Soyombo
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | Soyo |
| Script type | abugida |
| Region | South Asian |
| Status | Current |
| Direction | LTR |
| Baseline | hanging |
| Case | unknown |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | diacritics, complex positioning, required ligatures |
| OpenType code | soyo |
| ISO 15924 Number | 329 (alphasyllabic) |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”The Soyombo script was developed by the Mongolian monk and scholar Bogdo Zanabazar in 1686 to write Mongolian.
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According to legend, Zanabazar based the script on letter-like signs he saw in the sky one night. Other theories suggest that the shapes of the letters may have been based on the Ranjana script of Nepal.
The Mongolian language had been written for centuries before the creation of Soyombo, using the Mongolian script, but Zanabazar was the first to write it horizontally.
Soyombo can also be used to write Tibetan and Sanskrit.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”| Language | Writing System Code | Writing System Status | SLDR/CLDR locale | Regional variants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classical Mongolian | cmg-Soyo | in use | cmg-Soyo-MN (Mongolia) | |
| Sanskrit | sa-Soyo | in use | sa-Soyo-IN | |
| Tibetan, Central | bo-Soyo | in use | bo-Soyo-CN |
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”In The Unicode Standard, Soyombo script implementation is discussed in Chapter 14: South and Central Asia-III — Ancient Scripts
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Resources
Section titled “Resources”- ScriptSource page for Soyombo script - all about scripts, languages, and writing systems