This is all the asian scripts that are official to a country. This doesn't include Latin derived scripts or Arabic derived scripts, but does include Devanagari and Chinese.

Bengali (bengali lipa)


Burmese (Myanmar/Bamar Akheya)


Chinese (Hanzi)


Devanagari


Japanese (Katakana)


Khmer (Aksar Khmer)


Korean (Hangul)


Lao (Aksan Lao)


Tibetan (Dzongkha) - official in its Bhutanese form.


Thai (Akson Thai)

lol everyone is just going to vote for there ethnicity. Or there favorite asian media.

Not really, I like the tibetan one

i like cambodian, chinese, japanese, korean, and some other one too

this isnt good at all. tell those white people to stop tatting chinese when they dont even know what the charc. mean.

with first glance, doesn't chinese, korean, and japanese alphabet look a like.

Chinese and Japanese look alike.

Burmese looks like something from a crop circle.

lol the similar characters in japanese is because they are chinese. when my dad went to japan without knowing japanese, he could still know where things were because he knows chinese.

thats cruel but very funny

Crop circles are awesome.

-edit : I can't spell today.

i agree i like the tibetan one.

You guys are gay! Where's the Hmong pahawh?

and what about us?

Traditional Chinese

then Korean

FTH Why don't Filipinos use that writing system anymore?

There are so many scripts, I only listed the ones in official use. Burmese is cool, even though it really looks like crop circles. I like Hangul when its in its calligraphic form, without it Hangul looks like a bunch of sticks.

Hahaha, you're not alone my Filipino brother. But the thread starter already said that he only listed scripts that are official to a country. So I don't expect Indonesian scripts to be on the list either. But to those who are curious, these are some of them:


Javanese Script


Sundanese Script

There are other kinds of script in Indonesia, but I don't want to hijack the thread

because it looks terrible.

I like Javanese and Khmer. Burmese is okay too, and Chinese is also a favourite.

I've seen balinese too but it looks kinda wack lol.

Hahaha, no it doesn't look terrible, it's all about presentation. And I don't think how it looks the reason it's no longer used either. I think it's simply because the Philippines (just like Indonesia) has already had Latin script taking over.

Whack? Hehehehe, Balinese script is basically a more "curvaceous" take on Javanese script:

Fine. It's ugly AND impractical. Only 3 vowels. Sure redneck filipinos only need 3 vowels, but the modern language is written with 5 and most people in manila speak with like.. 7?

It's also missing a few consonants. If it was updated maybe I'd support it.

Buhid script in Mindoro, Philippines is still used... i think it is the most beautiful of all Philippine scripts

Japanese!

Sundanese looks cool.

where the fizzle is classical mongolian?

old uyghur. i least if i remember how it looked like.

got colonized...
that's where it started to get a lost.. and only scholars study it now..maybe



gago!!
maybe it would no longer serve its purpose well these days but i think if the filipinos continued using it, it would have evolved to have more letters that would cater to our modern linguistic needs

Burmese & Tibetan are the two of those that are the most aesthetically-pleasing to me. Burmese a little moreso.

edit: Oh snap, I really like the Balinese that Bhaskara posted as well.

My vote for Burmese writing.

it looks ugly and impractical. parang egyptian hieroglyphics ahaha

i prefer the ancient chinese script

korean

impractical nga sya kasi hindi na nag evolve...di na nadagdagan o nabawasan...
pero kung ginamit lang yan at tinuro sa mga pilipinong mag aaral (lolz) siguro may igaganda pa..

(*shivers)
i'd rather use english or waray-waray..

old uyghur lol it's just uyghur

all can look good, i think it depends on the style it is written in (good calligraphy/penmanship). and in the end, most look horrible when handwritten.

I don't think thats an official script, exept for in an autonomous region.

More variations of Khmer

Old Khmer (Aksar Boran)



Sloping style (Aksar Chrung)



Round style (Aksar Mul)



Painted letters

i like it too but i can read them. CAn you read them all?

It's not on here, but classic mongolian.

gah, I cant even read some zhengzi 正字, let alone reading this seal script whatever !

sogdian is old uyghur. xinjiang peoples edit: then and specifically now, use arabic writing.

Korean looks like chicken scratch, no offense.

I think it really depends on presentation though. All scripts have ugly fonts, and I'm sure all scripts have pretty fonts that really make the characters stand out in beauty.

I really like the Burmese script.

Thank you for posting ancient Chinese, they look great! That reminds me, anyone has any pic of ancient Japanese script? I think I've read about it somewhere that the Japanese got their own script before they adopt Kanji (not Kana).



Thank you guys! I hope Indonesian governments would give more attention to these two scripts and the other wonderful traditional scripts in Indonesia.

^prior to japanese adopting chinese character, they have none of their writing system.

don't believe me, you can ask any scholar including japanese scholar. the oldest known form of japanese character is kojiki.



notice the closely relate to hanzi? that because their characters deprive from china mixing with japanese style.



me neither. even my parents don't even know. i do hope to learn it someday.

beside ancient chinese. hanzi in callicraphy is the best among all asian scripts.

this is my chinese name in callicraphy.


of course i can write my name.

This is one thing I love about SE Asia, and most of Asia for that matter. Almost every country has its own unique script. Compare that to Europe where apart from the unique Georgian script, almost every language of Europe is written in the boring Latin or Cyrillic script.

^Armenian is also a pretty one. And the Greeks have their own system of course.

^^Damn, how did I forget.

Anyway this is a great site for exploring the different writing systems of the world.

http://www.omniglot.com

I love Tibetan. It's the most elegant looking script by far in my opinion. Sort of looks similar to Devanagari but the Tibetans probably found the horizontal lines annoying and decided to drop them very early on.

Most of the alphabet posted here were based on the sanskrit script, including javanese, sundanese and balinese bhaskara posted ~ but if I'm not mistaken Malaysia/Indonesia have ancient local runic alphabet before sanskrit influence ~ plus the philippines alphabet are probably original because they were isolated for so long before islamic and spanish influence.

tibetan looks the coolest to me. almost reminds me of some type of elven lookin text like in lotr or somethin. devanagari is nice too

That's what I was going to say as well. Perhaps Tolkien's invented alphabets were probably inspired by Tibetan and other Indic-based scripts. Though I think that Tolkien scripts such as Tengwar used for Quenya is a true alphabet like Latin or Greek. Whereas Brahmi-derived scripts such as Tibetan and Devanagari are abugidas or alphasyllabaries where each consonant has an inherent vowel 'a' which can be changed to another vowel by means of diacritics which can appear below, above, behind or after the consonant. In tonal languages like Burmese, there're even extra diacritics in addition to the vowel modifiers to covey tones.

Quenya




Tibetan

Isn't it supposed to be Pallava rather than Sanskrit? Sanskrit would be Devanagari, right?
But Baybayin is also a member of Indic family.

This one is from sister ethnicities Bugis, Makassar, and Mandar from South Sulawesi, Indonesia:

It is called Lontara script. Also known as urupu sulapa eppa in Bugis language