The Tākri script (Takri ( Chamba): ; Takri (

Jammu Jammu () is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute ...

Dogra __NOTOC__ Dogras, or Dogra people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic community of Pakistan and India. Dogra, Dogras or Dogri may also refer to: * Dogra dynasty, a Hindu dynasty of Kashmir * Dogri language, a language spoken by Dogras and other ethnic commu ...

): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

writing system of the

Brahmic family The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used b ...

of scripts. It is derived from the

Sharada script The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbouring ...

formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister script of

Laṇḍā scripts The Laṇḍā scripts, from the term ''laṇḍā'' meaning "without a tail", is a Punjabi language, Punjabi word used to refer to writing systems used in Punjab and adjoining areas. In Sindhi language, Sindhi, it was known as 'Wāṇiko' or 'B ...

. It has another variant Dogra Takri (also known as Dogra Akkhar) employed in Jammu region. There are numerous varieties present throughout Himachal Pradesh. Until the late 1940s, the adapted version of the script (called Dogri, Dogra or Dogra Akkhar) was the official script for writing Punjabi in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Throughout the history, different kingdoms of what now forms Himachal Pradesh used their own variety to maintain their records. The Takri script used in Sirmour in Himachal Pradesh and in the adjacent region of Jaunsar-Bawar in Uttarakhand has some distinction.

History

The Takri alphabet developed through the ''Devāśeṣa'' stage of the Sharada script from the 14th-18th centuries and is found mainly in the Hill States such as Chamba and surrounding areas. The local Takri variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century. After 1948, when

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

was established as an administrative unit, the local ''Takri'' variants were replaced by

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

. Takri itself has historically been used to write a number of Western Pahari Languages in the

Western Himalaya The Western Himalayas are the western half of the Himalayas, in Northwestern India, northwestern India and northern Pakistan. Four of the five tributaries of the Indus River in Punjab (Beas River, Beas, Chenab River, Chenab, Jhelum River, Jhelum ...

, such as Gaddi or Gaddki (the language of the Gaddi ethnic group), Kishtwari (a language, or possibly a highly idiosyncratic dialect of Kashmiri, spoken in the Kishtwar region of Jammu and Kashmir) and Chambeali (the language of the Chamba region of

). Takri used to be most prevalent script for business records and communication in various parts of Himachal Pradesh including the regions of Kangra & Bilaspur. The shift to Devanagari can be traced to the early days of Indian independence (1950s−80s).

Revival movement

Since Takri fell into disuse, there have been sporadic attempts to revive the script in

. Recent efforts have been made to teach the script to North punjabis. The Takri (Tankri) script was also used in cinema. The first film in Pahari Punjabi called Saanjh directed by Ajay K Saklani released in April 2017 used Takri script in its title and beginning credits. Workshops are being conducted in small scale in the state of

, in districts like Chamba and Kullu, Kangra and

Shimla Shimla, also known as Simla ( the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India. After independence, the city ...

. An organization named ''Sambh'' (Devanagari: सांभ) based at Dharamshala has decided to develop fonts for this script. A Northern Punjabi Corridor from

to Murree has also been proposed under the Aman ki Asha initiative to link the similar Western Pahari language-based regions of

Azad Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir ( ), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...

and

Pothohar Plateau The Pothohar Plateau (, : ''Pо̄ṭhoā̀r Paṭhār''; , ''Satāh Murtafā Pо̄ṭhohār''), also spelled Pothwar, is a plateau in the Sindh Sagar Doab, Sind Sagar Doab of northern Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab, Pakistan, located between the Indus ...

and revive the script. The Himachal Pradesh government under the National Manuscript Mission Yojana has set up a Manuscript Resource Centre and so far 1.26 lakh (1,26,000) manuscripts, including those in Takri, have been catalogued and has decided to be digitised.

Varieties

There are several regional varieties of Takri, “with each Hill State or tract having its own style ”. There is considerable variation in the spellings of the names of the regional forms and the languages they represent. The names of languages have also changed, so that the names used in Grierson and other sources differ from current practices. In order to assist in the identification of languages and the forms of Takri associated with them, the language names below are denoted using ISO639-3 codes. Specimens of Takri representative of the regional form is also indicated. * Bhattiyali ht Bhateali, Bhatiali * Chambeali dh Chambiali, Chameali, Chamiali *

go oi Dogri * Gaddi bk Bharmauri, Gadi * Gahri fu Bunan * Jaunsari ns* Kangri nr Kangri * Kinnauri jo Kanauri * Kishtwari as Kashtwari * Kulvi fx Kullu, Kului, Kullvi * Mahasu fz Kochi, Kiunthali *

Mandeali Mandeali (Takri script, Takri: ) is a Western Pahari language, spoken in northern India, predominantly in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh by the people of the Mandi Valley and particularly in the major city of Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, Man ...

jl Himachali, Mandi * Sirmauri rxThe Chambeali version was selected to be the standard for the Unicode. A variety of Takri which was used for Sirmauri and Jaunsari has been proposed to be encoded in the Unicode.

Numerals

In Unicode

Takri script was added to the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

Standard in 2012 (version 6.1).

References

External resources

Takri at Aksharamukha

Comparative examples of Takri and related scripts (Spanish language website)

A discussion of the Gaddi, with a reference to Takri
{{DEFAULTSORT:Takri Script Brahmic scripts Sarada scripts Dogri language Obsolete writing systems