The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of

abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

s. They are used throughout the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

and parts of

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

. They are descended from the Brahmi script of

ancient India According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...

and are used by various languages in several language families in South,

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and

: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian,

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...

, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and

Tai Tai or TAI may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tai (comics) a fictional Marvel Comics supervillain *Tai Fraiser, a fictional character in the 1995 film ''Clueless'' *Tai Kamiya, a fictional character in ''Digimon'' Businesses and organisations ...

. They were also the source of the dictionary order (''

gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...

'') of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...

''.

History

Brahmic scripts descended from the Brahmi script. Brahmi is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

, 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 period The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...

, which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the medieval period. Notable examples of such medieval scripts, developed by the 7th or 8th century, include Nagari, Siddham and Sharada. The

Siddhaṃ script (also '), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and Nepalese scripts. The word means "acc ...

was especially important in

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

, as many sutras were written in it. The art of Siddham calligraphy survives today in Japan. The tabular presentation and dictionary order of the modern ''

'' system of Japanese writing is believed to be descended from the Indic scripts, most likely through the spread of Buddhism. Southern Brahmi evolved into the Kadamba, Pallava and

Vatteluttu ''Vatteluttu,'' popularly romanised as ''Vattezhuthu'' ( ta, வட்டெழுத்து, ' and ml, വട്ടെഴുത്ത്, ', ), was a syllabic alphabet of south India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Sri Lanka used for writing t ...

scripts, which in turn diversified into other scripts of South India and Southeast Asia. Brahmic scripts spread in a peaceful manner, Indianization, or the spread of Indian learning. The scripts spread naturally to Southeast Asia, at ports on trading routes.Court, C. (1996). Introduction. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Eds.) ''The World's Writing Systems'' (pp. 443). Oxford: Oxford University Press. At these trading posts, ancient inscriptions have been found in Sanskrit, using scripts that originated in India. At first, inscriptions were made in Indian languages, but later the scripts were used to write the local Southeast Asian languages. Hereafter, local varieties of the scripts were developed. By the 8th century, the scripts had diverged and separated into regional scripts.Court, C. (1996). The spread of Brahmi Script into Southeast Asia. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Eds.) ''The World's Writing Systems'' (pp. 445-449). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Image:Asokan brahmi pillar edict.jpg, A fragment of Ashoka's 6th pillar edict, in Brahmi, the ancestor of all Brahmic scripts File:Brahmic script travel from India.png, Spread of Brahmic family of scripts (and Kharosthi) from India

Characteristics

Some characteristics, which are present in most but not all the scripts, are: * Each

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

has an inherent vowel which is usually a short ‘ ə’ (in Bengali, Assamese and Odia, the phoneme is / ɔ/ due to sound shifts). Other vowels are written by adding to the character. A mark, known in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

as a virama/ halanta, can be used to indicate the absence of an inherent vowel. * Each vowel has two forms, an independent form when not attached to a consonant, and a dependent form, when attached to a consonant. Depending on the script, the dependent forms can be either placed to the left of, to the right of, above, below, or on both the left and the right sides of the base consonant. * Consonants (up to 4 in Devanagari) can be combined in ligatures. Special marks are added to denote the combination of 'r' with another consonant. *

Nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internation ...

and aspiration of a consonant's dependent vowel is also noted by separate signs. * The

alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is t ...

is:

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...

s, palatal consonants,

retroflex consonant A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the h ...

dental consonant A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental c ...

s, bilabial consonants, approximants,

sibilants Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

, and other consonants. Each consonant grouping had four stops (with all four possible values of voicing and aspiration), and a

nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...

Comparison

Below are comparison charts of several of the major Indic scripts, organised on the principle that glyphs in the same column all derive from the same Brahmi glyph. Accordingly: * The charts are not comprehensive. Glyphs may be unrepresented if they do not derive from any Brahmi character, but are later inventions. * The pronunciations of glyphs in the same column may not be identical. The pronunciation row is only representative; the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

(IPA) pronunciation is given for

where possible, or another language if necessary. The transliteration is indicated in ISO 15919.

