Bopomofo

Bopomofo
Type	Semisyllabary (letters for onsets and rimes; diacritics for tones)
Spoken languages	Chinese languages, Formosan languages
Creator	Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation
Time period	1913 to the present, now used as ruby characters in Taiwan for Chinese, and as the principal script for Formosan
Parent systems	Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Bopomofo
Sister systems	Simplified Chinese, Kanji, Hanja, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script
ISO 15924	Bopo
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

Bopomofo
Traditional Chinese	注音符號
Simplified Chinese	注音符号
Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Zhùyīn fúhào - Bopomofo ㄓㄨˋ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ Min - Hokkien POJ Chù-im hû-hō Cantonese - Jyutping zyu3 jam1 fu4 hou6*2 - Yale Romanization jyu yām fùh houh

History of the alphabet Proto-Sinaitic alphabet 19 c. BCE Ugaritic 15 c. BCE Proto-Canaanite 14 c. BCE Phoenician 12 c. BCE Paleo-Hebrew 10 c. BCE Samaritan 6 c. BCE Aramaic 8 c. BCE Kharoṣṭhī 6 c. BCE Brāhmī & Indic 6 c. BCE Brahmic abugidas Devanagari 13 c. CE Hebrew 3 c. BCE Thaana 4 c. BCE Pahlavi 3 c. BCE Avestan 4 c. CE Palmyrene 2 c. BCE Syriac 2 c. BCE Sogdian 2 c. BCE Orkhon (Old Turkic) 6 c. CE Old Hungarian ca. 650 Old Uyghur Mongolian 1204 hh Nabataean 2 c. BCE Arabic 4 c. CE Mandaic 2 c. CE Greek 8 c. BCE Etruscan 8 c. BCE Latin 7 c. BCE Runic 2 c. CE Coptic 3 c. CE Gothic 3 c. CE Armenian 405 Georgian (disputed) ca. 430 CE Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic ca. 940 Paleohispanic 7 c. BCE Epigraphic South Arabian 9 c. BCE Ge’ez 5–6 c. BCE Meroitic 3 c. BCE Ogham 4 c. CE Hangul 1443 Zhuyin (Bopomofo) 1913 Complete writing systems genealogy

Zhuyin Fuhao, often abbreviated zhuyin, and colloquially called Bopomofo^[1] is the first official phonetic system introduced in 1910s for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin.

Consisting of 37 letters and 4 tone marks, it can transcribe all possible sounds in Mandarin. Despite being faded out in mainland China, People's Republic of China since 1950s, this system is still widely used as an educational tool and Chinese computer input method in Taiwan,Republic of China.

Contents 1 Name 2 History 3 Modern use 4 Etymology 5 Writing 5.1 Stroke order 5.2 Tonal marks 5.3 Align 6 Comparison 7 Other languages 8 Computer uses 8.1 Input method 8.2 Unicode 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Name

Zhuyin is often called bopomo whose name is derived from the first four letters of the system (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) and occasionally used to refer to pinyin in mainland China. In official documents, it is occasionally called the "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I" (國語注音符號第一式), abbreviated as the "MPS I" (注音一式).

In English translations, the system is often called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols.^{[2] [3]}A romanized version of bopomofo, released released in 1984, is called MPS II.

History

The Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Woo Tsin-hang from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Guóyīn Zìmǔ (國音字母 "National Pronunciation Letters") or Zhùyīn Zìmǔ (註音字母 or 注音字母 "Sound-annotating Letters")^[2] which is based on Zhang Binglin's shorthands.

A draft was released on July 11, 1913 by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education, but it was not officially proclaimed until November 23, 1928.^[2] zhùyīn zìmǔ was renamed zhùyīn fúhào in April 1930.

The symbols were initially called Zhùyīn Zìmǔ ("Phonetic Alphabet"); later they were also called Guóyīn Zìmǔ ("National Phonetic Alphabet"). The fear that they might be considered an alphabetic system of writing independent of characters led in 1930 to their being renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào ("Phonetic Symbols").^[4]

After 1949, bopomofo was superseded by the pinyin system promulgated by the People's Republic of China, but its use is retained in the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Taiwan's Education Ministry has attempted for many years to phase out the use of zhuyin in favor of a system based on Latin characters such as Hanyu Pinyin, which will be the only legal standard starting in 2009. However, this transition has been extremely slow due to the resistance to the new system throughout the society.

