Old Zubaric Abjad (Átyódh Azzbyár) The Zubaric abjad is a cuneiform writing system created by Jason Liekhus, who started work on it in 2006 for use in his constructed world project. The mechanics of the writing system were inspired by the Semitic abjads, and in part by complex writing systems such as Japanese. Its…
Zapotec There are about 60 Zapotecan languages spoken in Mexico. They are part of the Oto-Manguean family of languages and there is mutual intelligibility between some of them. About half a million people speak these languages in southern Mexico, especially in the states of Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guerrero, and they can be divided into four…
十丁文字 (shídīng wénzì) 十丁文字 (shídīng wénzì) is an alternative way to write Chinese devised by Litila in September 2008, since when it has undergone a number of revisions and simplifications. It uses parts of Chinese characters or symbols based on Chinese characters, and combines them together into syllabic signs. The name of the script means…
Xiě Yùn Xiě Yùn was invented by Christopher Yale Tang (唐泰川) in 2002. He was inspired to invent it after reading a book about Jurchen, the ancient language of the Manchus. He was amazed that Jurchen characters looked very similiar to Chinese characters, but that he could read hardly any of them. So he…
Xhosa (isiXhosa) Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa and is a member of the Bantu/Nguni family of languages. It is spoken by about 7.9 million people mainly in Eastern Cape Province, Orange Free State, Ciskei and Transkei in South Africa, and also spoken in Botswana and Lesotho. Xhosa is closely related…
h1>Xylphika Xylphika was invented by Ian James in 2008. It was inspired by various ancient South Asian writing systems, and is an offshoot of his major linguistic project (soon to be published). The name Xylphika is a pseudo-Greek back-derivation from Paracelsus’ coinage, meaning ‘out of the Sylphic’, suggesting translation from the words of an…
Yin yang Alphalines Yin yang Alphalines was devised in February 2006 by Erik Moreno, a Colombian teenager. The alphabet is based on Yin yang lines on South Korea flag. It is named Alphalines because from the joined lines the letters take form. The type of lines in each letter stem from a code for each…
Zulu (isiZulu) Zulu is one of the official languages of South Africa and is a member of the Bantu/Nguni family of languages. It is spoken by about 9 million people mainly in Zululand and northern Natal in South Africa and also in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland. During the early 19th century Christian missionaries,…
Zuni (Shiwi’ma) Zuni or Zuñi is a language isolate spoken by about 9,500 people in the USA, mainly in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, and in parts of Arizona. Zuni has been influenced to some extent by other languages in the areas where its spoken, in particular Hopi, Keresan, Tanoan, and also Navajo. The native name…
Záparo Záparo, a member of the Zaparoan language family, was spoken between the Curaray and Bobonaza rivers in Pastaza Province in eastern Peru. At its peak, Záparo was spoken by about 100,000 people, but a combination of diseases brought by Europeans, wars with other peoples reduced the number sigificantly, as did the distruption and scattering…
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