# What is the coolest-looking written language? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 23, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358 "2014-03-23T14:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/21 "2014-03-24T00:08:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Classic Mayan Glyphs. If I had to choose, I’d say Mayan is overall cooler. Yeah, I almost edited my earlier post to include Mayan Glyphs. And what’s even cooler is the story of how they were deciphered. There was a PBS _Nova_ show on this several years ago which is one of my favorites. Plus, you had a lot of flexibility in how you could write a given a word, so you were able to shade the meaning in ways that are just not possible in most other writing systems. Obviously,[Frank Lloyd Wright thought they were cool, too.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennis_House) ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/22 "2014-03-24T00:27:59Z")
Binary 😉 ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/23 "2014-03-24T01:09:02Z")
Dongba is pretty awesome. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/24 "2014-03-24T02:08:42Z")
Tamil’s the nicest looking of the Indian scripts, IMHO, but Burmese and Javanese are gorgeous (Georgian’s neat, too.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/25 "2014-03-24T02:14:00Z")
[Tamil](http://www.speakthylanguage.com/tamil.html) (scroll down a bit) ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/26 "2014-03-24T03:05:56Z")
I think I’m the only one who loves the way English looks when written. Of my favorite spoken languages, English is way way down there, but I really do love the way English appears on the printed page. Very beautiful to me while remaining extremely functional. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/27 "2014-03-24T03:43:13Z")
Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/28 "2014-03-24T04:14:48Z")
Georgian was my first thought honestly. But also: I don’t think Korean (Hangul) looks like the best, but I really appreciate how that script works. It’s rather elegant. Within Latin, Finnish or Estonian have a certain panache, although I don’t know enough to say which is better. Normally I like a higher consonant:vowel ratio, but these work. > [@Claverhouse](#): > > French looks the prettiest, but German is the coolest. French, like English, looks nothing like it sounds. French looks better than it sounds IMHO (throaty Rs), but that’s IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/29 "2014-03-24T04:29:22Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > [Javanese.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_language) (Scroll down for script images.) Win. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/30 "2014-03-24T04:44:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > [Burmese](http://static.bbci.co.uk/gel/0.2.16/img/web/burmese-bold.png) looks good. All the circles give it a sense of unity. > > And I like the way the lines connect letters together into words in [Sanskrit](http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/images/sanskrit-text-tattoo.gif). I’ve never seen Burmese before but it looks like what happens when my daughter spills all the [S-Clips](http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v4/1393809282_1/Rainbow-loom-kit-twist-bands-S-clip-connecters-total-600pcs.jpg) for her Rainbow Loom. Also, I’ll second Sanskrit, that’s what I was thinking before I clicked on the thread. I can’t make heads or tails of it but I like the way it looks. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/31 "2014-03-24T05:53:18Z")
[More Javanese beauty.](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/javanese.htm) [Arabic](http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/arabic-calligraphy-artworks/) is definitely my second favorite. But I do have a soft spot in my heart for [Mongolian](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mongolian.htm). [Uyghur Mongolian](http://www.linguamongolia.com/scrp1.html) script, that is, not Cyrillic. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/32 "2014-03-24T06:25:56Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > I think the Inuktitut language looks really cool. [Here](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Inuktitut.svg/489px-Inuktitut.svg.png) are the letters, and here are [samples](http://oceansnorth.org/visual-inuktitut) of things written in Inuktitut. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the appeal. With a good make-over, it would get my vote, but it just seems like they didn’t really try, or they threw it together at the last minute. From those that I’ve seen, I’d have to go with the Burmese. (I’ve always liked Thai and Armenian, but they’re are all over my neighborhood, so they’ve lost their novelty, and I see (and hear) Arabic at work all the time, so it’s more of a chore.) ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/33 "2014-03-24T06:51:59Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I think I’m the only one who loves the way English looks when written. Of my favorite spoken languages, English is way way down there, but I really do love the way English appears on the printed page. Very beautiful to me while remaining extremely functional. Well, sometime English is beautiful. [Take this online photobook as an example.](http://www.vatican.va/bxvi/omaggio/index_en.html)🙂 Seriously though, we might be overestimating the beauty of languages with a strong calligraphic tradition. Chinese and Arabic caligraphy is splendid, but if people did the same for other languages, I doubt it would be any less beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/34 "2014-03-24T06:53:19Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > But I do have a soft spot in my heart for [Mongolian](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mongolian.htm). [Uyghur Mongolian](http://www.linguamongolia.com/scrp1.html) script, that is, not Cyrillic. To my untrained eye, it looks like Arabic written from top to bottom:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/35 "2014-03-24T07:16:50Z")
meow meow boxing cat हिन्दी ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/36 "2014-03-24T07:28:25Z")
Inuktitut, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Hindi (and other languages written in the same scripts) are some of my favourites. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/37 "2014-03-24T13:54:43Z")
[The shapes of the consonants are based on the shape the mouth made when the corresponding sound is made](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/korean.htm) How cool is that? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/38 "2014-03-24T14:02:28Z")
> [@Batistuta](#): > > To my untrained eye, it looks like Arabic written from top to bottom:dubious: Interesting thing about that. Both Arabic and Mongolian script are traced back to the same origin: Aramaic. On the one hand, Aramaic was adapted to Nabataean script to the south, and farther south, Nabataean was developed into Arabic script. In the other direction, Aramaic was adopted as the official administrative language of the Persian empire, and Middle Persian was written in a modified Aramaic script. On the frontiers of the Persian empire in Central Asia, Sogdian script was adapted from that, which in turn was picked up deeper in Central Asia by the early Uyghurs. When the Mongols conquered Central Asia, their sedentary neighbors the Uyghurs got hired as the clerks and scribes for administration, so they adapted their alphabet to write Mongolian. The Mongols rotated it 90º so it could be written parallel with Chinese. Further on, the Manchu language adopted a modified Mongolian script. So I find this kind of amazing: the Aramaic script, in pre-modern times, traveled across the entire length of Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Yellow Sea. It extended much farther than any other writing system had up till that time (before European colonialism). Another form of Aramaic script is the square one we know as Hebrew. It was Aramaic first and then the Hebrews adopted it. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/39 "2014-03-24T14:15:59Z")
Inuktitut is written in [Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics), which are cool because only a few letter forms are needed, and rotating them to 90º, 180º, and 270º produces glyphs for different vowel combinations with a given consonant. It’s very neat and systematic. The syllabics were first used to write the Cree language, (of the Algonquian family), and were then adapted to write the unrelated Inuktitut language (Eskimo-Aleut language), as well as other Algonquian languages like Ojibwe, and even some Athabaskan languages of the Canadian arctic. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358/40 "2014-03-24T14:21:53Z")
> [@Batistuta](#): > > To my untrained eye, it looks like Arabic written from top to bottom:dubious: An aside, but Uighur is kind of my poster child for Microsoft’s font nonsense. Yes, yes, let’s be very global-village… but PLEASE don’t clog up my font list with 50 Asian fonts that essentially cannot be hidden, removed or deleted, just in case a long-lost Uighur aunt sends me a birthday note. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-coolest-looking-written-language/684358.md?page=3)