Modern use

Bopomofo remains the predominate phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in elementary school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular way to enter Chinese characters into computers and look up characters in a dictionary in Taiwan.

In grade one, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with bopomofo in which students often takes 10 weeks to learn. Throughout the elementary educations, the use of bopomofo is gradually reduced.

In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some overseas community still uses bopomofo as a learning tool, however pinyin gains significant popularity in recent decades. Current Chinese Braille is also based Bopomofo.

Besides transcribing Chinese, Bopomofo is also used as a primary writing system, not an ancillary one, for a few aboriginal languages of Taiwan, such as Atayal[2], Seediq [3], Paiwan [4], or Tao [5]. It is sometimes used to annotate Minnanese, a widely spoken Chinese dialect in Taiwan, however romanized Pe̍h-ōe-jī is more common in use.

Unlike bopomofo, pinyin system always yields the same alphabet spellings, it has become more popular in transliterating Chinese characters in English texts.

Etymology

The zhuyin letters were created by Zhang Binglin, and mainly taken from ancient or cursive Chinese characters, or parts of such characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents.

Origin of zhuyin symbols

Zhuyin	Pinyin	Origin
ㄅ	b	From 勹, the top portion 包 bāo
ㄆ	p	From 攵, the combining form of 攴 pū
ㄇ	m	From 冂, the archaic form of the radical 冖 mì
ㄈ	f	From 匚 fāng
ㄉ	d	From the archaic form of 刀 dāo. Compare the bamboo form .
ㄊ	t	From the upside-down 子 seen at the top of 充
ㄋ	n	From /𠄎, ancient form of 乃 nǎi
ㄌ	l	Calligraphic form of 力 lì
ㄍ	g	From the obsolete character 巜 guì/kuài" 'river'
ㄎ	k	From 丂 kǎo
ㄏ	h	From 厂 hàn
ㄐ	j	From the archaic character 丩 jiū
ㄑ	q	From the archaic character ㄑ quǎn, graphic root of the character 巛 chuān (modern 川)
ㄒ	x	From 丅, a seal form of 下 xià.
ㄓ	zh	From /㞢, archaic form of 之 zhī.
ㄔ	ch	From the radical 彳 chì
ㄕ	sh	From the character 尸 shī
ㄖ	r	A semi-cursive form of 日 rì
ㄗ	z	From the radical 卩 jié, dialectically zié
ㄘ	c	Variant of 七 qī, dialectically ciī. Compare semi-cursive form and seal-script .
ㄙ	s	From the old character 厶 sī, which was later replaced by its compound 私 sī.
ㄧ	i, y	From 一 yī
ㄨ	u, w	From 㐅, ancient form of 五 wǔ.
ㄩ	ü, yu, iu	From the ancient character 凵 qū, which remains as a radical
ㄚ	a	From 丫 yā
ㄛ	o	From the obsolete character 𠀀 hē, inhalation, the reverse of 丂 kǎo, which is preserved as a phonetic in the compound 可 kě.[5]
ㄜ	e	Derived from its allophone in Standard Mandarin, ㄛ o
ㄝ	e, eh	From 也 yě. Compare the Warring States bamboo form
ㄞ	ai	From 𠀅 hài, bronze form of 亥.
ㄟ	ei	From 乁 yí, an obsolete character meaning 移 yí "to move".
ㄠ	ao	From 幺 yāo
ㄡ	ou	From 又 yòu
ㄢ	an	From the obsolete character ㄢ hàn "to bloom", preserved as a phonetic in the compound 犯 fàn
ㄣ	en	From 乚 yǐn
ㄤ	ang	From 尢 wāng
ㄥ	eng	From 厶, an obsolete form of 厷 gōng
ㄦ	er	From 儿, the bottom portion of 兒 ér used as a cursive form
ㄭ	ih	(, and inverted ㄓ) Perhaps 市, in addition to ㄓ. It is the minimal vowel of ㄓ, ㄔ, ㄕ, ㄖ, ㄗ, ㄘ, ㄙ that is spelled "ih" in Tongyong Pinyin and Wade-Giles and "i" in pinyin.

