The article focuses on foreign scientific practices in the creation of orthographies for unwritten languages in order to find a high-quality and effective algorithm for the Enets writing approval and development. The review of modern foreign researches is dominated by the analysis of the publications issued by the scholars of SIL international, the most experienced and authoritative organization in this field. The first part of the article gives a description of the algorithm for the development of written languages for the indigenous peoples, the description being recognized as the most promising at the beginning of the 21st century. It highlights the stages, principles and scientific attitudes, lists linguistic and non-linguistic challenges that arise in the course of the development of writing. The second part analyses specific cases of a) the SIL scholars’ successful creation of writing for the Mexican languages, in particular, for the Mixtec language; b) unsuccessful attempts to create the writing for the people of Darma living in Nepal on the border with India. It is concluded that modern techniques in the field of orthographies can be used to create a written Enets language.