Weirdest Writing Systems

As writing goes, English is pretty straightforward. Sure, it has its weird parts: some of our letters combine to make new sounds, we have extra letters we don’t really need and there are spelling rules that only apply half the time. But on the whole, we have it easy.
It’s not always like this. The Latin alphabet that English uses is alphabetic – in general, there’s one letter for every sound. In other writing systems, one character can signal a whole syllable. Or it might be like the Chinese system, in which characters signify whole objects or concepts. And sometimes, things can get even weirder.

Nushu

This is an talk with artist Victoria Chang in front of her piece called Nu Shu - Female Writing at Safe-T-Gallery in the spring of 2009. She talks about the secret language itself, the society around it, and her approach as an artist to this material.

Runes

The Elder Futhark that we present in this video is not A-Z as you will find out when you watch the video. But there are several Rune Sets. From the Elder Futhark comes the Ancient Nordic Rune Set. During the 10th century punctuations were added to these Runes and in Scandinavia this set has been used as alphabet (A-Z) up into the 19th century before they were substituted by the latin alphabet - remarkable. But the runes are more than an alphabet - much more...

Calligrams

Sumerian Cuneiform

Takes us to the Sumerian archaeological sites in present day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, to see the influence of cuneiform, the oldest known writing system in the world. Its development brought about a cultural renaissance,and Sumers rise in the Mesopotamian region. The influence of these Sumerian wedge characters did not end with the fall of Sumer, but also provided a literary foundation for civilizations that followed. Cuneiform influenced Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writing, evolving over time from rudimentary pictures to standardized symbols.

Tifinagh

In this chapter of the Endangered Alphabets video series I discuss Tifinagh, the astonishing writing used by the Berber people of North Africa.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

The Voynich Script

An edited excerpt from the "Weird or What?" documentary, first aired May 2010 on the Discovery Channel. This excerpt describes an interpretation of the meaning of the Voynich Manuscript by Dr. Gordon Rugg, a professor of knowledge modelling at Keele University, Staffordshire U.K. Professor Rugg demonstrates how the Voynich, a classic problem that has fascinated linguists and encryption excerpts for centuries, could be a hoax.

Naxi

On August 9th, 2006, I visited the INSTITUTE DONGBA to make a little knowledge of the Naxi or Dongba Culture and saw a teacher how Naxi language works

The Witches’ Alphabet

Talking Knots