Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems: Alphabets, Abjads, Abugidas, and Syllabaries of All Languages Living and Dead (Linguistics)

See examples of (almost all?) languages and writing systems. Each writing system is described in 3 or 4 pages. Details include where it's used, who uses it, IPA pronunciations, vowels, consonants, and example words. It also shows the language's name, in the language. Interesting browsing if you love scripts and languages. It's not a dictionary nor a textbook.

I picked this up out of curiosity and ended up spending hours flipping through it. It’s dense, but in a good way—everything is well-organized and clear. I appreciated how it covered both familiar and obscure writing systems without feeling overwhelmed. The explanations didn’t assume a background in linguistics, which was helpful. It’s not something I’d read straight through, but it’s a solid reference I’ll keep coming back to when I want to learn how different scripts actually work.

A fascinating and meticulously detailed guide for anyone interested in language, history, or world cultures. The Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems dives deep into over 100 scripts from ancient hieroglyphs to modern alphabets explaining their origins, evolution, and sounds. It’s both scholarly and accessible, making it perfect for linguists, travelers, and curious minds alike. A true masterpiece of global communication.

UPDATE: I wrote a review of this product two days ago, which you can find below. In it, I described the book as lazy, poorly laid out, and disingenuous. For this, I apologize. I should have looked closer at the contents because it is far worse than any of that. Before, I had suspected that this book was entirely AI generated, but I had also assumed that the "author" had gone through and ensured the information was essentially correct. I now realize that this is not the case. This book is a product of willful ignorance and greed: almost every single detail is wrong. Given that the premise of this book is that it is meant to help readers "decode" writing systems, let's start with how it completely fails to do even that much: Graphemes are assigned incorrect phonemes and sometimes the graphemes themselves are incorrect. To illustrate this, I've included an infographic regarding the very first entry in this book, Adlam. It indicates every error I could find, but let me summarize: -Only 29 characters are given of a 34 character script. -5 of the characters given do not exist in Adlam. In fact, one of those characters is just the word "Jin", written in Roman characters; another is a random Cyrillic character. -6 of the sounds given do not exist in the Fulani language. -Every single example word is gibberish. I took the time to look up the worlds in a Fulani dictionary. None of them are correct. -The example words include "student" twice and then, separately, "students" as a plural. All three have entirely different words associated with them and yes, they are still all incorrect. -The entry claims that Adlam script has diacritics to indicate tone. Fulani is actually notable for NOT having tones, which is a point of contrast with other Niger-Congo languages. Let me tell you something about Adlam. The name of the script comes from the first 4 letters of the alphabet, ADLM. It's an acronym for Alkule Dandayɗe Leñol Mulugol, meaning "the alphabet that protects the peoples from vanishing." It's a beautiful phrase, one filled with so much history and emotion. Even knowing nothing about the language or people in question, you can feel the pain they must have suffered in the face of colonialism. The book, of course, does not mention this detail. It doesn't even list the script's letters in their native order. It's deeply ironic. This script was created to preserve a culture and language. In the creation of this book, the preservation efforts are being undermined, all so the "writer" can earn a few bucks. This is neocolonialism. There's a saying in Irish that came from their attempts to preserve their language: Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam. A country without a language is a country without a soul. And every time someone brute forces their way through a language, forces it to be more like English or can't be bothered to just write sounds properly, they're killing part of a culture's soul. Adlam is not the only script that suffers from this amount of misinformation. The entry on Bamum claims that the script has 500 characters. This is only true of its initial form, created in 1896. Its current form has 80 characters. The graphemes in this book also have the wrong sounds ascribed to them. The entry on the Osage script contains, of course, grievous errors regarding the letters and phonology, but also has other errors. It claims that