Беларуская | Belarusian

Belarusian is an East Slavic language spoken in Belarus by around 7 million people. Under the Soviet Union and later under the Lukashenko regime, the Belarusian language was pushed aside in favor of the Russian language, which is used more than Belarusian in most parts of the country. This course will teach you the official Belarusian orthography, instead of Taraškievica, an older system sometimes used in the Belarusian diaspora.

Български | Bulgarian

Bulgarian is a South Slavic language with around 8-9 million speakers in the Republic of Bulgaria- an EU Member State on the Balkan peninsula. Historically, Middle Bulgarian was spoken in a much larger area in the Second Bulgarian Empire. Because of this, there are still many Bulgarian speaking towns in southern Ukraine and Moldova. Select a level below, to become literate in a language that is known for its simple grammar (compared to other Slavic languages).

Хуэйзў | Dungan

Dungan is the only Chinese variety written in the Cyrillic alphabet. A few hundred years ago, a large group of Chinese-speaking Muslims migrated to Central Asia, who eventually became the Dungan people. Under the Soviet Union, a Cyrillic alphabet was developed for the language which is still used to this day. Dungan speakers cannot understand Mandarin Chinese very well anymore after centuries of separation.

Македонски | Macedonian

In the heart of the Balkan Peninsula you will find a small multiethnic nation called the Republic of North Macedonia. The national language and language of interethnic communication is Macedonian, a Slavic language which is related to both Serbian and Bulgarian. In terms of orthography and grammar, Macedonian is very simple compared to other languages of the region- it was codified around the late 1800s and early 1900s as the Ottoman Empire began to collapse. Before visiting Skopje, make sure to take these quick lessons to become acquainted with the alphabet.

Монгол | Mongolian

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Empire became the largest land-based empire in history, stretching across most of Eurasia. Today, the Mongolian nation has been reduced to a small inland republic between Russia and China with a few million people. Due to influence from the Soviet Union, Mongolia adopted the Cyrillic alphabet to replace their traditional alphabet. The traditional alphabet, which is written top-to-bottom, is still used about Mongolians in China- but this course will only teach the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet.

Русский | Russian

Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian remains important in Eastern Europe and is even growing in popularity in Central Asia- with an estimated 260 million total speakers! Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and is the most spoken first language in Europe. If you want to be able to read an official language of four different countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan), click down below.

Русиньскый | Rusyn

Unlike most ethnic groups in Europe, the Rusyns are not all concentrated in one area. Rusyns live primarily in Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, and Serbia- among other Central European countries. Rusyn is an East Slavic language like Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian, and it's spoken by around half a million people.

Српски | Serbian

The Serbian language is part of a pluricentric South Slavic language which includes literary varieties such as "Croatian" and "Bosnian". However, Serbian is unique among these varieties that it is written in two alphabets, Cyrillic (slightly more often) and Latin. Serbian is official in four countries (Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo) which is a lot more languages that most on this site. So now that you are convinced, start the Serbian course below.

Тоҷикӣ | Tajik

The mountaineous Republic of Tajikistan's national language is Tajik, which is a divergent dialect of Persian/Dari written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Additionally, Tajik is spoken by a large portion of the population of Uzbekistan and it is the main language in some major cities. Because of the geographic isolation, Tajik has kept some vocabulary and grammar that no longer exists in standardized Persian/Dari which are spoken in Iran in Afghanistan.

Українська | Ukrainian

During Soviet times, the Ukrainian language was often discarded in favor of Russian, but recently this language has been undergoing a major revitalization! Books, movies, and TV shows are being created in Ukrainian like never before in history. Around forty million people speak Ukrainian, making it one of Europe's major languages- so make sure you know how to read a couple words in it at the very least.