The zhuyin characters are represented in typographic fonts as if drawn with an ink brush (as in Regular Script). They are encoded in Unicode in the bopomofo block, in the range U+3105..U+312D.

Writing

Stroke order

Bopomofo is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters. Note that ㄖ is written with three strokes, unlike the character from which it is derived (日, Hanyu Pinyin: rì), which has four strokes.

Tonal marks

Tone	bopomofo	Pinyin
1	none	¯
2	ˊ	´
3	ˇ	ˇ
4	ˋ	ˋ
short	˙	none

The tone marks and Hanyu Pinyin are alike, except that in Bopomofo, the first tone is denoted with no marker and the neutral tone is with a dot. In Pinyin, first-tone mark and a dot is usually omitted for neutral tone while there is a dash (¯) for the first tone.

Align

Unlike bopomofo, romanized pinyin fails to annotate books whose texts are printed vertically.

Bopomopo, when used together with Chinese characters, are always placed right to the Chinese characters in a vertical prints, top to characters in horizontal prints.

Here is an example for the word "bottle" (Ping zi):

瓶 ㄆ – ㄥˊ 子 ˙ ㄗ

or

ㄆㄧㄥˊ ㄗ˙ 瓶 子

Comparison

Bopomofo and pinyin are based on the same Mandarin pronunciations, hence there is a mostly 1-to-1 mapping between the two systems. In the table below, the 'bopomofo' and 'pinyin' columns show equivalency.

【】represents the form used in combination with other letters.

A comparison between pinyin and bopomofo for Standard Mandarin can also be done by comparing the transcription of various syllables at Comparison of Chinese Phonetic Systems.

