Syriac alphabetThe Syriac alphabet (ܐܠܦ ܒܝܬ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ʾālep̄ bêṯ Sūryāyā) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic and Sogdian, the precursor and a direct ancestor of the traditional Mongolian scripts. Syriac is written from right to left in horizontal lines. It is a cursive script where most—but not all—letters connect within a word.
ShahmukhiShahmukhi (, ਸ਼ਾਹਮੁਖੀ) is an Abjad developed from the Perso-Arabic alphabet script, used for the Punjabi language. It came into use in Punjabi Sufi literature, from the 12th century and onwards. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used for Urdu. Shahmukhi script is the standard script in Pakistani Punjab used for Punjabi. Perso-Arabic is one of two scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhi used in the Indian Punjab. Shahmukhi is written from right to left, while Gurmukhi is written from left to right.
Shilha languageShilha ('ʃɪlhə ; from its name in Moroccan Arabic, ), now more commonly known as Tashelhiyt, Tachelhit ('tæʃəlhɪt ; from the endonym Taclḥiyt, tæʃlħijt), is a Berber language spoken in southwestern Morocco. When referring to the language, anthropologists and historians prefer the name Shilha, which is in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Linguists writing in English prefer Tashelhit (or a variant spelling). In French sources the language is called tachelhit, chelha or chleuh.
NastaliqNastaliq (ˌnæstəˈliːk,_ˈnæstəliːk; , næsˈthæʔliːq; nəsˈt̪ɑːliːq), also romanized as Nastaʿlīq or Nastaleeq, is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script, and it is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Urdu, Kashmiri, Saraiki and Punjabi (Shahmukhi). It is often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, but rarely for Arabic. Nastaliq developed in Iran from naskh beginning in the 13th century and remains very widely used in Iran, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art.
Persian alphabetThe Persian alphabet (Alefbâye Fârsi), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic alphabet with four additional letters added: پ چ ژ گ. It was the basis of many Arabic-based scripts used in Central and South Asia. It is used for the Iranian and Dari standard varieties of Persian; and is one of two official writing systems for the Persian language, alongside the Cyrillic-based Tajik alphabet.
AljamiadoAljamiado (alxaˈmjaðo; alʒɐmiˈaðu; عَجَمِيَة trans. ʿajamiyah ʕaʒaˈmij.ja) or Aljamía texts are manuscripts that use the Arabic script for transcribing European languages, especially Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, Spanish or Ladino. According to Anwar G. Chejne, Aljamiado or Aljamía is "a corruption of the Arabic word ʿajamiyah (in this case it means foreign language) and, generally, the Arabic expression ʿajam and its derivative ʿajamiyah are applicable to peoples whose ancestry is not of Arabian origin".
Tausug languageTausug (Bahasa Sūg; Jawi: بَهَسَ سُوگ; Bahasa Suluk) is an Austronesian language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines and in the eastern area of the state of Sabah, Malaysia, by the Tausūg people. It is widely spoken in the Sulu Archipelago (Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, and Basilan), the Zamboanga Peninsula (Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga City), southern Palawan, and Malaysia (eastern Sabah).
Saraiki languageSaraiki ( ; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by 26 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect. Saraiki has partial mutual intelligibility with Standard Punjabi, and it shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology.
Tatar languageTatar (ˈtɑːtəɹ; татар теле, tatar tele or татарча, tatarça) is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan (European Russia), as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are closely related but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages. The Tatar language is spoken in Russia by about 5.3 million people, Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, the US, Uzbekistan, and several other countries.
Mutual intelligibilityIn linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first.