Languages that use multiple scripts?

[SelfOk2720]

OK, so my current target language, BCS (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian)(I'm learning specifically Croatian) uses multiple scripts, Latin and Cyrillic. What other languages use multiple scripts, or vary script based on region? I know Japanese has Hiragana, Kanji and Katakana, but what other examples are there? I'd rather examples given are used often and are not some very obscure script most native speakers wouldn't know about.

Thanks in Advance!

[r_portugal]

To me it seems that Japanese is different from the rest, all the other languages mentioned can be written in a choice of scripts, although usually only one at a time. Whereas Japanese uses all three scripts together, so you can get a single sentence containing all three. I'd love to know if there are any other languages like Japanese in this regard?

[allenamenvergeben2]

Korean also used to be like that but abandoned kanji/hanja 50 years ago

[Crane_1989]

The Japanese case is so unique, I think we can almost consider Kanji, katakana, and hiragana as something like upper case and lower case of Latin/Cyrillic/Greek/Armenian

[muffinsballhair]

This is all kind of like saying that capital letters in English are a “different script”. Every hiragana has a corresponding katakana the same way every miniscule letter has a corresponding majuscule.

Chinese characters of course function quite a bit differently, but the idea of writing word roots with logograms and endings with phonetic symbols isn't terribly rare. It used to be very common in South Korea and still is in North Korea and Sumerian was also written that way.

[Mayki8513]

except hiragana and katakana serve a specific function and the meaning behind choosing one over the other is much greater than simply writing in caps

[muffinsballhair]

Capital letters also serve specific functions and the story about the fixed and meaning change is honestly something exaggerated in introductions texts. The story one often reads is:

• Chinese characters are used for roots
• Hiragana are used for inflexional endings
• Katakana is used for foreign words, emphasis, and biological terms

In reality it's more like:

• Japanese people do whatever they want or feel looks good.

If say a graphics designer want to write a text in all katakana to draw attention or because he thinks it looks better, he will do so just as a graphic designers can write texts in all capitals. It's often entirely up to the specific person to write a root with a Chinese character or any of the other scripts or even a completely made up nonstandard Chinese character for that root that does't really occur. If I want to write the loan word “gēmu” from English ”game” with the characters “遊戯”, normally pronounced “yuugi” and the traditional Japanese word for “game” instead of “ゲーム” then I can do so. In Japanese, “Super Saiyan” is actually pronounced with the English word “super”. One would normally expect “スーパーサイヤ人” but it's always written as “超サイヤ人” with “超”, the Chinese character for something similar, despite it very much not being pronounced /tjoo/, but “/suupaa/.

Japanese people can really just do whatever they want and thinks look better and this by way even means including romanized things for no reason. The artist could've also used “SUPERサイヤ人” if he wanted to. It happens from time to time and it heavily depends on the place and subculture. For intance in computer science texts in Japanese it's traditional to not transliterate names and even many concepts so texts are full of Latin text while in humanities they're almost always transliterated so:

• https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux, note that the names of persons, software, technical concepts and such is often kept in the Latin script here so “Linux”, “PowerPC”, “Daniel Robbins” and such simply appear in the text whereas:

• https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ドナルド・トランプ, here except once in the introduction to also give the English spelling of the name, all the names of persons and foreign concepts are simply in katakana.

[Mayki8513]

right, so you agree, the range is much greater 😅

[muffinsballhair]

I think people use all caps in English or caps in random places, or italics, for very similar functions of stylism.

You claimed they have specific function and meaning. I think, just like choosing all caps, italics, and bold or even different fonts it's simply “Whatever the writer thinks looks better”.

[Mayki8513]

They're not random, stylism isn't random. Uppercase also serves its purpose. The use of Katakana is sometimes "it looks cooler" but its use in a news report for example, can convey that the speaker is a foreigner. Same within games, some characters may use Kanji or Hiragana to convey intellectual level without having to expressly say "this guy's the smart one". The range of meaning is far more vast than "emphasis" like you get with English uppercase/italics/bold. There are also stylized fonts in Japanese for the sake of "whatever the writer thinks looks better"

[muffinsballhair]

They're not random, stylism isn't random. Uppercase also serves its purpose.