Consonants

;Notes

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. Notes

Numerals

Notes

List of Brahmic scripts

Historical

The Brahmi script was already divided into regional variants at the time of the earliest surviving epigraphy around the 3rd century BC. Cursives of the Brahmi script began to diversify further from around the 5th century AD and continued to give rise to new scripts throughout the Middle Ages. The main division in antiquity was between northern and

southern Brahmi Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...

. In the northern group, the Gupta script was very influential, and in the southern group the

and Kadamba/ Pallava scripts with the spread of Buddhism sent Brahmic scripts throughout Southeast Asia.

Northern Brahmic

* Gupta, 4th century ** Sharada *** Landa ****

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 ...

**** Khojki **** Khudabadi **** Mahajani **** Multani *** Takri ****

Dogri Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Prad ...

**** Sirmauri ** Siddhaṃ *** Nagari ****

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

****

Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

**** Gujarati ****

Nandinagari Nandinagari is a Brahmic script derived from the Nāgarī script which appeared in the 7th century AD.George Cardona and Danesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, , page 75 This script and its variants were used in the central Dec ...

****

Kaithi Kaithi (), also called Kayathi () or Kayasthi (), is a historical Brahmic script that was used widely in parts of Northern and Eastern India, primarily in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In particular, it was us ...

*****

Sylheti Nagari Sylheti Nagri or Sylheti Nagari ( syl, , ISO: , ), known in classical manuscripts as Sylhet Nagri (, ''Sileṭ Nagri'') amongst many other names (see below), was an Indic script used to write the Sylheti language and Eastern Bengali languages ...

*** Kamarupi **** Assamese *** Gaudi **** Bengali–Assamese (Eastern Nagari) ***** Assamese ***** Bengali **** Tirhuta (Mithilakshar) **** Odia *** Nepalese **** Bhujimol **** Ranjana ***** Soyombo **** Pracalit ** Tibetan *** Meetei Mayek *** Lepcha **** Limbu ***

Khema Khema (Pali: Khemā; Sanskrit: Kṣemā) was a Buddhist ''bhikkhuni'', or nun, who was one of the top female disciples of the Buddha. She is considered the first of the Buddha's two chief female disciples, along with Uppalavanna. Khema was b ...

*** 'Phags-pa **** Zanabazar square *** Marchen **** Marchung **** Pungs-chen **** Pungs-chung **** Drusha **

Dives Akuru Dhives Akuru, later called Dhivehi Akuru (meaning "letters" letters) is a script formerly used for the Maldivian language. The name can be alternatively spelled Dives Akuru or Divehi Akuru, as the "d" is unaspirated. History Dhives Akuru de ...

Kalinga Kalinga may refer to: Geography, linguistics and/or ethnology * Kalinga (historical region), a historical region of India ** Kalinga (Mahabharata), an apocryphal kingdom mentioned in classical Indian literature ** Kalinga script, an ancient writ ...

** Bhaiksuki * Tocharian (Slanting Brahmi)

Southern Brahmic

Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscription ...

, 2nd century BC ** Pallava ***

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

*** Grantha ****

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

**** Tigalari **** Saurashtra *** Khmer **** Khom Thai **** ''Proto-Tai script?'' ***** Sukhothai ******

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

****** Fakkham ******* Thai Noi ******** Lao *****

Tai Viet The Tai Viet script (Tai Dam: ("Tai script"), Vietnamese: Chữ Thái Việt) ( th, อักษรไทดำ, ) is a Brahmic script used by the Tai Dam people and various other Thai people in Vietnam and Thailand.Dai Don ***** Lai Tay ***** Lai Pao ***

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...

*** Kawi **** Balinese ****

Batak Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Toba, ...

****

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

**** Javanese **** Old Sundanese *****

Sundanese Sundanese may refer to: * Sundanese people * Sundanese language * Sundanese script Standard Sundanese script (''Aksara Sunda Baku'', ) is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script (' ...

****

Lampung Lampung (Lampung: ), officially the Province of Lampung ( id, Provinsi Lampung) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It has a short border with the province of Bengkulu to the northwest, and a ...

****

Lontara Lontara or lontaraq () are Bugis-Makassar Palm-leaf manuscript, palm-leaf manuscripts that record knowledge on such topics as history, science, Norm (social), custom, and laws. The term originates from the Javanese language, Javanese/Malay langua ...

