(From what I understand in the Indian subcontinent and areas under cultural influence from it there's been more of a historical tendency to "fork" different variant scripts and start treating them as separate scripts, which partly explains the diversity.) I suppose in a very broad sense syllabaries could be considered "alphabets" (though I'd definitely draw the line at semanto-phonetic scripts like Chinese characters) it lists four currently in use. In the broad sense, it also lists three abjads currently in use (plus two in use to a limited extent) and 22(!) abugidas currently in use and 50(!!) used to a limited extent. (Though it also lists Coptic script as not currently used though as I understand it it's still in liturgical use, and Monglian script as not currently used though as I understand it it still sees use in Inner Mongolia.) So eight to ten depending how you count it.
Omniglot lists eight alphabets-in-the-narrow-sense that are currently in use: Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hangul, Latin, N'Ko, and Tifinagh. B, using the same letters with different values is in no sense a different alphabet.ĭefining alphabets would necessitate to not include alphasyllabries (almost all of South Asia and MENA/East Africa) or logograms (almost all of China).Īren't abugidas "alphabets" in the broad sense if not the narrow sense, just like abjads are? If we count each individual script, then basically around the same number as languages since each language would hypothetically have a different orthographyĪ, most languages aren't written at all or are only occasionally transcribed ad-hoc. Any English speaker can look at a Finnish text, or Russian speaker at a Mongolian text, and see it's in the same alphabet they use with a couple extra letters, and the same fonts can be used for them, whereas you can't say the same for e.g. The first two seem much more sensible than the last. North Brahmic as one and South Brahmic as one). (If we count "Latin/Roman" as one and "Cyrillic" as one and South Asian syllabries by family i.e.
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