The Latin alphabet is the most widely used writing system in the world, as it is the basis for alphabets of many languages, especially in Europe, the Americas, Oceania, and parts of Africa and Asia. It has about 700 million native speakers and more than 1.5 billion second-language speakers.
Chinese characters are logograms that represent morphemes, or units of meaning, in the Chinese language and some other East Asian languages. They are used by about 1.2 billion native speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Min, and other varieties of Chinese, as well as by some speakers of Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other languages that have adopted or adapted some Chinese characters.
Devanagari is an abugida, or a segmental writing system that uses consonant letters with inherent vowels and diacritics to indicate other vowels and tones. It is the main script for writing Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India, as well as other languages such as Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit, and Bhojpuri. It has about 600 million native speakers and millions of second-language speakers.
The Arabic script is an abjad, or a writing system that mainly represents consonants and uses optional diacritics for vowels and other features. It is the main script for writing Arabic, the official language of 26 countries and a liturgical language for Muslims, as well as other languages such as Persian, Urdu, Kurdish, Somali, and Malay. It has about 420 million native speakers and hundreds of millions of second-language speakers.
The Cyrillic script is an alphabet that is derived from the Greek and Glagolitic scripts. It is the main script for writing Russian, the most widely spoken Slavic language, as well as other languages such as Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, Kazakh, Mongolian, and Tajik. It has about 250 million native speakers and millions of second-language speakers.