Abjad - Comparative Chart of Abjads, Extinct and Extant

Comparative Chart of Abjads, Extinct and Extant

ID Name In Use Do the letters connect Direction # of letters Country of Origin Used By Languages Time Period (age) Influenced By Writing Systems Influenced
1 Syriac yes yes right-left 22 consonants Middle-East Syrian Church Aramaic, Syriac, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic ~ 700 BCE Nabatean, Palmyran, Mandaic, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, Avestan and Manichean
2 Hebrew yes no right-left 22 consonants + 5 final letters Ancient Israel Israelis, Some Jewish Diaspora Communities, Ancient Hebrew Tribes Hebrew, Ladino, Bukhari, Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic > 1100 BCE Proto-Hebrew, Early Aramaic
3 Arabic yes yes right-left, numerals are written left-right 28 (9 numbers) Middle-East Over 200 million people Arabic, Bosnian, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kyrghyz, Malay, Persian/Farsi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Turkish, Urdu, Uyghur, others ~ 500 CE Nabataean Aramaic
4 Aramaic (Imperial) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Archaemenid, Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew ~ 500 BCE Phoenician Late Hebrew, Nabataean, Syriac
5 Aramaic (Early) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Various Semitic Peoples ~ 1000-900 BCE Phoenician Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic.
6 Ancient Berber no no top-bottom, right-left 22 (right-left) 25 (up-down) North Africa Women in Tuareg Society Tifinagh 600 BCE Punic, South Arabian Tifinagh
7 Nabataean no no right-left 22 Middle-East Nabataean Kingdom Nabataean 200 BCE Aramaic Arabic
8 Middle Persian, (Pahlavi) no no right-left 22 Middle-East Sassanian Empire Pahlavi, Middle Persian Aramaic Psalter, Avestan
9 Mandaic no yes right-left 24 Iraq, Iran Ahvāz, Iran Mandaic ~ 200 CE Aramaic Neo-Mandaic
10 Psalter no yes right-left 21 Northwestern China Persian Script for Paper Writing ~ 400 CE Syriac
11 Phoenician no no right-left, Boustrophedon 22 Byblos Canaanites Phoenician, Punic ~ 1000-1500 BCE Proto- Canaanite Alphabet Punic(variant), Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew
12 Parthian no no right-left 22 Parthia (modern day equivalent of Northeastern Iran) Parthian & Sassanian periods of Persian Empire Parthian ~200 BCE Aramaic
13 Sabaean no no system right-left, boustrophedon 29 Southern Arabia (Sheba) Southern Arabians Sabaean ~ 500 BCE Byblos Ethiopic
14 Punic no no right-left 22 Carthage (Tunisia), North Africa, Mediterranean Punic Culture Punic, Neo-Punic Phoenician
15 Proto-Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite no no right-left 30 Egypt, Sinai, Canaan Canaanites Canaanite ~ 1900-1700 BCE In conjunction with Egyptian Hieroglyphs Phoenician, Hebrew
16 Ugaritic no yes left-right 30 Ugarit (modern day Northern Syria) Ugarites Ugaritic, Hurrian ~ 1400 BCE
17 South Arabian no no right-left, left-right (reversed letters) 29 South-Arabia (Yemen) D'mt Kingdom Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Semitic, Chushitic, Nilo-Saharan 900 BCE Proto-Sinaitic Ge'ez (Ethiopia)
18 Sogdian no no (yes in later versions) right-left, left-right(vertical) 20 parts of China (Xinjiang), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan Buddhists, Manichaens Sogdian ~ 400 CE Syriac Old Uyghur alphabet, Yaqnabi (Tajikistan dialect)
19 Samaritan yes (700 people) no right-left 22 Mesopatamia or Levant (Disputed) Samaritans (Nablus and Holon) Samaritan Aramaic, Samaritan Hebrew ~ 100-0 BCE Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet

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