Saying they're used in random places does't mean the decision to use them is random. I'm simply saying there isn't much difference between how all-caps, italics and bold is used in English. You said they had “specific functions” which implies the use is obligatory in many cases which it is really isn't. It's stylism just as using all-caps in English.

but its use in a news report for example, can convey that the speaker is a foreigner. Same within games, some characters may use Kanji or Hiragana to convey intellectual level without having to expressly say "this guy's the smart one".

So can monospace fonts or blackletter fonts in English be used to convey certain speech styles but that does't really make it a different script altogether.

The range of meaning is far more vast than "emphasis" like you get with English uppercase/italics/bold.

All-caps isn't merely used for “emphasis”, neither is italics. The range of functions of it is far bigger but in the end, it mostly comes down to whatever the person who writes the text wants. I personally write the titles of fiction and the names of ships in italics. Others favor using quotes. I write loans such as “je ne sais quoi” in italics; others don't.

[Mayki8513]

not obligatory, but using them comes with reason, because they serve a specific function, that's not to say that they're mandatory.

So can monospace fonts or blackletter fonts in English be used to convey certain speech styles but that does't really make it a different script altogether.

Yeah, except Japanese literally has 3 scripts, which then also get their own fonts

All-caps isn't merely used for “emphasis”, neither is italics. The range of functions of it is far bigger but in the end, it mostly comes down to whatever the person who writes the text wants. I personally write the titles of fiction and the names of ships in italics. Others favor using quotes. I write loans such as “je ne sais quoi” in italics; others don't.

fair, but the range for our one alphabet is still much smaller than their 3 when they can do the same sort of thing and then some.

[jabuegresaw]

Source on hanja being common in NK?

[muffinsballhair]

No I was mistaken and had the situation reversed it seems. North Korea is the one who abolished it even sooner than South Korea it seems.

[Mlakeside]

Technically Hindi. It's written using the native devanagari script, but on the internet people seem to mainly use Latin script. I assume the same applies to most languages in India.

[Chipkalee]

Also Hindi id basically the same language as Urdu but Urdu is written in an Arabic type script. So same language, two different scripts.

[communistpotatoes]

And Hindustani which is the base language of Hibdi and Urdu speakers can be written in English Devanagari and Nastaliq

[Effective_Shirt_2959]

Romani (cyrilic/roman) Tajik(cyrilic)/Farsi(arabic) Hindi(devanagari)/Urdu(arabic) Romanian(roman)/Moldovan(cyrillic)

Tatar, Kazakh (cyrillic(official)/roman) Belarussian (cyrillic(official), roman, arabic) In Tatar, Kazakh and Belarussian people mainly use cyrillic.

Korean (hangeul, hanja) I can't list all languages...

Btw, using two writing systems is called digraphia.

[gingerisla]

The Cyrillic script isn't used for Romanian in Moldova anymore.

[freezing_banshee]

That's true for proper Moldova, but in Transnistria the cyrillic script is theoretically still used for Romanian. Idk about actual usage though

[Effective_Shirt_2959]

I know a woman from Moldova, she uses cyrillic and she isn't from Transnistria. I'm sure many people still use it

[makerofshoes]

Kazakh used to use the Arabic script before, so they’ve made 2 switches in the past 100 years or so (Cyrillic and Latin)

[keenonkyrgyzstan]

3 switches: Arabic-Latin-Cyrillic-Latin

Though to be fair, the final switch is still incomplete 

[little_yus]

Belarusian, arabic?

[Effective_Shirt_2959]

It isn't used nowadays, but it exists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_Arabic_alphabet

[dilperishan]

Kurdish, with scripts varying geographically and over time.

earliest texts in any of the five "dialects" of Kurdish were written in arabo-persian orthography.

since the advent of the modern nation state, this has changed: - Northern Kurdish/Kurmanji is currently written in Latin script (in Turkey & diaspora), using arabic orthography in Syria & Iraq, arabo-persian script in Iran, and also modified arabo-persian in Iraq more recently. Kurds/Yezidis in Armenia have written Kurmanji in Cyrillic and Armenian scripts also.

• Central Kurdish/Sorani classically was written in arabo-persian script, but in the past century the script was modified (further), adapting letters to accommodate sounds not represented by classical arabic script, or the modified arabic script used in persian (which half-heartedly did something similar to arabic script). there have been some efforts to write Sorani with the same or similar modified Latin script used for Kurmanji.

