# What Language Has The Longest Alphabet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 31, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832 "2009-07-31T02:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/1 "2009-07-31T02:20:09Z")
Obviously of those lanugages that use an alphabet. I read in yahoo answers that Khmer (Cambodian) has 74 letters in its alphabet, but you can’t really take Yahoo Answers as a final source 🙂 I also realize there may be dispute as to what is a seperate letter and what is a just one letter with a mark above it ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/2 "2009-07-31T03:04:06Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > I also realize there may be dispute as to what is a seperate letter and what is a just one letter with a mark above it It would probably help in answering you which one of these two options you were looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/3 "2009-07-31T03:12:46Z")
You’re probably going to have to qualify “alphabet.” I’ll assume you’re excluding syllabaries and going with systems that are more-or-less one character to one sound: the language with the most _phonemes_ is !Xù (spelled variously), with over 100. Different sources range from 102 to 112. According to the _Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets_ Cambodian is a syllabary. It gives 33 consonants and 21 vowels for Cambodian, and of course those vowels are essentially diacritics added to the consonants. So (1) it’s not an alphabet _strictu sensu_ and (2) I don’t see how they get 74. Cherokee has 84 different symbols. It’s not an alphabet either but would seem to count if Cambodian does. Off to count more alphabets, back in a minute. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/4 "2009-07-31T03:27:53Z")
For purely alphabetic scripts, it looks like Old Church Slavonic is the one to beat at 43. А Б В Г Д Е Ж Ѕ З И І К Л М Н О П Р С Т Ѹ Ф Х У Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Ѣ Ю Я Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ a b v g d e zh dj sh i i k l m n o p r s t u f kh o ts ch sht u y i e yu ya ye e[sup]n[/sup] a[sup]n[/sup] ye[sup]n[/sup] ya[sup]n[/sup] ks ps th y (I snuck a modern я in there because I couldn’t find the appropriate character in my font. They’ll probably all display as little squares anyway.) ETA: The transcribed alphabet below isn’t very helpful, it’s just to give the general idea. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/5 "2009-07-31T03:31:30Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > They’ll probably all display as little squares anyway. I got 'em all. Firefox 3.0.12, English (United States). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/6 "2009-07-31T03:31:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > It would probably help in answering you which one of these two options you were looking for. I guess I don’t know. I mean in German are the letters u and ü, the same letter or not? I dont know. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/7 "2009-07-31T03:36:27Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > I guess I don’t know. I mean in German are the letters u and ü, the same letter or not? I dont know. They aren’t taught as separate letters at the college level for students just learning the language. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/8 "2009-07-31T03:37:40Z")
For living languages, Yakut, a.k.a. Sakha, has 40 characters, the standard Cyrillic crowd plus a few additional ones. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakha_language) I count д and дь as separate letters, much like ll and l in Welsh or Spanish, because even though дь is a digraph it’s a distinctly different sound, not just a palatalized version of the same one as in Russian. (One of the characters doesn’t display when I pull it up, but it looks like the love child of a capital F and a 5: imagine the lower horizontal stroke of the F curving down like the round part of the 5. Ҕ ҕ.) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/9 "2009-07-31T03:38:20Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > According to the _Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets_ Cambodian is a syllabary. It gives 33 consonants and 21 vowels for Cambodian, and of course those vowels are essentially diacritics added to the consonants. So (1) it’s not an alphabet _strictu sensu_ and (2) I don’t see how they get 74. Cherokee has 84 different symbols. It’s not an alphabet either but would seem to count if Cambodian does. Off to count more alphabets, back in a minute. I’ve always heard it called the Cambodian alphabet myself. The [Thai alphabet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet) has 44 consonants and 15 vowel symbols. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/10 "2009-07-31T03:39:28Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > They aren’t taught as separate letters at the college level for students just learning the language. Nor in high school, in fact we were told NOT to think of them like that, but rather as a shorthand for ue (oe and ae), as well as thinking of the esszet as simply ss. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/11 "2009-07-31T03:44:46Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Nor in high school, in fact we were told NOT to think of them like that, but rather as a shorthand for ue (oe and ae), as well as thinking of the esszet as simply ss. Which is in fact historically correct: the two dots (¨)are a highly reduced superscript form of the Roman cursive [e], and the ß is old “long s” (the thing that looks like a lowercase f without the crossbar) run together with s. ſ + s = ß. (I love unicode.) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/12 "2009-07-31T03:51:14Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > .. Khmer (Cambodian) has 74 letters in its alphabet … Cherokee has 85. > **[Cherokee syllabary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary)** > > The Cherokee syllabary (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ ᏗᎪᏪᎶᏙᏗ, romanized: Tsalagi Digohwelodohdi) is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah in the late 1810s and early 1820s to write the Cherokee language. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy as he was illiterate until its creation. He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed into the syllabary. In his system, each symbol represents a syllable rather than a single phoneme; the 85 (originally 86) characters provide a su Ar... Any advance on 85? