Brahmic family of scripts

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This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida (alphabetic-syllabary) writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent. They are used by languages of several linguistic families: Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Tai, and possibly Korean (hangul). They were also the source of the dictionary order of Japanese kana.

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[edit] History

An inscription in Old Tamil script (Vatteluttu) from the Later Chola period, circa 11th century AD. Old Tamil is a direct descendant of the Brahmi writing system

Brahmic scripts are descended from the Brahmi script. Brahmi is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka, who used the script for imperial edicts, but there are some recent finds of earlier epigraphy in Tamil-Brahmi writing found on pottery in South India and Sri Lanka, dating back to the 6th century BCE or even earlier. Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta period, which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the Middle Ages, including Siddham, Sharada and Nagari.

The Siddham (kanji: 悉曇, modern Japanese pronunciation: shittan) script was especially important in Buddhism because many sutras were written in it, and the art of Siddham calligraphy survives today in Japan. The syllabic nature and dictionary order of the modern kana system of Japanese writing is believed to be descended from the Indic scripts, most likely through the spread of Buddhism.[1]

Southern Brahmi evolved into the Grantha script among others, which in turn diversified into numerous scripts of Southeast Asia.

Bhattiprolu was a great centre of Buddhism during 3rd century CE and from where Buddhism spread to east Asia. The present Telugu script is derived from Bhattiprolu Script or 'Kannada-Telugu script', also known as 'old Kannada script', owing to its similarity to the same[2][3].

Initially, minor changes were made which is now called Tamil brahmi which has far fewer letters than some of the other Indic scripts as it has no separate aspirated or voiced consonants. Later under the influence of Granta vetteluthu evolved which looks similar to present day Malayalam script. Still further changes were made in 19th and 20th centuries to make use of printing and typewriting needs before we have the present script.

Gari Ledyard has hypothesized that the hangul script used to write Korean is based on the Mongol 'Phags-pa script, a descendant of the Brahmic family via Tibetan.

[edit] Characteristics

Some characteristics, which may not be present in all the scripts are:

[edit] Comparison

Below are comparison charts of several of the major Indic scripts; transliteration is indicated in ISO 15919; pronunciation is indicated in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Pronunciation is taken from Sanskrit where possible, but other languages where necessary. These lists are not comprehensive; some glyphs are unrepresented. Some pronunciations may be inaccurate or different from the ones listed, partly because the graphemically corresponding glyphs listed in the same column are not necessarily phonetically identical.

[edit] Consonants

ISO k kh g gh c ch j jh ñ ṭh ḍh t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l v ś s h
IPA k ɡ ɡʱ ŋ c ɟ ɟʱ ɲ ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ t̪ʰ d̪ʱ n p b m j r ɾ l ɭ ɻ ʋ ʃ ʂ s ɦ
Oriya      
E. Nagari   র/ৰ      
Devanagari
Gujarati      
Gurmukhi     ਲ਼   ਸ਼  
Tibetan                  
Brahmi Brah k.png Brah kh.png Brah g.png Brah gh.png Brah ng.png Brah c.png Brah ch.png Brah j.png Brah jh.png Brah ny.png Brah t1.png Brah th1.png Brah d1.png Brah dh1.png Brah n1.png Brah t.png Brah th.png Brah d.png Brah dh.png Brah n.png   Brah p.png Brah ph.png Brah b.png Brah bh.png Brah m.png Brah y.png Brah r.png   Brah l.png Brah l1.png   Brah v.png Brah sh.png Brah s1.png Brah s.png Brah h.png
Telugu    
Kannada  
Sinhala ​ඣ​      
Malayalam PNG Image
Tamil                            
Burmese က ဉ/ည    
Khmer      
Thai      
Lao                              
Balinese        
Baybayin                                              

[edit] Vowels

Vowels are presented in their independent form on the left of each column, and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant k on the right. A glyph for ka is an independent consonant letter itself without any vowel sign, where the vowel a is inherent.

