The size of an alphabet does not necessarily correlate with the complexity or richness of a language. The number of letters in an alphabet varies based on the phonetic and linguistic requirements of a particular language.
Here are the top five languages ranked by the size of their alphabets:
- Khmer (74 letters)
- Nepali (64 letters)
- Cherokee (85 letters)
- Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (112 letters)
- Hangul (24 letters)
Top 5 most widely spoken languages
- Khmer is the official language of Cambodia and is spoken by over 16 million people. The Khmer alphabet is based on the Brahmi script and consists of 74 letters, including 33 consonants, 23 vowels, and 12 independent vowels.
- Nepali is the official language of Nepal and is spoken by over 29 million people. The Nepali alphabet is based on the Devanagari script and consists of 64 letters, including 35 consonants, 27 vowels, and 2 modifiers.
- Cherokee is a Native American language spoken by over 20,000 people in the United States. The Cherokee alphabet was created by Sequoyah in the early 1800s and consists of 85 letters, including 8 vowels and 77 consonants.
- Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics is a writing system used to write a number of Native American languages in Canada. The Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics consist of 112 letters, each of which represents a syllable.
- Hangul is the official writing system of South Korea and is used to write the Korean language. Hangul was created in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great and consists of 24 letters, each of which represents a consonant or vowel sound.
Top 5 oldest language in the world
Other languages size of their alphabets are:
- Hebrew is a Semitic language spoken by over 9 million people worldwide. The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters, each of which represents a consonant sound.
- Italian is a Romance language spoken by over 60 million people worldwide. The Italian alphabet consists of 21 letters, each of which represents a single sound.
- Spanish is a Romance language spoken by over 500 million people worldwide. The Spanish alphabet consists of 27 letters, including 26 letters from the Latin alphabet and the letter.
- German is a West Germanic language spoken by over 100 million people worldwide. The German alphabet consists of 26 letters, including 5 vowels and 21 consonants.
- English is a West Germanic language spoken by over 1.5 billion people worldwide. The English alphabet consists of 26 letters, including 5 vowels and 21 consonants.
- Thai: The Thai alphabet, known as Thai script, has 44 consonants and 15 vowels, making a total of 59 letters.
- Tibetan: The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida script with 30 consonants and 4 vowels, totaling 34 letters. It is used to write the Tibetan language.
- Urdu: The Urdu alphabet is an extended version of the Arabic script, comprising 38 letters. It is used to write the Urdu language and includes additional letters to represent sounds specific to Urdu.
- Hindi: The Hindi alphabet, called Devanagari, consists of 33 consonants and 11 vowels, making a total of 44 letters. It is used to write the Hindi language and several other languages of India.
- Bengali: The Bengali alphabet, known as Bengali script, has 11 vowels and 39 consonants, totaling 50 letters. It is used to write the Bengali language.
- Gujarati: The Gujarati alphabet has 33 consonants and 12 vowels, amounting to a total of 45 letters. It is used to write the Gujarati language.