Bopomofo vs. Pinyin

Initials
Bopomofo	Hanyu Pinyin	Tongyong Pinyin[6]	Wade-Giles	Example (Bopomofo, Pinyin)
ㄅ	b	b	p	八 (ㄅㄚ, bā)
ㄆ	p	p	p'	杷 (ㄆㄚˊ, pá)
ㄇ	m	m	m	馬 (ㄇㄚˇ, mǎ)
ㄈ	f	f	f	法 (ㄈㄚˇ, fǎ)
ㄉ	d	d	t	地 (ㄉㄧˋ, dì)
ㄊ	t	t	t'	提 (ㄊㄧˊ, tí)
ㄋ	n	n	n	你 (ㄋㄧˇ, nǐ)
ㄌ	l	l	l	利 (ㄌㄧˋ, lì)
ㄍ	g	g	k	告 (ㄍㄠˋ, gào)
ㄎ	k	k	k'	考 (ㄎㄠˇ, kǎo)
ㄏ	h	h	h	好 (ㄏㄠˇ, hǎo)
ㄐ	j	j	ch	叫 (ㄐㄧㄠˋ, jiào)
ㄑ	q	c	ch'	巧 (ㄑㄧㄠˇ, qiǎo)
ㄒ	x	s	hs	小 (ㄒㄧㄠˇ, xiǎo)
ㄓ	zhi 【zh】	jhih 【jh】	chih 【ch】	主 (ㄓㄨˇ, zhǔ)
ㄔ	chi 【ch】	chih 【ch】	ch'ih 【ch'】	出 (ㄔㄨ, chū)
ㄕ	shi 【sh】	shih 【sh】	shih 【sh】	束 (ㄕㄨˋ, shù)
ㄖ	ri 【r】	rih 【r】	jih 【j】	入 (ㄖㄨˋ, rù)
ㄗ	zi 【z】	zih 【z】	tzû 【ts】	在 (ㄗㄞˋ, zài)
ㄘ	ci 【c】	cih 【c】	tz'û 【ts'】	才 (ㄘㄞˊ, cái)
ㄙ	si 【s】	sih 【s】	ssû 【s】	塞 (ㄙㄞ, sāi)
Finals
Bopomofo	Hanyu Pinyin	Tongyong Pinyin	Wade-Giles	Example(Bopomofo, Hanyu)
ㄚ	a	a	a	大 (ㄉㄚˋ, dà)
ㄛ	o	o	o	多 (ㄉㄨㄛ, duō)
ㄜ	e	e	e	得 (ㄉㄜˊ, dé)
ㄝ	ê	e	eh	爹 (ㄉㄧㄝ, diē)
ㄞ	ai	ai	ai	晒 (ㄕㄞˋ, shài)
ㄟ	ei	ei	ei	誰 (ㄕㄟˊ, shéi)
ㄠ	ao	ao	ao	少 (ㄕㄠˇ, shǎo)
ㄡ	ou	ou	ou	收 (ㄕㄡ, shōu)
ㄢ	an	an	an	山 (ㄕㄢ, shān)
ㄣ	en	en	en	申 (ㄕㄣ, shēn)
ㄤ	ang	ang	ang	上 (ㄕㄤˋ, shàng)
ㄥ	eng	eng	eng	生 (ㄕㄥ, shēng)
ㄦ	er	er	erh	而 (ㄦˊ, ér)
ㄧ	yi 【i】	yi 【i】	yi 【i】	逆 (ㄋㄧˋ, nì)
	yin 【in】	yin 【in】	yin 【in】	音 (ㄧㄣ, yīn)
	ying 【ing】	ying 【ing】	ying 【ing】	英 (ㄧㄥ, yīng)
ㄨ	wu 【u】	wu 【u】	wu 【u】	努 (ㄋㄨˇ, nǔ)
	wen 【un】	wun 【un】	wen 【un】	文 (ㄨㄣˊ, wén)
	weng 【ong】	wong 【ong】	ng 【ung】	翁 (ㄨㄥ, wēng)
ㄩ	yu 【u, ü】	yu 【u, yu】	yü 【ü】	女 (ㄋㄩˇ, nǚ)
	yun 【un】	yun 【un, yun】	yün 【ün】	韻 (ㄩㄣˋ, yūn)
	yong 【iong】	yong	yung 【iung】	永 (ㄩㄥˇ, yǒng)

Another comparison table

Vowels a, e, o, i

IPA	ɑ	ɔ	ɤ	ɛ	aɪ	eɪ	ɑʊ	ɤʊ	an	ən	ɑŋ	ɤŋ	ɑɻ	ʊŋ	i	iɛ	iɤʊ	iɛn	in	iŋ
Pinyin	a	o	e	e	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	en	ang	eng	er	ong	yi	ye	you	yan	yin	ying
Tongyong Pinyin	a	o	e	e	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	en	ang	eng	er	ong	yi	ye	you	yan	yin	ying
Wade-Giles	a	o	o/ê	eh	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	ên	ang	êng	êrh	ung	i	yeh	yu	yen	yin	ying
Zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄛ	ㄜ	ㄝ	ㄞ	ㄟ	ㄠ	ㄡ	ㄢ	ㄣ	ㄤ	ㄥ	ㄦ	ㄨㄥ	ㄧ	ㄧㄝ	ㄧㄡ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄣ	ㄧㄥ
example	阿	哦	俄		艾	黑	凹	偶	安	恩	昂	冷	二	中	一	也	又	言	音	英

Vowels u, y

IPA	u	uɔ	ueɪ	uaɪ	uan	uən	uʊn	uɤŋ	uʊŋ	y	yœ	yɛn	yn	iʊŋ
Pinyin	wu	wo	wei	wai	wan	wen		weng		yu	yue	yuan	yun	yong
Tongyong Pinyin	wu	wo	wei	wai	wan		wun		wong	yu	yue	yuan	yun	yong
Wade-Giles	wu	wo	wei	wai	wan	wên		wêng		yü	yüeh	yüan	yün	yung
Zhuyin	ㄨ	ㄨㄛ	ㄨㄟ	ㄨㄞ	ㄨㄢ	ㄨㄣ		ㄨㄥ		ㄩ	ㄩㄝ	ㄩㄢ	ㄩㄣ	ㄩㄥ
example	五	我	位	外	完	文		翁		玉	月	元	云	用

