Writing-System Quiz: Which Scripts Do You Recognize?

Quiz: Can You Recognise These 12 Writing Systems?

Each question shows a greeting or common word written in a different script. Name the writing system and pick up a fact or two along the way.

1. Which writing system is this: Καλημέρα

   • Greek
   • Cyrillic
   • Armenian

   This is Greek ('good morning'); the Greek alphabet is an ancestor of both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.

2. Which writing system is this: Здравствуйте

   • Greek
   • Cyrillic
   • Georgian

   This is Cyrillic, used for Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and many other languages.

3. Which writing system is this: مرحبا

   • Hebrew
   • Arabic
   • Devanagari

   This is Arabic script, written from right to left, with most letters joining their neighbours.

4. Which writing system is this: שלום

   • Hebrew
   • Arabic
   • Ge'ez (Ethiopic)

   This is Hebrew ('shalom'), also written from right to left.

5. Which writing system is this: नमस्ते

   • Bengali
   • Tamil
   • Devanagari

   This is Devanagari, used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit; note the horizontal line along the top of the letters.

6. Which writing system is this: 안녕하세요

   • Japanese kana
   • Korean Hangul
   • Chinese characters

   This is Hangul, the Korean alphabet created in the 15th century under King Sejong the Great.

7. Which writing system is this: ありがとう

   • Japanese hiragana
   • Korean Hangul
   • Thai

   This is hiragana ('thank you'); written Japanese mixes hiragana, katakana and kanji.

8. Which writing system is this: สวัสดี

   • Khmer
   • Thai
   • Tamil

   This is Thai script ('hello'), which usually runs words together without spaces.

9. Which writing system is this: გამარჯობა

   • Georgian
   • Armenian
   • Ge'ez (Ethiopic)

   This is Georgian ('hello'); the modern Georgian alphabet has 33 letters and no capital letters in everyday writing.

10. Which writing system is this: Բարև

    • Georgian
    • Greek
    • Armenian

    This is Armenian ('hi'); the Armenian alphabet is traditionally credited to Mesrop Mashtots in the early 5th century.

11. Which writing system is this: ሰላም

    • Ge'ez (Ethiopic)
    • Tamil
    • Arabic

    This is the Ge'ez or Ethiopic script ('peace'), used for Amharic and Tigrinya, where each symbol stands for a consonant plus vowel.

12. Which writing system is this: வணக்கம்

    • Devanagari
    • Tamil
    • Thai

    This is Tamil ('vanakkam', a greeting), used in southern India, Sri Lanka and Singapore.