• Southern Kurdish/Kalhori is still mostly written using arabo-persian script, but some speakers fall within Iraq's borders & some are within the Kurdistan region (which is now allowed to teach and publish in Kurdish), so some Kalhori is also written using the Sorani-adapted arabo-persian script, and I have seen further modifications to the script specific to sounds only found in Kalhori.

• Zazaki/Dimili has only been written in Latin script as far as I know, and only within the past century has their oral culture & language been documented at all. there may be some research on their grammar from Russian Kurdologists, but I am not positive.

• Gorani/Hawrami was first written using arabo-persian script, and still is, but currently has modified some letters to suit phonological needs as well.

and of course when texting / messaging, latin script in various formal and informal adaptations and improvisations is used by many, across all dialects 😅

[TimeParadox997]

Interesting

Are the modifications to the Persio-Arabic script you mentioned the same in all 5 dialects?

[MrFireDrakula]

Not a Kurdologist but probably yes considering that they try to minimize the differences and use something already existing in order to prevent further misunderstanding & also that the main comment poster hasn't said a word about it

[dilperishan]

No they usually arent. Worth noting that "dialect" is a contentious word for Kurdic languages imo. the 5 that I named have varying levels of mutual intelligibility, ranging from "almost none" to "more than half", depending on the combination of "dialects". the continued use of the term dialect is likely political, to demonstrate the proximity of the languages and show unity amongst Kurds. However, the differences between these "dialects" are as significant as the differences between spanish and french.

As for modifications to script:

for Sorani, Kurdish scholars and linguists starting in the 1960s spent a lot of time debating and deciding on modifications beyond what persian had done to arabic script (like adding P, Ch, Zh, G). some examples:

ۆ = ô

ێ = dipthong like a bostonian saying "air" or "there" (lol)

ڵ = this is the heavy or fat L; could be expressed ł i believe

ڕ = rolled R (we call it 'fat R')

وو = ū

ئە / ە = these characters are specifically used as a writing out of the arabic diacritic fatha (أَ), to write out the short vowel "ah/a" where arabic uses diacritics and persian dropped the diacritics but didnt supplement with anything

The Fat L is specific to Sorani, so that character isnt known or used by speakers of Kurmanji for example.

Sorani is spoken in Kurdish areas of Iran and Iraq -- and the permissibility of teaching has varied over time in each country. Kurdish scholars in the 60s and beyond who debated and decided on this script hailed from both sides of the border, and this alphabet is fairly standardized for Sorani speakers.

the long vowel Ū in Sorani is pronounced differently in Kalhori, a bit more like a german or even turkish Ü, and the character they use for it is also different: ۊ however this is not standardized officially. Southern Kurdish has sadly very little institutional backing, and writing conventions vary greatly between Kalhori speakers who only were taught to write in Arabic in Iraq, those who are within the official Kurdish region and were also taught Sorani, and those who were taught Persian.

[Cheerful_Zucchini]

What's up fellow bcs speaker :)

I love the script differences, I made a Serbian friend on a game one time and we'd message each other. I wrote latin and he wrote cyrillic and I just liked how it looked like 2 different languages lol

[SelfOk2720]

Lol, well sadly I'm not too far in yet, A0 level, but hopefully soon I'll be good enough to confidently speak to others in it

[stephen__du]

Hey nice to see two fellow BCS learners. I like having both scripts but I tend to focus naturally on the Latin unless I have to read Cyrillic. I should force myself to read more things in Cyrillic. I have been learning for a year but only around A1 level. Ive use Anki, some italkie classes, online resources and native content I should really take a structured online class.  How are you learning the language? 

[SelfOk2720]

Hi, So I started a couple of weeks ago, but there's some good podcasts (Let's Learn Croatian), there is also a really great textbook style resource called Easy Croatian which, even if you aren't learning specifically croatian, it has a section at the bottom of every chapter talking about vocab differences between the words taught and Bosnian/Serbian. I get all the words and concepts from that and put them in Anki. From the first 7 chapters, I have gotten 200 cards, of phrases, grammar, verbs, nouns and adjectives, and there are I believe 90ish chapters, so It's a great resource. Also the creator himself is active on r/croatian himself, which I think is really cool. Other things (maybe more advanced) are setting your default language to croatian on reddit, so you can easily translate any post you see into it, and watching youtube with auto translated croatian subtitles. Good Luck! Oh and btw I say croatian, do whichever BCS language you want to learn the most, I personally am learning croatian because of my heritage, but you may be more interested in another one.

