Although ‘exotic’ scripts are kind of going the way of the dinosaur (at least in some circles) thanks to overuse of some typefaces like Papyrus (Avatar), I thought it would be good to do a post on some of these more obscure Asian scripts I’ve been checking out over the past week.

Check them out:

Burmese script

Photo: shannonholman (original)

Photo: apes_abroad (original)

Burmese script is used to write Burmese and several Southeast-Asian minority languages. Its abundance of curves and circles is actually a functional decision rather than a decorative one – writing straight lines with a stylus would tear the palm leaves on which the language was first written.

‘Phags-pa script

A Tibetan Lama’s personal seal

Photo: Dieter Schuh (original)

On far left, compared with other Tibetan (Lanydza) and Mongolian scripts as well as Latin

Photo:  Author unknown (source)

This script only saw extensive use during the reign of the  Yuan dynasty that commissioned it, but was used to decorate Tibetan seals, coins, and monasteries into the 20th century. It’s square orthography was ideal for carvings and block-prints.

Indic Scripts

Descended from historic Brahmi script, these systems are now used throughout South and Southeast Asia for a huge variety of languages – check out this comparison of a Sanskrit scripture transcribed into fifteen of them.

Source: Wikimedia Commons