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/13 "2009-07-31T04:34:13Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Cherokee has 85. > [Cherokee syllabary - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary) > > Any advance on 85? Cherokee is a syllabary, rather than a phonetic alphabet. If you are going to allow syllabaries, try that used to represent Yi: > **[Yi script | Modern Yi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_script#Modern_Yi)** > > The Modern Yi script (ꆈꌠꁱꂷ nuosu bburma \[nɔ̄sβ̩ bβ̠̩mā\] 'Nuosu script') is a standardized syllabary derived from the classic script in 1974 by the local Ethnic Affairs Commission in Sichuan. > In 1980, it was ratified by the State Council as the official script of the Liangshan dialect of the Nuosu Yi language of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and consequently is known as Liangshan Standard Yi Script (涼山規範彝文 Liángshān guīfàn Yíwén). There are 756 basic glyphs based on the Liangshan dialect, ... > [@](#): > > There are 756 basic glyphs based on the Liangshan dialect, plus 63 for syllables only found in Chinese borrowings. Vai has a syllabary with a large number of symbols, also - in excess of 150 (the table of 152 symbols isn’t complete): > **[Vai syllabary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vai_syllabary)** > > The Vai syllabary is a syllabic writing system devised for the Vai language by Momolu Duwalu Bukele of Jondu, in what is now Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia. Bukele is regarded within the Vai community, as well as by most scholars, as the syllabary's inventor and chief promoter when it was first documented in the 1830s. It is one of the two most successful indigenous scripts in West Africa in terms of the number of current users and the availability of literature written in the script, Vai is... We may wish to restrict ourselves to phonetic alphabets. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/14 "2009-07-31T04:45:43Z")
I suspect the criterion for “separate letterhood” is whether it is treated by a dictionary as such. For example, I believe that French vowels are alphabetized each in one sequence whether they are written with accents or not. In contrast, Russian ë (yoh sound) is a distinct letter from Russian e (yeh sound). Though a digraph, I believe ll is considered a distinct letter in both Welsh and Spanish, as in the latter is ñ. (In English, however, llama comes in the same sequence as other l- words, between liver and lobster. In Spanish, however, it would be part of a new sequence following luz. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/15 "2009-07-31T05:07:56Z")
[hijack] In Spanish, ll and rr used to be considered separate letters (they’re separate phonemes), but currently they’re not. Ñ is considered a separate letter; accented vowels are considered… accented vowels (so, not separate letters). The Catalans avoid the question of whether ç is a separate letter; it’s not part of the alphabet as recited and it doesn’t get a dictionary grouping, but there’s no words that start with ç and it _is_ a distinct, uh, spelling entity (Barça isn’t the same as Barsa; the first one is correct spelling, the second one is acceptable only if the means you’re using for writing don’t let you write a ç). [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/16 "2009-07-31T05:14:54Z")
In what sense is a syllabary not a kind of alphabet? You’ve got a set of symbols, each of which represents a sound, which you can put together to make words. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/17 "2009-07-31T06:14:29Z")
Some scripts (such as Hindi) have a default vowel for each consonant letter. If the letter is followed by a different vowel or no vowel at all, then a diacritical is added or two consonants are formed into a ligature. Another term for such a script is [abugida](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida). According to the Wiki article on [Alphabet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet), > [@](#): > > The largest known abjad is Sindhi, with 51 letters. The largest alphabets in the narrow sense include Kabardian and Abkhaz (for Cyrillic), with 58 and 56 letters, respectively, and Slovak (for the Latin alphabet), with 46. However, these scripts either count di- and tri-graphs as separate letters, as Spanish did with ch and ll until recently, or uses diacritics like Slovak č. The largest true alphabet where each letter is graphically independent is probably Georgian, with 41 letters. A syllabary is different than an alphabet in that an alphabet’s symbols are used to represent one sound at a time whereas a syllabary’s symbols represent an entire syllable, not just “a sound.” An [abjad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad) is similar to an alphabet but lacks vowels. If you’re so inclined, you might want to scour up a copy of [_Writing Systems of the World_, by Akira Nakanishi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida). Another useful resource (but not available at the moment) is [www.omniglot.com](http://www.omniglot.com). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/18 "2009-07-31T06:34:52Z")
**Monty** - great answer!🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/19 "2009-07-31T10:02:20Z")
Thanks, **DrDeth**. Given my degree is in Linguistics, you probably guessed already I’m interested in this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832/20 "2009-07-31T14:44:59Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I suspect the criterion for “separate letterhood” is whether it is treated by a dictionary as such. For example, I believe that French vowels are alphabetized each in one sequence whether they are written with accents or not. \*\*In contrast, Russian ë (yoh sound) is a distinct letter from Russian e (yeh sound). \*\* The bolded part is [kind of indeterminate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(Cyrillic)): > [@](#): > > **Yo (Ё, ё)**,a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. … Its status in Russian, the language in which it was first used, is ambiguous: although it indicates a distinct sound from **е** , it is treated as the same letter for purposes of alphabetization and sorting (thus in the dictionary **ёж** comes after **едок** and before **ездить** ), and in most circumstances it is printed as **е**. **Ё** is definitely used in teaching materials and in children’s books and such. And in many Cyrillic-alphabet charts, you’ll see **ё** listed separately. But I wonder if when a native Russian speaker writes down the Cyrillic alphabet, he/she is likely to include **ё**. FWIW, a quick perusal of **[pravda.ru](http://pravda.ru)** didn’t reveal any usages of **ё** at all on the front page and in the several articles I went through. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-has-the-longest-alphabet/504832.md?page=2)