Old Persian Cuneiform Origin Darius I (550-486 BC) claims credit for the invention of Old Persian Cuneiform in an inscription on a cliff at Behistun in south-west Iran. The inscription dates from 520 BC and is in three languages – Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian. Some scholars are sceptical about Darius’ claims, others take them…
Orgom Silawa Orgom Silawa is a language and alphabet invented by Neal Wiley for his own amusement and for artistic purposes (as well as an exercise in logic). The alphabet is modeled (quite loosely) on the Glagolitic alphabet, used for writing Old Slavonic. Notable features Type of writing system: alphabet Direction of writing: left…
Oriya alphabet Origin The Oriya script developed from the Kalinga script, one of the many descendents of the Brahmi script of ancient India. The earliest known inscription in the Oriya language, in the Kalinga script, dates from 1051. The curved appearance of the Oriya script is a result of the practice of writing on…
Orkhon / Old Turkic The earliest known examples of writing in any Turkic language were found in the Orkhon river valley in Mongolia in the 19th century. They date from the early 8th century AD and the script in which they are written is known as the Orkhon alphabet, or the Old Turkic script,…
Oromo (Afaan Oromo / Oromiffa / ኦሮምኛ) Oromo is a Cushitic language spoken by about 30 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Egypt and is the 3rd largest language in Africa. The Oromo people are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and account for more than 40% of the population. They can be found…
Osage Osage is language a Siouan language with between 15 and 20 mainly elderly speakers in Oklahoma. The language has been in decline since the early 20th century, however the Osage Nation is currently trying to revive and revitalise it. There are some 300 people currently studying the language, including five advanced learners. Osage has…
OshiWambo OshiWambo is a Bantu language spoken by about 680,000 people in Namibia and Angola. Major dialects include Kwanyama (OshiKwanyama), which is spoken in northern of Namibia and southern of Angola; Ndonga (OshiNdonga), which is spoken in northern Namibia; and Kwambi, which is also spoken in Namibia. Both dialects have been used as a medium…
Ossetian (ирон ӕвзаг / дигорон ӕвзаг) Ossetian or Ossetic is a member of the Northeastern Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. About 500,000 people speak Ossetian in Ossetia, a region that straddles the border or Russia and Georgia. The majority of Ossetian speakers live in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (Цӕгат Ирыстоны Аланийы Республикӕ) in Russia.…
Otomi (Hñähñu) Otomi is an Oto-Manguean language spoken by about 240,000 people in Central Mexico, especially in the states of México, Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Tlaxcala and Michoacán. There are many different dialects of Otomi, some of which are mutually unintelligible, and each one has a different native name for the language, including: Hñähnü,…
Oxidilogi Mike Lensman (epagan1781 at gmail dot com) created the Oxidilogi alphabet to write a conlang he’s currently working on. The shapes of the letters are based on the ‘Phags-pa script. The name of the alphabet is a working title based on the Greek for acid and script. It’s called this because the people in…
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