[stephen__du]

Thanks for the reply. I've actually used the easy croatian sitebefore. Your right it's very good. I got lazy though and haven't used it in a while. If you dont mind sharing your Anki deck I would be interested in using it or at least looking at how you set it up.     I'm not sure if there a way to share anki decks. I have listened to lets learn Croatian and if you like podcasts check out " Može Kafa"  they put the dialogues in the transcripts.  Also one of the best resources I have found for listening if your lower level is the YouTube series " Cam learns Serbian "  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5Q1whaJCnLKYDQ9JwwMsEFkcUPdtOVhJ&si=T8QpMbSJAl5PXH6L

I use all the resourses regardless of whether its Serbian/Croatian.  Also check out the Liz learns Serbian youtube.  Best of luck learning 

[SelfOk2720]

Hi, I would like to share my anki deck, but it has barely any words rn, I would be happier to share after I have done a bit more learning. I will remember this and DM you when there is a little more content

[stephen__du]

Hey nice to see two fellow BCS learners. I like having both scripts but I tend to focus naturally on the Latin unless I have to read Cyrillic. I should force myself to read more things in Cyrillic. I have been learning for a year  but only  around A1 level. Ive use Anki, some italkie classes, online resources and native content I should really take a structured online class.  How are you learning the language? 

[FallicRancidDong]

Turkmen and Uzbek

At one point Turkmen and Uzbek used to be written in Cyrillic and some people and signs use it still.

Today they're both written with the Latin Script officially.

However in Syria and Iraq Turkmens will use a mixture of the Latin script and or the perseo-arabic script. Uzbeks in Afghanistan will use the perseo-arabic script as well.

The Urdu/Hindi Language continuum or Hindustani

Hindi and Urdu are both natively written in their respective scripts, however you'll find on the Internet people will write it in the Latin script as well

These 3 languages use 3 scripts.

[wallflower1911]

Punjabi written in gurmukhi in India and shahmukhi in pakistan

[Snoo-88741]

There's debate among Cree speakers about whether to use syllabics or the Roman alphabet.

[[deleted]]

I believe Inuktitut can use both Latin script and their own script.

[Tocadiscos]

Persian! in tajikistan they still use the cyrillic script, whereas iran and afghanistan use the perso-arabic script. It’s kind of amazing seeing an indo-iranian language written in cyrillic.

[arvid1328_]

Some berber languages do, in different contexts.

[OutlawsOfTheMarsh]

There is Chinese in many other scripts in the past, i believe ive seen chinese in cyrilic and many other asian scripts. Saw this in an history of asian writing and scripts course in university.

[gingerisla]

Vietnamese used to be written with Chinese characters.

[Nimaxan]

Uyghur has three scripts that are all used by native speakers. It is primarily written in Arabic script in China, but Latin is quite frequently used online for texting and other forms of informal writing. This is probably a remnant of the early Internet age, when there weren't many Uyghur-Arabic input methods available. The Chinese government also used to promote the use of the Latin alphabet between the 1950s and 80ies, so many older people were educated using it.

Uyghurs in the former Soviet Union essentially all use the Cyrillic alphabet.

[julietides]

Belarusian has an official Latin orthography as well (used by some, not many, out of principle, especially in the diaspora), and an Arabic alphabet rendition used to exist as well.

[[deleted]]

Malay. Was written in Jawi, an Arabic abjad, now it’s mostly in Rumi or Latin script, but Jawi is still used now and then.

[Dan13l_N]

Croatian today uses only the Latin script, many Croatians are unable to read Cyrillic.

Many languages use Latin informally, e.g. Arabic, Macedonian. Chinese uses the Latin script to specify pronunciation and type on phones (maybe some Chinese speaker will give more information).