Ўзбекча | Uzbek

Uzbek is the national language of Uzbekistan where it has some 27 million native speakers while it is also spoken by 5 million Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. Uzbeks also form around 15% of the population in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Until recently, Uzbekistan used the Cyrillic alphabet to write their language, but the government promoted a shift to the Latin alphabet after the Soviet Union collapsed. The transition to the Latin alphabet never fully took place, so both Latin and Cyrillic are used. Therefore, I created the following course to teach the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet. Note that in Afghanistan, a version of the Arabic alphabet is used.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

العربية | Arabic

Arabic is probably the most important language you will find on this site. There are over 300 million Arabic speakers in the world and it is an official language in 26 countries! In addition, Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam (the second largest religion on Earth) and one of six official working languages of the United Nations. Wherever Islam went, from Senegal to Suriname to Spain, Arabic impacted the local language and provided many loan words (many like Algebra and kebab have come into English).

فارسی | Persian

Persian is the national language of the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as a national language in Afghanistan, where it is called Dari. In ancient times, many strong empires such as the Sassanids and the Achaemenids used Persian as their state language, which was written in a variety of alphabets. Today, a variant of the Arabic script is used to represent Persian, reflecting the rise of Islam in the region.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

اردو | Urdu

Upon independence from Britain, Pakistan decided to use Urdu as its national language and language of interethnic communication. Urdu and Hindi are often considered to be dialects of the same 'Hindustani' language- the main difference is that Urdu is written in a form of the Arabic script and has some influence from Persian. Outside of Pakistan, Urdu has official status in some states in India and is spoken by the Pakistani diaspora around the world.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

ئۇيغۇر | Uyghur

Alongside other languages like Turkish, Uzbek, and Kazakh- Uyghur is one of the Turkic languages. Most Uyghurs are Muslim and therefore write in the a variant of the same alphabet of their religious texts. However, unlike the Arabic language, all vowels are fully written. There are maybe 12 million Uyghurs in northwestern China now, with an additional 2 million around the world (particularly Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan).

עברית | Hebrew

For millenia, Hebrew has remained the holy language of Judaism and it's the original language of the Old Testament (Tanakh). At the start of the 20th century, nobody used Hebrew outside of religious contexts. Now Hebrew is spoken by over ten million people and it is the national language of the State of Israel. This is the first foreign alphabet I learned; if I did it, you can too!

ייִדיש | Yiddish

Many English words such as "bagel" and "tchotchke" actually originate from Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is a Germanic language written in a form of the Hebrew alphabet. It has many words of Hebrew and Slavic origin. In 1940 there were around 12 million speakers of Yiddish, but due to genocide and assimilation, there are only around half a million speakers today. You can help revive Yiddish and learn about its 800 years of literary tradition, the first step is for you to complete the following course:

հայերեն | Armenian

The Armenian language has a literary tradition that began in 405 CE after the priest Mesrop Mashtots invented its alphabet. In present times, Armenian is spoken by nearly seven million people. In addition to being the national language of the Republic of Armenia, you can find many speakers across the Armenian diaspora in Georgia, Russia, the USA, Lebanon, and other countries. Come learn how to read this beautiful language!

𞤊𞤵𞤤𞤬𞤵𞤤𞤣𞤫 | Fulani

The Fulani language is one of the most spoken in Africa. There are approximately 35 million first language speakers and another 30 million second language speakers. Fula people live across Western and Central Africa in countries as far apart as Mauritania, Ethiopia, and Cameroon. Historically, Fulani has been written in various forms of the Latin or Arabic script, but in the 1980s an indigenous alphabet known as Adlam was created by Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry in Guinea. Adlam is growing to be the primary alphabet of the Fulani language in modern times.

