Language Atlas

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Language(s) Written

Languages written names every language a given script is actually used to write. Wikipedia notes the Latin script "is used to write over 3,000 languages, spoken by about 70% of the global population," by far the widest reach of any writing system. This dimension shows how many separate languages one script actually serves.

Facts
Comparison
Era Of Emergence
300 BCE 1
Language(s) Written

Japanese

Language(s) Written
3 entries

Old Norse

Language(s) Written
3 entries

Ancient Greek

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Azerbaijani

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Berber Languages

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Hausa

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Irish

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Kashmiri

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Kurdish

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Latin

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Malay

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Mandarin Chinese

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Middle Persian

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Mongolian

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Old Church Slavonic

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Old English

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Sanskrit

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Serbian

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Sindhi

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Swahili

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Uzbek

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Zarma

Language(s) Written
2 entries

Akan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Akkadian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Albanian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Amharic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Ancient Egyptian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Arabic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Armenian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Assamese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Avestan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Aymara

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Balinese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Balochi

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Basque

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Belarusian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Bengali

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Bhojpuri

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Bosnian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Bulgarian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Burmese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Catalan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Cebuano

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Cherokee

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Chichewa

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Classic Maya

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Classical Chinese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Coptic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Croatian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Czech

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Danish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Dutch

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Enga

Language(s) Written
1 entry

English

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Estonian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Etruscan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Evenki

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Ewe

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Faroese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Fijian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Finnish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Fon

Language(s) Written
1 entry

French

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Fula

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Ge'ez

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Georgian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

German

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Greek

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Greenlandic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Guarani

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Gujarati

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Haitian Creole

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hakka Chinese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hawaiian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hebrew

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hiligaynon

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hindi

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Hungarian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Icelandic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Igbo

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Ilocano

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Indonesian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Iranian Persian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Italian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Javanese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Kannada

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Kazakh

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Khmer

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Khoekhoe

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Kinyarwanda

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Kirundi

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Konkani

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Korean

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Kyrgyz

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Lao

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Latvian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Lithuanian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Luxembourgish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Macedonian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Malagasy

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Malayalam

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Maltese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Maori

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Marathi

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Meroitic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Nahuatl

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Navajo

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Nepali

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Norwegian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Odia

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Oromo

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Pashto

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Polish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Portuguese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Prakrit

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Quechua

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Romani

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Romanian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Russian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Samoan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Scottish Gaelic

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Sesotho

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Shona

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Sinhala

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Slovak

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Slovenian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Somali

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Southern Min

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Spanish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Sumerian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Sundanese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Swedish

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Syriac

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tagalog

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tajik

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tamil

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Telugu

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Thai

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tibetan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tigrinya

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tongan

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Tswana

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Turkmen

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Ukrainian

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Urdu

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Vietnamese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Waray

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Welsh

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Western Desert Language

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Western Punjabi

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Wolof

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Wu Chinese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Xhosa

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Yoruba

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Yue Chinese

Language(s) Written
1 entry

Zulu

Language(s) Written
1 entry
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Brahmi Script
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, second paragraph
Quote, Lead section, second paragraph
The writing system only went through relatively minor evolutionary changes from the Mauryan period (3rd century BCE) down to the early Gupta period (4th century CE), and it is thought that as late as the 4th century CE, a literate person could still read and understand Mauryan inscriptions.
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