Individual languages have had various orthographies, usually based on either the Lepsius alphabet or on the Latin alphabet. They may change over time or between countries. Latin letters, such as <ç>, have case forms; the pipe letters do not.

Multiple systems

By the early 19th century, the otherwise unneeded letters were used as the basis for writing clicks in Zulu by British and German missions. However, for general linguistic transcription this was confusing, as each of these letters had other uses. There were various ad hoc attempts to create dedicated letters--often iconic symbols--for click consonants, with the most successful being those of the Standard Alphabet by Lepsius, which were based on a single symbol (pipe, double pipe, pipe-acute, pipe-sub-dot) and from which the modern Khoekhoe letters descend.

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