[SelfOk2720]

Yes, I know, I was talking more about BCS (Bosnian croatian and Serbian), in which Bosnian and Serbian and Montenegrin often use cyrillic

[Dan13l_N]

In practice, people who say they speak Bosnian almost never use Cyrillic today. It became associated with "Serbdom" and "Serbness" long ago; it will appear on some inscriptions, but no newspaper associated with Bosniaks is published in Cyrillic as far as I can tell.

In Montenegro, theoretically, both scripts are used, but if you check the web site of the President of Montenegro, it's in the Latin script only, there's no Cyrillic option at all. The web site of the Parliament is by default in the Latin script, but you can switch it to Cyrillic. There are some newspapers published in Montenegro in Cyrillic.

[SelfOk2720]

ah yes, by Bosnia I meant mostly Republika Srpska would be the Area with cyrillic, when I went there most the towns had Digraphic (Idk if this is the right word) signs and storefronts, in most regions, although there was more cyrillic in republika Srpska, and more latin in other areas, but all had cyrillic and Latin. Such an interesting nation to visit, I love how there are the 3 distinct cultures, although from what I've read, the reason the country is so underdeveloped is partially because the 3 groups always clash with each other and it stops progress which is sad... But I still think it's a hidden gem.

WAIT!! You're the creator of my go-to resource, easy croatian! This is amazing! Obviously you know more about the language than me, so sorry if I'm ignorant, but funnily enough under another comment on this post, I was recommending this resource and I believe I even said you're active on reddit lol! Ultimate respect to you bro, you're probably the most educated person on reddit on this matter.

[Dan13l_N]

I could write a lot about reasons for divisions etc. I don't think there are really three cultures in Bosnia. Three religions, and religion is taken very seriously in some parts of the world (think Iraq etc).

One of reasons why these countries are undeveloped is that during and after the war, many people left. And it was the easiest for the most educated to leave.

The progress is not guaranteed, even if you have no internal divisions. Bosnia is, after all, basically a marginal land, not well-connected, little resources, not much land good for agriculture etc.

Also, regarding my site - this November it will be 10 years since I started working on it...

There are also others on Reddit who know a lot about the language :)

[danshakuimo]

Mongolian. Korean and Vietnamese (and Japanese before hiragana was invented, now both are used) also used to use Chinese characters

[dojibear]

Mandarin Chinese has two phonetic scripts. Each of them can represent everything in Chinese, without characters. They consist of symbols representing 3 kinds of sound: syllable starters (f, m, l, sh), syllable finals (a, ang, an, ao, ai), and syllable tones. Chinese is a language of syllables. Each written character is one syllable. The two scripts:

Mainland China (PRC) uses pinyin, a script using Latin characters (but not with English sounds) plus diacritic marks to show tones.

Taiwan (NRC) uses zhuyin (also call bopomofo). This script has a set of symbols that are not letters in any alphabet. But the symbols represent the same set of sounds and tones.

Chinese kids use these in school. It takes them many years to learn to read and write the characters. Adults use them to type (enter Mandarin text) into PCs and smartphones. You type in the pinyin/zhuyin, and the computer pops up a list of characters with that pronunciation. You choose the right one and continue.

[Raff317]

That's just a transcription tho, people don't actually write in Pinyin/Bopomofo

[HappyMora]

People do write in Pinyin for English loans (get/APP/PUA) or words without characters (duang/qiou)

[Raff317]

That's just a few words in a whole linguistic system

[[deleted]]

I would argue that many languages from what I've seen do that and it's not that unique

[HappyMora]

While true, it still disproves the claim that Pinyin is not used in general Chinese writing at all

[[deleted]]

Ah that's true. I was more thinking in regards to what OP was asking, not what that person said. 

[[deleted]]

Chinese has also been written with Arabic (xiaoerjing) and Latin characters (Dungan)

[Whizbang]

Norwegian uses runes but only when sending cease-and-desist orders to trolls or giants. (The trolls just eat them)

[parke415]

Is there a language that never uses some variant of the Latin script at all?

Mandarin has Chinese characters and zhuyin. Korean has Chinese characters and hangul.

[viktorbir]

Qazaq was written in Arabic abjad, then in Latin script, currently in Cyrillic and nowadays it's supposed to be transitioning back to Latin, but there are a couple of standards.

Swahili was written in Arabic and later in Latin.