हिन्दी | Hindi

Alongside English, Hindi is one of India's official languages. Though only a little over half of the population of India speaks Hindi as a first, second, or third language, that is still a lot of people (~700 million)! Indeed, Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in the world. Outside of South Asia, Hindi is actually an official language in the Polynesian nation of Fiji.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

বাংলা | Bangla

While most people do not think of Bangla (sometimes called Bengali) when thinking of widely-spoken languages, but Bangla is the fifth-most widely spoken native language in the world. Not only do nearly all of Bangladesh's ~160 million citizens speak Bangla natively, but so do the majority of people in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. Across India and Bangladesh, there are many dialects of Bangla, some of which are considered separate languages, varying by geography and religious community.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

ქართული | Georgian

The mountaineous republic of Georgia is situated in the southern Caucausus, where the Georgian people have maintained their language and culture for thousands of years, surviving centuries of foreign occupation. The Georgian language has an easy alphabet, with no capital/lowercase letter distinction. Doesn't sound so hard right? If you want to communicate with the ~3.7 million Georgians in the world, consider completing this course's levels.

Ελληνική | Greek

In ancient times, the foundations for philosophy, mathematics, and logic were first transcribed in Greek. While Greek is no longer considered the main language of Western civilization, it is still the main language of both Cyprus and Greece and spoken by smaller communities in countries like Georgia, Ukraine, and Italy. Many Greek letters are important in science and mathematics, and a lot of Greek word roots have entered international vocabulary. The odds are that you are already familiar with some Greek letters, so don't hesitate to get started.

한국어 | Korean

King Sejong the Great developed the Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, to write his country's language. Previously, Chinese characters were used to write Korean words. Presently, Korean is spoken in South Korea, North Korea, and two autonomous counties in China. North Korea has a slightly simplified form of alphabet but it will not be taught here as it is not useful given the current political situation.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

日本語 | Japanese

Japanese is one of these most spoken languages in East Asia, with around 130 million speakers. However, it is also one of the hardest to learn to read. In fact, there are three different writing systems used together to write Japanese- this will teach you the syllable-based system for native Japanese words called Hiragana. Katakana will be on this website later, but I do not know if we will ever have the third system (Kanji).

𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 𐒻𐒷 | Osage

Osage is a highly endangered language which was historically spoken around the American Midwest but is now mostly taught in the Osage Nation (in northeastern Oklahoma). In 2006, a new script was created for the Osage language, which accurately represents all of the sounds which exist in the language. This makes Osage, alongside Cherokee, one of only two Native American alphabets to use an indigenous script.

ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ | Central Atlas Tamazight

The Amazigh languages are spoken by tens of millions of people across North Africa and the Sahel. Central Atlas Tamazight is the second-most spoken Amazigh language (with around 5 million speakers), spoken entirely in Morocco in the Atlas mountains. A modern variation of the ancient Tifinagh alphabet is principly used to write this language, with encourage from the government. A minority of people use Latin or Arabic but this is increasingly rare, so I suggest you start learning now.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ | Punjabi

The Punjabi language is spoken by around 110 million people, primarily in Pakistan and India. In Pakistan, the Punjabi language is written in the Arabic alphabet and is the most spoken first language, yet it does not have any sort of official status. In India, Punjabi is the official language of the state of Punjab- where it is written in the Gurmukhi script (which is the script this course teaches). The Gurmukhi script is associated with a monotheistic Indian religion called Sikhism; all the holy texts of this religion are written in the Gurmukhi alphabet.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

ࡓࡀࡈࡍࡀ‎ | Mandaic

Mandaic is a Semitic language spoken historically and contemporarily by the Mandaean religion, an ethnoreligious group from the Middle East

Coming soon, but here is a small preview:

ދިވެހި | Maldivian

Around half a million people live in the Republic of the Maldives, an Islamic archipelagic state south of India. This is the lowest country in the world, the highest natural point in the Maldives is just 5.1 meters (~17 ft) above sea level. The national language is called Maldivian or Dhivehi, which is distantly related to Sinhalese (national language of Sri Lanka). The alphabet is loosely based off of the Arabic script, which is almost certainly the reason it is written from right-to-left like Arabic.

Coming soon, but here is a small preview: