Ancient Scripts Of The Indian Subcontinent
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Ancient Scripts Of The Indian Subcontinent
Ancient Indian scripts have been used in the history of the Indian subcontinent as Writing system, writing systems. The Indian subcontinent consists of various separate linguistic communities, each of which share a common language and culture. The people of the ancient India wrote in many scripts which largely have common roots. Indus script The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley civilization, in Harrapa and Kot Diji. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constituted a script used to record a language, or even symbolise a writing system. In spite of many attempts, the 'script' has not yet been deciphered, but efforts are ongoing. It was used during time period of 2700–1900 BCE Gupta script The Gupta script (sometimes referred to as Gupta Brahmi script or Late Brahmi script)Sharma, Ram. '' 'Brahmi Script' ''. Delhi: BR Publi ...
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India 250 BC
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to betwee ...
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Gurmukhi
Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly regarded as a Sikh script, Gurmukhi is used in Punjab, India as the official script of the Punjabi language. While Shahmukhi script is used in Punjab, Pakistan as the official script. The primary scripture of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, is written in Gurmukhī, in various dialects and languages often subsumed under the generic title ''Sant Bhasha'' or ''saint language'', in addition to other languages like Persian and various phases of Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Gurmukhī has thirty-five original letters, hence its common alternative term ''paintī'' or "the thirty-five," plus six additional consonants, nine vowel diacritics, two diacritics for nasal sounds, one diacritic that geminates consonants and three subscript characters. Hi ...
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Tibetic Languages
The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. According to Tournadre (2014), there are 50 languages, which split into over 200 dialects or could be group into 8 dialect continua. These languages are spoken in the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas in Gilgit-Baltistan, Aksai Chin, Ladakh, Nepal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bhutan. Classical Tibetan is the major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature. Tibetan languages are spoken by some 6 million people, not all of whom are Tibetans. With the worldwide spread of Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language has spread into the western world and can be found in many Buddhist publications and prayer materials; with some western students lea ...
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Brahmic Scripts
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South, East and Southeast Asia: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and Tai. They were also the source of the dictionary order (''gojūon'') of Japanese ''kana''. History Brahmic scripts 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 claims of earlier epigraphy found on pottery in southern India and Sri Lanka. The most reliable of these were short Brahmi inscriptions dated to the 4th century BCE and published by Coningham et al. (1996). Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupt ...
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Abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez language, Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, Abjad#Impure abjads, partial, or optional (although in less formal contexts, all three types of script may be termed alphabets). The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels. Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term ) and David Diringer (using the term ''semisyllabary''), then in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term ''pseudo-alphabet''). The Ethiopian Semitic languages, Ethiopic term "abugi ...
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Nepalese Scripts
Nepalese scripts ( Nepal Lipi: 𑐣𑐾𑐥𑐵𑐮 𑐁𑐏𑐮, Devanagari: नेपाल आखल) are alphabetic writing systems employed historically in Nepal Mandala by the indigenous Newars for primarily writing Nepal Bhasa. It is also used for transcribing Sanskrit and Pali. There are also some claims they have also been used to write the Parbatiya (Khas) language. These scripts were in widespread use from the 10th to the early 20th-century, but have since been largely supplanted by the modern script known as Devanagari. Of the older scripts, about 50,000 manuscripts written in Nepal Lipi have been archived. History Pre development Prior to development of Nepal Scripts, people in the Nepal Mandala used the following scripts which are shared within the South Asian region.Shakyavansha, Hemraj (1993, eighth edition). ''Nepalese Alphabet.'' Kathmandu: Mandas Lumanti Prakashan. * Brāhmī script - Ashoka period * Purva Licchavi Script - prior Licchavi period * Utta ...
