Abstract Drawing and writing have a complex, sometimes incestuous, relationship. They are both taught to children, but in different, if overlapping, ways: writing is usually obliged to remain faithful, whereas drawing can break free. There is a no-man’s-land in between, where writing can look like drawing or vice versa, and there are instances where drawing seems to hark back to writing or to compete with it. This can take the form of ‘scripts’ whose legibility is open to question: sometimes they mimic an imaginary alphabet, at other times only the initiated can understand them. This essay offers a brief survey of this fascinating territory.