the alphabet is unicase, but in reality it does differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters. It also claims that it has diacritics to indicate stress and pitch accent; the script's diacritics do neither of those things. And so on it goes. These are not the only entries riddled with errors. This book makes a mockery of every language and script meant to preserve and revitalize endangered languages. This book isn't just bad or lazy. It's dangerous. A friend of mine put it best: "the fundamental problem with AI: Writing [expletive] is now two orders of magnitude easier than proofreading it." We now live in a time where we must be wary of every new book that is published. Before, even badly-written or poorly-researched books had to have effort put into them. Now anyone can write up a simple prompt, stuff the results into a book, and make money from those who aren't careful. They don't even have to disclaim that they used AI. We can no longer assume good faith. As a writer and a linguist, I am heartbroken. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I was so excited for this book. I love reading about writing systems and all things linguistic and I was looking forward to expanding my knowledge and collection. This is the worst book I've ever seen on writing systems. The book boasts 500 pages on 100 writing systems. It does this by only dedicating a couple of pages to each system with about 2 paragraphs worth of information. The information given about the system is so basic that you'd be better off reading the intro section of its Wikipedia page. The book's layout is also a mess. The writing systems aren't organized by, say, type of system, such as abugida, abjad, alphabet, pictograph, etc. It doesn't even have a section explaining what those categories are. It also doesn't organize them by family or the region they come from. They're just listed alphabetically, with barely a care. The entries themselves have no interesting layouts to maximize the use of space and there are no examples of the writing system in its culture(s). In fact, the layout is deliberately arranged so that the book book is forced to take up more pages, resulting in the the impressive-looking but deceptive width of the book. The margins on the page are HUGE, too. If they were a reasonable width, the book would be maybe half the size it is now. In the writer's preface, they say that they wanted a quick reference book to "decode" the languages they've encountered in their travels. This is a bizarre premise. Languages are not a "code." Even if you can determine the individual sounds of each character, that will not help you understand what is being written unless you know the language. And if you know the language, you should already be able to read it without a book like this at the ready. It's also a disingenuous idea. As the book itself acknowledges, some writing systems--such as Arabic--have characters that change form depending on where they are in the word. This book doesn't even offer a chart of what these changes look like, which means it won't even function as the phonetic decoder ring it presents itself as. The writer also says that there is no "suitable reference book" on written languages and that this slop is the result of years of research. I can guarantee that the first statement is outright false and I struggle to imagine that the second could possibly be true. Allow me to recommend two books that are far superior. First: The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. It contains depictions of how systems have changed over time to become their most recent iteration and provides rich linguistic context. It is an expensive, book, however, and a bit unapproachable for novices. This brings me to my second recommendation: Writing Systems of the World, by Akira Nakanishi. It's a slender book, but its beautiful layouts maximize its space with dozens of examples. It isn't as deep a dive as the first recommendation I gave, but its range is broad and by far more comprehensive and educational than Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems. It's also very approachable and only costs about $15. For comparison, this barely-functional "Encyclopedia" is $22 at time of writing. The picture I'm including in this review is a comparison of Nakanishi's Writing Systems of the World (left) and Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems (right). They are both opened to their pages on Arabic. Nakanishi thoughtfully included a chart on the different forms Arabic letters can take and has a section on diacritics. There is love for the subject in that book. Meanwhile, the Encyclopedia is cold and uninformative. Also, check out the difference in those margins. Be good to yourself. Don't buy this book. There are so many better ones out there.

