Thaana, Taana or Tāna ( ) is the present writing system of the
Maldivian language spoken in the
Maldives
Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...
. Thaana has characteristics of both an
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 ...
(diacritic,
vowel-killer strokes) and a true
alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
(all vowels are written), with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the
Arabic abjad. Maldivian orthography in Thaana is largely
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
.
Name
H. C. P. Bell, the first serious researcher of Maldivian documents, used the spelling ''Tāna,'' as the initial consonant is unaspirated. The spelling ''Thaana'' was adopted in the mid-1970s, when the government of the Maldives embarked on a short period of Romanization; /t/ was transcribed , as was used for the retroflex sound..
History
The Thaana script first appeared in a Maldivian inscription towards the beginning of the 17th century in a crude initial form known as Gabulhi Thaana which was written ''
scripta continua''. This early script slowly developed, its characters slanting 45 degrees, becoming more graceful and adding spaces between words. As time went by it gradually replaced the older
Dhives 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 ...
alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
. The oldest written sample of the Thaana script is found in the island of
Kanditheemu in ''Northern Miladhunmadulu Atoll''. It is inscribed on the door posts of the main ''Hukuru Miskiy'' (Friday mosque) of the island and dates back to 1008
AH (AD 1599) and 1020 AH (AD 1611) when the roof of the building was built and then renewed during the reigns of Ibrahim Kalaafaan (Sultan Ibrahim III) and Hussain Faamuladeyri Kilege (Sultan Hussain II) respectively.
The origins of Thaana are unique among the world's writing systems: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See
Hindu–Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics (like
nuqta ়
The nuqta (Hindi–Urdu: //, fa, , noqte; from ar, نقطة, nuqṭa, dot; sometimes also spelled nukta) is a diacritic mark that was introduced in Devanagari and some other Indic scripts to represent sounds not present in the original scri ...
), with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few writing systems not derived graphically from the
original Semitic alphabet—unless the Indic numerals were (see
Brahmi numerals). (The
Ogham
Ogham ( Modern Irish: ; mga, ogum, ogom, later mga, ogam, label=none ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish langu ...
script of Ireland is another example, which also has some relation to numbers, since most of its letters are differentiated from others in a way similar to tally marks.)
The order of the Thaana alphabet (''ha, shaviyani, noonu, raa, baa, etc.'') does not follow the order of other Indic scripts or of the Arabic script. There is no apparent logic to the order; this has been interpreted as suggesting that the script was scrambled to keep it secret from average islanders. The script was originally used primarily to write magical (''fanḍita'') incantations. These included Arabic quotations, written from right to left. Maldivian learned men, who were all well versed in sorcery, saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script, and Thaana was gradually adopted for everyday use.
Thaana nearly disappeared for a brief period in recent history. Towards the mid-1970s, during President
Ibrahim Nasir's reign,
Telex
The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages. Telex was a major method of sending written messages electroni ...
machines were introduced by the Maldivian government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, but Thaana was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the
telex machines could only be written in the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. Following this, a rough
Latin transliteration
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
for Maldivian was officially approved by the Maldivian government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners.
The Thaana script was reinstated by President
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom shortly after he took power in 1978, although the Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.
Characteristics
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a ''sukun'' (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is ''nūnu'' which, when written without a diacritic, indicates
prenasalization
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rath ...
of a following
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
.
For a sample text, see the article on
Qaumee salaam
"" (also transliterated as ""; dv, ޤައުމީ ސަލާމް , "National Salute") is the national anthem of the Maldives. The lyrics were written by Muhammad Jameel Didi in 1948, and the melody was composed by Sri Lankan maestro Pandit Amara ...
, the Maldives' national anthem.
Even though it is not part of the alphabet, Arabic ligature Allah ﷲ is used for writing names in Thaana, for example (Abdullah). "Allah" is never written in thaana, with the ligature ﷲ used.
Consonants
The letter ''alifu'' has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes: it can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a
diphthong; when it carries a ''sukun'', it indicates
gemination
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
(lengthening) of the following consonant; and if ''alifu''+''sukun'' occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /h/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by ''noonu''+''sukun'' preceding the nasal to be geminated. Originally, each letter had the name "consonant+
a+
viyani". Viyani originated from
viyana which came from
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 ...
व्यञ्जन ''vyáñjana''". For example,
haa was originally called
haviyani.
The names of consonants which had equivalent sounds in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
were changed to their Arabic names.
''Naviyani''
Naviyani (ޱ) represents the retroflex "n" () common to many
Indic languages. This letter was abolished from Maldivian official documents around 1953.
The letter's former position in the Maldivian alphabet was the sixteenth, between Gaafu and Seenu, instead of Gnaviyani (ޏ). The former position of Gnaviyani (ޏ) was 22nd. It is still seen in reprints of old books like the ''Bodu Tarutheebu,'' and it is used by the people of
Addu Atoll and
Fuvahmulah when writing songs or poetry in their dialects as the sound is still present in their spoken dialects.
''Thikijehi Thaana''
These additional letters were added to the Thaana alphabet by adding dots (
) to existing letters, to allow for transliteration of Arabic loanwords, as previously Arabic loanwords were written using the Arabic script. The use of them is inconsistent, and their use is becoming more infrequent as the spellings change to the pronunciation of the words by Maldivians, rather than the original Arabic pronunciation.
Vowels
The vowel strokes or diacritical signs are called ''fili'' in Maldivian; there are five ''fili'' for short vowels (a, i, u, e, o), where the first two look identical to the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
vowel signs (''fatḥah'' and ''kasrah'') and the third one (ḍammah) looks somewhat similar. Long vowels (aa, ee, oo, ey and oa) are denoted by doubled ''fili'' (except oa, which is a modification of the short ''obofili'').
Unicode
Thaana was added to the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
The Unicode block for Thaana is U+0780–U+07BF:
See also
*
Maldivian writing systems
References
Literature
*Bell, H. C. P. ''The Maldive islands: Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy''. Reprint 1940 edn. Malé 1986.
*Bell, H. C. P. ''The Maldive Islands: An account of the physical features, History, Inhabitants, Productions and Trade''. Colombo, 1883,
*Bell, H. C. P. ''Excerpta Maldiviana''. Reprint 1922-1935 edition New Delhi 1998.
*''Divehi Bahuge Qawaaaid''. Vols 1 to 5. Ministry of Education. Malé 1978.
*''Divehīnge Tarika''. ''Divehīnge Bas''. ''Divehibahāi Tārikhah Khidumaykurā Qaumī Majlis''. Malé 2000.
*
Romero-Frias, Xavier, ''The Maldive Islanders, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom''.
*
Geiger, Wilhelm. ''Maldivian Linguistic Studies''. Reprint 1919 edn. Novelty Press. Malé 1986.
*
External links
Profilein Omniglot
* A brief description of Thaana is available a
Latin-Thaana ConverterThaana font selectionfrom Dhivehi.mv
The Unicode 5.0 Standard: 8.4 ThaanaUnicode Character Code Charts: ThaanaGNU FreeFontUnicode font family with Thaana range in its serif face.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tana
Abugida writing systems
Maldivian scripts
Right-to-left writing systems
Writing systems introduced in the 17th century
fr:Divehi#Alphabet