The Tanchangya script, also known as ''Ka-Pat'', is an

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; ...

used to write the Tanchangya language. It is in the southern

Brahmic family of 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 ...

. Due to its script family, it has similarities to the Burmese alphabet,

Mon alphabet The Mon alphabet ( mnw, အက္ခရ်မန်, my, မွန်အက္ခရာ, th, อักษรมอญ) is a Brahmic abugida used for writing the Mon language. It is an example of the Mon-Burmese script, which derives from the ...

, and

Chakma script The Chakma Script (''Ajhā pāṭh''), also called Ajhā pāṭh, Ojhapath, Ojhopath, Aaojhapath, is an abugida used for the Chakma language, and recently for the Pali language. History The Chakma script is an abugida that belongs to the Brahmic ...

Origin

The script seem to be derived from ancient

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 Ind ...

, which inherited the vowel sound within the consonants. If not an independent derivation, it should have derived from Burmese or Mon due to their dwelling with Mon and Burmese from 9th Century B.C (in Tagong the ancient civilisation of Burma to until the 15th century Common Era (during the 15th Century, they were attacked by the Rakhine king and brought them to Arakan in 15th Century from Micchagiri, present Thaye in Magwe Division to Arakan) (Dhanyawady Aye Daw Bung, 4). It is believed that they had used the Brahmic scripts in the earlier stages, who were known by the term Thek or Sakya in northern Myanmar. The Tanchangya script were introduced recently in 2012 by adopting a manuscript in Rakhine State as stated by Rupak Debnath.Rupak-Debnath (2008): 167 Though both Chakma and Tanchangya have been using the present Chakma script for a long time, it is still unconfirmed who the alphabets originally belonged to and who introduced it. John M. Clifton in his ‘’Dialects, Orthography and Society ‘’opined that ‘the Tanchangya community decided to base their alphabet on the Chakma to show they were related to the Chakma. However, they systematically changed the alphabet to show that they were different from the Chakma they were not simply a part of the larger Chakma community.’ Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics
(1988). Moreover, in order not to cause misunderstanding between two communities, Tanchangya has introduced these alphabets which are yet to develop into Unicode font. For the time being, it is just created as True Font.

Characteristics

It is written from left to right, similarly to Brahmi scripts, unlike the Kharosti, which were used to write from right to left. Tanchangya Vowel

Vowels

There are five independent vowels such as A (a:), I(i), v(ʊ), E(e), and O a(oʊ). The other five vowels are dependent namely, Aa(ɔ), AA(ʌ), Ii(i:), and Uu(u:). Tanchangya_consonants

Consonants

There are thirty-one consonants letter found in Tanchangya script. They are classified into group consonants and miscellaneous consonants.

Notes

References

* * * {{list of writing systems Alphabets Brahmic scripts