****

Makasar Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan ...

****

Rencong The rencong ( Acehnese: ''reuncong'', Dutch spelling: ''rentjong'', British spelling: ''renchong'') is a type of knife originating in Aceh, Indonesia. Originally a fighting weapon, it is most often seen today in the martial art of pencak silat ...

**** Rejang **** Baybayin ***** Buhid ***** Hanunó'o ***** Tagbanwa *****

Kulitan Kulitan (Spanish: ''cúlitan''), also known as súlat Kapampángan and pamagkulit, is one of the various indigenous suyat writing systems in the Philippines. It was used for writing Kapampangan, a language mainly spoken in Central Luzon, until it ...

*****

Basahan Basahan script, also known as Guhit, is the native name used by Bicolanos to refer to Baybayin. The word Basahan is already recorded in a book entitled Vocabulario de la Lengua Bicol by Marcos de Lisboa in 1628 which states that it has three ...

*** Mon–Burmese **** Modern Mon **** Burmese ***** Chakma *****

S'gaw Karen S’gaw, S'gaw Karen, or S’gaw K’Nyaw, commonly known as Karen, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the S'gaw Karen people of Myanmar and Thailand. A Karenic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, S'gaw Karen is spoken by over 2 mil ...

***** Shan ***** Tanchangya ***** ''Lik-Tai scripts'' ******

Ahom Ahom may refer to: *Ahom people, an ethnic community in Assam * Ahom language, a language associated with the Ahom people *Ahom religion, an ethnic folk religion of Tai-Ahom people *Ahom alphabet, a script used to write the Ahom language * Ahom kin ...

****** Khamti ****** Tai Le ****

Tai Tham Tai Tham script ('' Tham'' meaning "scripture") is the name given to an abugida writing system used mainly for a group of Southwestern Tai languages i.e., Northern Thai, Tai Lü, Khün and Lao; as well as the liturgical languages of Buddhism ...

***** New Tai Lue ***

Pyu Pyu, also spelled Phyu or Phyuu, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. is a town in Taungoo District, Bago Region in Myanmar. It is the administrative seat of Phyu Township Pyu Township is a township in Taungoo District in the ...

***

Kolezhuthu Koleḻuttu, popularly romanised as Kolezhuthu (കോലെഴുത്ത്), was a syllabic alphabet of Kerala used for writing Malayalam language.Narayanan, M. G. S. ''Perumāḷs of Kerala.'' Thrissur (Kerala): CosmoBooks, 2013. 379-80 and ...

***

Malayanma Malayanma script was a writing system used in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala. It was used to write the Malayalam language. Malayanma belongs to the same script family like Kolezhuthu and Vattezhuthu ''Vatteluttu,'' popularly romanise ...

* Sinhala *

Bhattiprolu Bhattiprolu is a village in Guntur district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the headquarters of Bhattiprolu mandal in Tenali revenue division. The ''Buddhist stupa'' in the village is one of the centrally protected monuments of ...

** Kadamba ***

Telugu-Kannada The Kannada–Telugu script (or Telugu–kannada script) was a writing system used in Southern India. Despite some differences, the scripts used for the Kannada and Telugu languages remain quite similar and highly mutually intelligible. Histor ...

****

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

*****

Goykanadi or Kandavī is a Brahmic script that was once used in the territory of Goa to write Konkani and sometimes Marathi in the Konkan coast. Similarly, it was used by the trading Saraswat and Daivajna families along with the Modi script to maintai ...

****

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Unicode

As of

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

version 15.0, the following Brahmic scripts have been encoded:

References

External links

Online Tool which supports Conversion between various Brahmic Scripts

Windows Indic Script Support

An Introduction to Indic Scripts

Enhanced Indic Transliterator
Transliterate from romanised script to Indian Languages.

A means to transliterate from romanised to Unicode Indian scripts.
Imperial Brahmi Font and Text-Editor

* ttp://padma.mozdev.org/ Padma: Transformer for Indic Scripts – a

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

add-on {{DEFAULTSORT:Brahmic Family Of Scripts

History

Characteristics

Comparison

Consonants

Vowels

Numerals

List of Brahmic scripts

Historical

Northern Brahmic

Southern Brahmic

Unicode

See also

References

External links