuwẽ mreme) Shavante or Xavante is spoken by about 10,000 people in eastern parts of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso between the Rio das Mortes and the Araguaia River. It is a member of the Macro-Gê or Gê family of languages. Alternative names for this language include Akuên, Akwen, A’uwe Uptabi, A’we, Chavante,…

Shavian

Shavian Alphabet    Origin The Shavian alphabet is named after George Bernard Shaw and was devised by Kingsley Read. Shaw saw use of the Latin alphabet for writing English as a great waste of time, energy and paper, so in his will he stipulated that a competition should be held to create a new writing…

Shawnee

Shawnee (Sawanwa) Shawnee is a Central Algonquian language with about 200 speakers in central and northeastern Oklahoma. It was originally spoken in Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. During the 19th century and 20th century, a number of spelling systems for Shawnee were developed by missionaries, linguists and anthropologists. One system was devised by a Shawnee, Thomas…