ISO a ā æ ǣ i ī u ū e ē ai o ō au r̥̄ l̥̄
IPA ə ɑː æ æː i u e əi o əu r̩ː l̩ː
Oriya କା         କି କୀ କୁ କୂ     କେ କୈ     କୋ କୌ କୃ କୄ କୢ କୣ
E. Nagari কা অ্যা       কি কী কু কূ     কে কৈ     কো কৌ কৃ কৄ কৢ কৣ
Devanagari का अॅ कॅ कॉ कि की कु कू कॆ के कै कॊ को कौ कृ कॄ कॢ कॣ
Gujarati કા         કિ કી કુ કૂ     કે કૈ     કો કૌ કૃ કૄ કૢ કૣ
Gurmukhi ਕਾ         ਕਿ ਕੀ ਕੁ ਕੂ     ਕੇ ਕੈ     ਕੋ ਕੌ                
Tibetan ཨཱ ཀཱ         ཨི ཀི ཨཱི ཀཱི ཨུ ཀུ ཨཱུ ཀཱུ     ཨེ ཀེ ཨཻ ཀཻ     ཨོ ཀོ ཨཽ ཀཽ རྀ ཀྲྀ རཱྀ ཀཷ ལྀ ཀླྀ ལཱྀ ཀླཱྀ
Brahmi Brah a.png   Brah aa.png           Brah i.png   Brah ii.png   Brah u.png   Brah uu.png       Brah e.png   Brah ai.png       Brah o.png                      
Telugu కా         కి కీ కు కూ కె కే కై కొ కో కౌ కృ కౄ కౢ కౣ
Kannada ಕಾ         ಕಿ ಕೀ ಕು ಕೂ ಕೆ ಕೇ ಕೈ ಕೊ ಕೋ ಕೌ ಕೃ ಕೄ ಕೢ ಕೣ
Sinhala කා කැ කෑ කි කී කු කූ කෙ කේ කෛ කො කෝ කෞ කෘ කෲ කෟ කෳ
Malayalam കാ         കി കീ കു കൂ കെ കേ കൈ കൊ കോ കൗ കൃ കൄ കൢ കൣ
Tamil கா         கி கீ கு கூ கெ கே கை கொ கோ கௌ                
Burmese က အာ ကာ         ကိ ကီ ကု ကူ ကေ အေး ကေး     ကော     ကော် ကၖ ကၗ ကၘ ကၙ
Khmer កា         កិ កី កុ កូ     កេ កៃ     កោ កៅ ក្ឫ ក្ឬ ក្ឭ ក្ឮ
Thai อะ อา กา         อิ กิ อี กี อุ กุ อู กู     กเ อาย กาย     อโ กโ อาว กาว อฤ กฤ อฤๅ กฤๅ อฦ กฦ อฦๅ กฦๅ
Balinese ᬓᬵ         ᬓᬶ ᬓᬷ ᬓᬸ ᬓᬹ     ᬓᬾ ᬓᬿ     ᬓᭀ ᬓᭁ ᬓᬺ ᬓᬻ ᬓᬼ ᬓᬽ
Baybayin               ᜃᜒ     ᜃᜓ     ᜃᜒ         ᜃᜓ                        

Note: Glyphs for r̥̄, , l̥̄ and a few other glyphs are obsolete or very rarely used.

[edit] Numerals

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Oriya
E. Nagari
Devanagari
Gujarati
Gurmukhi
Tibetan
Brahmi
Telugu
Kannada
Malayalam
Tamil
Burmese
Khmer
Thai
Lao
Balinese
Javanese

[edit] List of Brahmic scripts

Scripts derived from Brahmi.

[edit] Historical

The Brahmi script was already divided into regional variants at the time of the earliest surviving epigraphy around the 3rd century BCE. Cursives of the Brahmi script began to diversify further from around the 5th century CE and continued to give rise to new scripts throughout the Middle Ages. The main division in antiquity was between northern and southern Brahmi. In the northern group, the Gupta script was very influential, and in the southern group the Grantha script with the spread of Hinduism spread Brahmic scripts throughout Southeast Asia.