Non-sibilant consonants

IPA	p	pʰ	m	fɤŋ	fʊŋ	tiou	tuei	tʰ	ny	ly	kɤɻ	kʰ	xɤ
Pinyin	b	p	m	feng		diu	dui	t	nü	lü	ger	k	he
Tongyong Pinyin	b	p	m		fong	diou	duei	t	nyu	lyu	ger	k	he
Wade-Giles	p	p'	m	fêng		tiu	tui	t'	nü	lü	kêrh	k'	ho
Zhuyin	ㄅ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄈㄥ		ㄉㄧㄡ	ㄉㄨㄟ	ㄊ	ㄋㄩ	ㄌㄩ	ㄍㄜㄦ	ㄎ	ㄏㄜ
example	玻	婆	末	封		丟	兌	特	女	旅	歌儿	可	何

Sibilant consonants

IPA	tɕiɛn	tɕiʊŋ	tɕʰin	ɕyɛn	ʈʂɤ	ʈʂɨ	ʈʂʰɤ	ʈʂʰɨ	ʂɤ	ʂɨ	ʐɤ	ʐɨ	tsɤ	tsuɔ	tsɨ	tsʰɤ	tsʰɨ	sɤ	sɨ
Pinyin	jian	jiong	qin	xuan	zhe	zhi	che	chi	she	shi	re	ri	ze	zuo	zi	ce	ci	se	si
Tongyong Pinyin	jian	jyong	cin	syuan	jhe	jhih	che	chih	she	shih	re	rih	ze	zuo	zih	ce	cih	se	sih
Wade-Giles	chien	chiung	ch'in	hsüan	chê	chih	ch'ê	ch'ih	shê	shih	jê	jih	tsê	tso	tzŭ	ts'ê	tz'ŭ	sê	szŭ
Zhuyin	ㄐㄧㄢ	ㄐㄩㄥ	ㄑㄧㄣ	ㄒㄩㄢ	ㄓㄜ	ㄓ	ㄔㄜ	ㄔ	ㄕㄜ	ㄕ	ㄖㄜ	ㄖ	ㄗㄜ	ㄗㄨㄛ	ㄗ	ㄘㄜ	ㄘ	ㄙㄜ	ㄙ
example	件	窘	秦	宣	哲	之	扯	赤	社	是	惹	日	仄	左	字	策	次	色	斯

Tones

IPA	ma˥˥	ma˧˥	ma˨˩˦	ma˥˩	ma
Pinyin	mā	má	mǎ	mà	ma
Tongyong Pinyin	ma	má	mǎ	mà	må
Wade-Giles	ma1	ma2	ma3	ma4	ma0
Zhuyin	ㄇㄚ	ㄇㄚˊ	ㄇㄚˇ	ㄇㄚˋ	ㄇㄚ・
example (traditional/simplfied)	媽/妈	麻/麻	馬/马	罵/骂	嗎/吗

Other languages

Zhuyin is used to write several varieties of Chinese, as well as some Formosan languages.

Three letters formerly used in non-standard dialects of Mandarin are now also used to write other Chinese languages. (Some bopomofo fonts do not contain these letters; see External links for PDF pictures.)

Char	Pinyin
ㄪ	v
ㄫ	ng
ㄬ	ny

In addition, diacritics were used to create new letters for Min-nan and Hakka.