This book is a treasure for anyone passionate about linguistics or world history. It delves into an incredible range of writing systems, from ancient scripts to modern alphabets, offering detailed explanations and context for each. I was especially impressed with the illustrations and examples that made complex topics easier to understand. While it’s dense at times, the depth of information is worth it. A must-have for language enthusiasts or anyone curious about the evolution of writing.

Daniel Dinkelman's book is clearly a labor of love, but in many cases, including this one, it isn't nearly enough. This book is terrible. The reason is primarily the design. The people at the subsidy publisher, Cineris Multifacit, clearly don't know how to present this kind of project. First off, it is missing quite a few of the major writing systems (Maya Glyphs! Where the eff are the Maya glyphs?), and those of the obscure ones are presented in a way to make them hard to figure out. This makes the project almost worse than useless. Let's take an example: Roman script. This is the easiest because the book is mostly written i it and all the readership is familiar with it. It's listed as LATIN and not Roman (which is the name of the script and is on page 206. Why is in the middle of the book and titled in such a way as to be difficult to find? The introduction is fine as it goes, sort of, but the display of the alphabet itself it's only in 10-point type, which means it's readable but for someone needs reading glasses or squinting. The display is incomplete. Why just have only the 26 letters with none of he variations? Dinkelman neglects ſ (the long s), Þ, þ, Ð ð, ß, and the like; also, where are the numerals? Numerals are an important part of any writing system, don't cha know? Also, we don't have any examples of cursive. Cursive can be somewhat quite different from 'print', and it's missing. Why is that? Also, the display is too small. it should be 15-point, not 12. Secondly, it's badly organized. Doing stuff in alphabetical order is fine in many things, but not here. Dinkelman has several writing systems that are exactly the same except for some modifications. Take Lisu for example, why not just have it listed with some of the modifications from the Roman alphabet? it would be far better to have all the living alphabets and their ancestors in one section, the abjads (which are derived from the same source) in another, and syllabaries and other systems in some others. If you're going to use the "international phonetic alphabet," you should display it as a writing system. On the Runes page (362), Þ is listed as being pronounced þ, not Th. Most people are unaware of the letter thorn. As to idiogram/pictogram systems, they should have spent more space graphically showing HOW THEY WORKED. There are children's books that show that. Finally, the work should be more overtly historical. Cuneiform was a system used for dozens of languages over thousands of years, and it is only listed as Ugaritic, with the display of the symbols being too small. I hate carping on this, but I don't always have my reading glasses with me.

I picked this up for my son, who’s a linguistics major, and I knew right away it was something he’d love — and he totally does. It’s such a cool, detailed look at writing systems from around the world. Honestly, I bought it for him, but I’ve been flipping through it myself just out of curiosity. It’s one of those books you can open to any page and instantly get pulled in. Super interesting, even if you’re not a language expert. If you’re into language, history, or just fun facts, this one’s a great pick.

Grabbed Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems just to gawk at cool scripts, and it’s perfect for that. More “visual sampler” than true encyclopedia—gives a snippet of history plus word examples, then moves on. I learned a fun fact or two about dozens of languages without feeling like homework. If you want a deep dive, look elsewhere; if you just want eye candy and bite-size trivia, this is a great couch-flip book.

Reading this felt like hearing forgotten voices etched into stone, palm leaves, and paper. Each script opened a window into a different world—some extinct, others still breathing today. I especially loved the mix of visual diagrams and pronunciation aids, which made complex systems more approachable. It didn’t just catalog alphabets—it honored them. Tracing scripts like Tifinagh and Hanunó'o reminded me how writing is a living artifact of culture and identity. I’ve returned to it more than once just to admire the sheer diversity. For anyone who sees language as art, this belongs in your hands.

O livro "Encyclopedia of World Writing Systems" é uma obra que apresenta mais de 100 alfabetos e sistemas de escrita diferentes, abrangendo tanto línguas atualmente em uso quanto outras já extintas, oferecendo um panorama global da diversidade linguística da humanidade. A obra é extremamente interessante para quem deseja conhecer e compreender outras culturas através de seus sistemas de escrita, sendo igualmente valiosa para linguistas profissionais, viajantes ávidos por entender melhor os destinos que visitam ou simplesmente curiosos apaixonados pela riqueza cultural do mundo. É importante mencionar que as informações apresentadas sobre cada alfabeto são básicas e introdutórias, mas esse nível de abordagem é suficiente e apropriado para fornecer uma compreensão das características fundamentais de cada sistema de escrita. Recomendo este livro a todos que se interessam por linguística, antropologia, história das civilizações ou simplesmente desejam expandir seus horizontes culturais através do fascinante mundo dos sistemas de escrita.

C'est plutôt très complet mais les typo ne sont pas toujours très belles, genre normalisées pour ordinateur. Et puis ça manque de plus grands échantillons de texte. Allez voir Omniglot the encyclopedia on line, vous serez comblé

This book blew my mind. As a casual linguist and someone interested in the development and history of language (I can stare at the Rosetta Stone for far too long) I expected some familiarity with many of the scripts described. But this book is a treasure trove of language from around the world and I learned so much just from dipping in and out. Nothing is described in great detail, but just enough to give you the basics and to keep you interested for more.

This is a comprehensive reference for anyone intrigued by the diversity of human scripts. It covers over 100 systems and the examples make it accessible and engaging. A valuable and well-organized resource that will inspire both casual readers and serious linguists alike.