The nations' scripts

In the first section of the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadim surveys the writings and scripts of the nations. ²

• The Manichaeans have a script that resembles Syriac, and the Marcionites have a script that is not peculiar to them.
• The Sogdians have a script, and their people are dualists and Christians.
• China has some two hundred scripts. They write with nine characters and add dots until they arrive at the letters of the alphabet.
• Ethiopia has a script whose letters are joined like the letters of Himyar. It runs from right to left, and they separate each name with three dots.
• Russia has a writing carved into wood.
• The writing of the Franks resembles the Roman script and is more regular than it. It is sometimes seen on Frankish swords.

²

Ibn al-Nadim mentions that the peoples of the Sudan, including the Nubians, the Beja, the Zaghawa, the Marawa, the Berbers, and the varieties of the Zanj, have no script and no writing. The people of Sind write in Hindi because of their neighbourhood. The Zanj have oratory and eloquence in their own manner. The Beja have a script that he did not reach. The Nubians write in Syriac, Greek, and Coptic, for the sake of religion. ²

Turks, Bulgars, Burghuz, Khazars, and Alans have no script, except that the Bulgars and the Tibetans write in Chinese and Manichaean script, and the Khazars in Hebrew. ²

Hamud Harrar the Turk told him that when the greatest king of the Turks wrote to a lesser king, he would summon his vizier and have an arrow split and carved with marks that the learned Turks understood as conveying meanings. The queen of the Franks wrote to al-Mukafi a letter on white silk, asking for his friendship. ²