Extended bopomofo

Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin		Char	Pinyin
ㆠ（）	bb*		ㆦ（）	oo [ɔ]		ㆬ（）	syllabic m		ㆲ（）	ong
ㆡ（）	zz*		ㆧ（）	onn [õ]		ㆭ（）	syllabic ng		ㆳ（）	innn
ㆢ（）	jj*		ㆨ（）	ir [ɨ]		ㆮ（）	ainn [aĩ]		ㆴ（）	Final p
ㆣ（）	gg*		ㆩ（）	ann [ã]		ㆯ（）	aunn [aũ]		ㆵ（）	Final t
ㆤ（）	ee [e]		ㆪ（）	inn [ĩ]		ㆰ（）	am		ㆶ（）	Final k
ㆥ（）	enn [ẽ]		ㆫ（）	unn [ũ]		ㆱ（）	om		ㆷ（）	Final h [ʔ]

Tones

Char	Tone Value	Unicode
˪ (└)	Chao number "11", depicts 低平"low, level tone" (陰去聲 "upper departing") in Taiwanese Minnan	U+02EA
˫ (├)	Chao number "33", depicts 低平"mid, level tone" (陽去聲 "lower departing") in Taiwanese Minnan	U+02EB

Computer uses

Input method

Bopomofo can be used as an input method for Chinese characters. It is one of the few input methods that can be found on most modern personal computers without the user having to download or install any additional software. It is also one of the few input methods that can be used for inputting Chinese characters on certain cell phones.

Unicode

Bopomofo Unicode.org chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+310x

ㄅ

ㄆ

ㄇ

ㄈ

ㄉ

ㄊ

ㄋ

ㄌ

ㄍ

ㄎ

ㄏ

U+311x

ㄐ

ㄑ

ㄒ

ㄓ

ㄔ

ㄕ

ㄖ

ㄗ

ㄘ

ㄙ

ㄚ

ㄛ

ㄜ

ㄝ

ㄞ

ㄟ

U+312x

ㄠ

ㄡ

ㄢ

ㄣ

ㄤ

ㄥ

ㄦ

ㄧ

ㄨ

ㄩ

ㄪ

ㄫ

ㄬ

ㄭ

Bopomofo Extended[1] Unicode.org chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+31Ax

ㆠ

ㆡ

ㆢ

ㆣ

ㆤ

ㆥ

ㆦ

ㆧ

ㆨ

ㆩ

ㆪ

ㆫ

ㆬ

ㆭ

ㆮ

ㆯ

U+31Bx

ㆰ

ㆱ

ㆲ

ㆳ

ㆴ

ㆵ

ㆶ

ㆷ

ㆸ

ㆹ

ㆺ

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 6.0

See also

• Furigana
• Zhuyin table
• Chinese language
• Mandarin Chinese
• Standard Mandarin
• Pinyin
• Chinese input methods for computers
• Ruby character
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Extended Bopomofo for Taiwanese (EBT, Chinese: 台灣方言音符號)
• Fanqie

References

External links

• Unicode reference glyphs for bopomofoPDF (69.6 KB) & extended bopomofoPDF (61.6 KB)
• Bopomofo annotations Adds inline and pop-up annotations with bopomofo pronunciation and English definitions to Chinese text or web pages.
• Mandarin Dictionary (need Chinese font for Big5 encoding)
• Chinese Phonetic Conversion Tool - Converts between Pinyin, Zhuyin and other phonetic systems
• Chinese Romanization Converter - Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems.
• Bopomofo -> Wade-Giles -> Pinyin -> Word List
• NPA->IPA National Phonetic Alphabet (bopomofo) spellings of words transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet (The vowel values have been verified against the official IPA site. See [6] )
• Bopomofo to Pinyin converter and reverse
• bopomofo syllable chart, with Hanyu Pinyin equivalents
• Pinyin Annotator Add bopomofo (bopomofo) or pinyin on top of any Chinese text. Prompts alternative pronunciations to homonyms. Has the option of exporting into OpenOffice Writer for further editing.
• 《請利用螢幕上的小鍵盤輸入注音符號》 online keyboard for bopomofo which can turn it into Chinese characters

Writing systems Overview History of writing · History of the alphabet · Graphemes · Scripts in Unicode Lists Writing systems · Languages by writing system / by first written account · Undeciphered writing systems · Inventors of writing systems Types Featural alphabets · Alphabets · Abjads · Alphasyllabaries / Abugidas · Syllabaries · Semi-syllabaries · Ideogrammic · Pictographic · Logographic · Numeral