Pashto

Pashto is a member of the southeastern Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. There are three main varieties of Pashto: Northern Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan; Southern Pashto, spoken mainly in Afghanistan; and Central Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan. The exact number of Pashto speakers is not known for sure,…

Pattern Script

Pattern Script    Pattern script is an alternative writing system for English created by J. ‘Mach’ Wust. The script was inspired by Hangul, but is designed to be written with contiguous signs. Notable features Used to write: English Vowel letters are written in the same square as the preceding consonant letters. There are special signs…

Pekrif

Pékrif alphabet    The Pékrif alphabet was invented in 2001 by Zack Hart. It was initially created on a whim by designing letters based on a dictionary pronunciation guide, but it later became associated with the growing con-society of Ánhrush and its associated language of Gomain, which the Pékrif is used to write and in…

Peperklips

Peperklips    Peperklips is the creation of Maestraccio Bart Thomasse. He developed it as an alternative, semi-phonetic alphabet for Dutch, because he believes that the Latin alphabet is not the best way to write the Dutch language. The shapes of the letters are based on paperclips, as the name of the alphabet suggests. Notable features…

Persian

Persian (Fārsī/فارسی) The Persian language has been written with a number of different scripts, including the Old Persian Cuneiform, Pahlavi, Aramaic, and Avestan, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. After the Islamic conquest of the Persian Sassanian Empire in 642 AD, Arabic became the language of government, culture and especially religion. Modern Persian appeared during the 9th…

Pesato

Pesato Pesato was created by Carl Buck for his personal constructed language Kala. It was inspired by the Chinese and Mongolian Seal scripts as well as Hangul. Notable features Type of writing system: syllabic Quasi-featural Direction of writing: left to right in vertical columns running from top to bottom or in horizontal rows top to…

Phagspa

Phags-pa script In 1260 Kublai Khan commissioned a Tibetan Lama called Blo-gros rGyal-mtshan, who is better known by the title Phags-pa Lama, to create a new national script to replace the Uighur-based script, which was devised in 1208. An edict was issued in 1269 requiring the use of the new script in all official documents,…

Phoenician

Phoenician/Canaanite   Origins The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, during the 15th century BC. Before then the Phoenicians wrote with a cuneiform script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet come from Byblos and date back to 1000 BC. The Phoenician alphabet was perhaps the first alphabetic script to be widely-used –…

Phon

Phon alphabet Phon is a universal auxiliary writing system invented by Samuel Putman. Universal because, like the International Phonetic Alphabet, Phon can be used in principle to write any statement in any language. Auxiliary because, like Esperanto, Phon is not designed to replace existing natural scripts, but rather to offer a way for all peoples…

Phonetic Script

Phonetic Script    This phonetic script is a graphic representation of the sounds of speech invented by Christian Crowley. The symbols are derived from the positions of the organs of speech as they form various sounds, so related phones have similar letter shapes. The letterforms represent the right profile of the speaker. The three basic…