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Odia Script
The Odia script ( or, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର, Odiā akṣara, translit-std=ISO) is a Brahmic script used to write primarily Odia language and others including Sanskrit and other regional languages. The script has developed over more than 1000 years from a variant of Siddhaṃ script which was used in Eastern India, where the characteristic top line transformed into a distinct round umbrella shape due to the influence of palm leaf manuscripts and also being influenced by the neighbouring scripts from the Western and Southern regions. Odia is a syllabic alphabet or an abugida wherein all consonants have an inherent vowel embedded within. Diacritics (which can appear above, below, before, or after the consonant they belong to) are used to change the form of the inherent vowel. When vowels appear at the beginning of a syllable, they are written as independent letters. Also, when certain consonants occur together, special conjunct symbols combine the essential parts of ea ...
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Tirhuta Script
The Tirhuta or Maithili script is the primary historical script for the Maithili language, as well as one of the historical scripts for Sanskrit. It is believed to have originated in the 10th century CE. It is very similar to Bengali–Assamese script, with most consonants being effectively identical in appearance. For the most part, writing in Maithili has switched to the Devanagari script, which is used to write neighboring Central Indic languages to the west and north such as Hindi and Nepali, and the number of people with a working knowledge of Tirhuta has dropped considerably in recent years. History and current status Before 14th CE, Tirhuta was exclusively used to write Sanskrit, later Maithili was written in this script. Despite the near universal switch from Tirhuta to the Devanagari script for writing Maithili, some traditional pundits still use the script for sending one another ceremonial letters (''pātā'') related to some important function such as marriage. ...
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Bengali Alphabet
The Bengali script or Bangla alphabet ( bn, বাংলা বর্ণমালা, ''Bangla bôrṇômala'') is the alphabet used to write the Bengali language based on the Bengali-Assamese script, and has historically been used to write Sanskrit within Bengal. It is one of the most widely adopted writing systems in the world (used by over 265 million people). From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali writing system is an abugida, i.e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realised not as independent letters, but as diacritics modifying the vowel inherent in the base letter they are added to. The Bengali writing system is written from left to right and uses a single letter case, which makes it a unicameral script, as opposed to a bicameral one like the Latin script. It is recognisable, as are some other Brahmic scripts, by a distinctive horizontal line known as a '' mātrā'' () running along the tops of the letters that links them together. The Bengali writing sys ...
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Assamese Alphabet
The Assamese alphabet ( as, অসমীয়া বৰ্ণমালা, ''Oxomiya bornomala'') is a writing system of the Assamese language and is a part of the Bengali-Assamese script. This script was also used in Assam and nearby regions for Sanskrit as well as other languages such as Bodo (now Devanagari), Khasi (now Roman), Mising (now Roman), Jaintia (now Roman) etc. It evolved from Kamarupi script. The current form of the script has seen continuous development from the 5th-century Umachal/ Nagajari-Khanikargaon rock inscriptions written in an eastern variety of the Gupta script, adopting significant traits from the Siddhaṃ script in the 7th century. By the 17th century three styles of Assamese alphabets could be identified (''baminiya'', ''kaitheli'' and ''garhgaya'') that converged to the standard script following typesetting required for printing. The present standard is identical to the Bengali alphabet except for two letters, (ro) and (vo); and the let ...
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Gupta Script
The Gupta script (sometimes referred to as Gupta Brahmi script or Late Brahmi script)Sharma, Ram. '' 'Brahmi Script' ''. Delhi: BR Publishing Corp, 2002 was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of the Indian subcontinent, which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brāhmī and gave rise to the Nāgarī, Śāradā and Siddhaṃ scripts. These scripts in turn gave rise to many of the most important scripts of India, including Devanāgarī (the most common script used for writing Sanskrit since the 19th century), the Gurmukhī script for Punjabi, the Bengali-Assamese script and the Tibetan script. Origins and classification The Gupta script was descended from the Ashokan Brāhmī script, and is a crucial link between Brahmi and most other Brahmic scripts, a family of alphasyllabaries or abugidas. This means that while only consonantal phonemes have distinct symbol ...
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Brahmic Abugida
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South, East and Southeast Asia: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and Tai. They were also the source of the dictionary order (''gojūon'') of Japanese ''kana''. History Brahmic scripts 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 claims of earlier epigraphy found on pottery in southern India and Sri Lanka. The most reliable of these were short Brahmi inscriptions dated to the 4th century BCE and published by Coningham et al. (1996). Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta ...
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