[edit] Contemporary

script derivation period of derivation usage notes ISO 15924 Unicode range sample
Anga Lipi Brahmi 6th century BCE Angika U+0900–U+097F देवनागरी
Balinese Old Kawi 11th century Balinese language Bali U+1B00–U+1B7F
Baybayin Old Kawi 14th century Tagalog, other Philippine languages Tglg U+1700–U+171F ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔
Buhid Old Kawi 14th century Buhid language Buhd U+1740–U+175F ᝊᝓᝑᝒ
Burmese Vatteluttu 11th century Burmese language, numerous modifications for other languages including Chakma, Eastern and Western Pwo Karen, Geba Karen, Kayah, Mon, Rumai Palaung, S'gaw Karen, Shan Mymr U+1000–U+109F မြန်မာအက္ခရာ
Cham Vatteluttu 8th century Cham language Cham U+AA00–U+AA5F
Devanagari Nagari 13th century Numerous Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Bhili, Konkani, Angika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili, Kurukh, Nepal Bhasa and sometimes Sindhi and Kashmiri. Formerly used to write Gujarati. Sometimes used to write or transliterate Sherpa Deva U+0900–U+097F देवनागरी
Eastern Nagari Nagari 11th century Bengali language (Bengali script variant), Assamese language (Assamese script variant) Beng U+0980–U+09FF বাংলা লিপি
Gujarati Nagari 17th century Gujarati language, Kutchi language Gujr U+0A80–U+0AFF ગુજરાતી લિપિ
Gurmukhi Sharada 16th century Punjabi language Guru U+0A00–U+0A7F ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ
Hanunó'o Old Kawi 14th century Hanuno'o language Hano U+1720–U+173F
Javanese Old Kawi 16th century Javanese language Java U+A980–U+A9DF Image
Kannada Kadamba 16th century Kannada language, others Knda U+0C80–U+0CFF ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ
Khmer Vatteluttu 11th century Khmer language Khmr U+1780–U+17FF, U+19E0–U+19FF អក្សរខ្មែរ
Lao Khmer 14th century Lao language, others Laoo U+0E80–U+0EFF ອັກສອນລາວ
Lepcha Tibetan 18th century Lepcha language Lepc U+1C00–U+1C4F
Limbu Lepcha 18th century Limbu language Limb U+1900–U+194F
Lontara Old Kawi 17th century Buginese language, others; mostly extinct, restricted to ceremonial use Bugi U+1A00–U+1A1F
Malayalam Grantha 12th century Malayalam language, Konkani language Mlym U+0D00–U+0D7F മലയാളലിപി
Oriya Kalinga 12th century Oriya language Orya U+0B00–U+0B7F ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲିପି
Rejang script Old Kawi 18th century Rejang language, mostly obsolete Rjng U+A930–U+A95F
Saurashtra Grantha 20th century Saurashtra language, mostly obsolete Saur U+A880–U+A8DF
Sinhala Grantha 12th century Sinhala language Sinh U+0D80–U+0DFF ශුද්ධ සිංහල
Sundanese script Old Kawi 14th century Sundanese language Sund U+1B80–U+1BBF
Tai Le Tai Lü language Tale U+1950–U+197F
New Tai Lue Tai Tham 1950s Tai Lü language Talu U+1980-U+19DF
Tagbanwa Old Kawi 14th century various languages of Palawan, nearly extinct Tagb U+1760–U+177F
Tamil Vatteluttu 8th century Tamil language Taml U+0B80–U+0BFF தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி
Telugu 16th century Telugu language Telu U+0C01–U+0C6F తెలుగు లిపి
Thai Khmer 13th century Thai language Thai U+0E00–U+0E7F อักษรไทย
Tibetan Siddham 8th century Tibetan language Tibt U+0F00–U+0FFF དབུ་ཅན་
Tai Viet Tai Dam language Tavt U+AA80–U+AADF

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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