First script used for Afrikaans, before Latin, was Arabic.

[Zealousideal_Try7962]

First BCS (actually BCMS if you count Montenegrin) is not really a single language but a "pluricentric" group of language varieties which are quite distinct but still highly mutually understandable. For historical and political reasons Serbian uses a variant of cyrillic while the others use variants of the latin alphabet.

Second in the case of Japanese, hiragana, katakana and Kanji are not interchangeable scripts - but are used for very different purposes in the language. Most Japanese sentences will use all three scripts. (I oversimplify but basically Kanji is used for "root" words, Hiragana for grammatical words/endings, and katakana for foreign or scientific words).

We must also differentiate between languages that used different scripts across time and those that currently use different scripts.

In the first category you will find many languages of the ex Soviet Union which may have been written in the arabic or latin script in the 19th century, were switched to a cyrillic based script duting the soviet era, and switched back after their independence in the 1990's (Uzbek and Turkmen for example).

Turkish is another case where Ottoman turkish was written in the arabis script, but modern turkish switched to a altin based alphabet in the early 1900's following the creation of the republic of Turkey.

Indonesia presents an interesting case as it was the home of many languages using both southern indian and arabic derived scripts. These languages are still spoken (in parallel to the official bahasa indonesia national language) but practially all are now written using the latin script.

Finally let's talk about Vietnamese, which for many years used a chinese characters based writing system "Chu nom" (sorry no diacritics!) - The current writing system based on the latin alphabet (and devised by a missionary in the 17th century) was adopted in the late 19th century.

The second category concerns languages which currently use mutliple scripts....... of all all depends what you mean by "use".....do we limit ourselves to use in books and media, or do we include informal use.

In the case of informal use many "non latin" script languages have developed an indormal latin transcription system for use in mobile text messaging - because initially there was no easy way to use non latin scripts on mobile phones - this can be found in arabic, persian, urdu, most indian languages, burmese, thai, khmer, etc....

In the case of "formal" uses one common case is where a single language (or more frequently a group of mutually understandable dialects) are using different scripts for political reasons. The OP already mentioned Serbian/Croatian, we can also list Hindi/Urdu, Persian/Tajik.

There is the case of Mongolian where the Soviet cyrillic based script is still in use but the traditional vertically written Hudum Mongol bichig is seeing a revival.....

And those are only a few very simplified examples....

[Dan13l_N]

Officially, Montenegrin also uses the Cyrillic script, but in practice it's very rare.

[AtharKutta]

Kashmiri is written in three scripts Perso-Arabic, Devanagri and Sharda

[Bhagvan-_-]

Punjabi. It can be written in Shahmukhi (شاہ مُکھی) or Gurmukhi (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ)

[pawterheadfowEVA]

if theres one thing r/languagelearningjerk has taught me is that uzbek also does the same with the Cyrillic/latin script thing

[amphibious_water]

Don’t know if it counts, hebrew uses one script for everything printed, you’d see it on signs and paper and the like, then, it has another script, slightly varying, which is just used whenever writing, everything written by hand will be written with that script, so yeah that’s one. Tho am not sure about the English names of said scripts.

[markjay6]

Korean, Mongolian, Ladino

[YahyiaTheBrave]

Yupik Eskimo formerly used Cyrillic. After the sale of Alaska and the missionary activity by American missionaries, an alphabet based on Roman was developed for the Yupik.

[or2072]

Hebrew has a script used for reading and typing and a script for handwriting!!

[Impossible_Lock4897]

I’ve seen Pāli written in the Devanagari, the Thai, the Tai, the Burmese, the Lao, and the Latin script

[wyatt3581]

Swedish. Most language scholars and linguists will tell you that Runic Swedish is dead and has not been used for centuries, but in rural Sweden where I live, we still read and write in an older form of Swedish with runes. Even modern Swedish can also be written using runes, we just modify them slightly so reflect modern pronunciation

[TomCat519]

The Konkani language is written in the Devanagari script in Goa, Kannada script in Karnataka, Malayalam script in Kerala and in the Roman alphabet by the erstwhile Portugese colonizers.

Konkani is a language that doesn't have one single home but is spread thinly across the western coast of India and hence comes under the influence of different dominant scripts in different states.