Brāhmī script

Brahmi
Type	Abugida
Languages	Early Prakrit languages
Time period	6th century BCE, eventually developing into many subsequent scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet[1]  → Phoenician alphabet[1]   → Aramaic alphabet[1]    → Brahmi
Child systems	Numerous; see article.
Sister systems	Kharoṣṭhī Hebrew[1] Syriac[1] Nabatean[1] Palmyrenean [1] Mandaic[1] Pahlavi[1] Sogdian[1]
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Brāhmī script refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of alphabets. The best known inscriptions in Brāhmī are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka, dating to the 3rd century BC. These were long considered the earliest examples of Brahmi writing, but recent archaeological evidence in South India^[2] and Sri Lanka^[3][4] suggest the dates for the earliest use of Brāhmī to be around the 6th century BC, dated using radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating methods.

This script is ancestral to most of the scripts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, and perhaps even Korean Hangul. The Brāhmī numeral system is the ancestor of the Hindu-Arabic numerals, which are now used world-wide.

Origins

A fragment of Ashoka's 6th pillar edict.

Indian-standard silver drachm of the Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles (190 BC-180 BC), the obverse showing the Greek legend BASILEOS AGATHOKLEOUS "Of King Agathocles", the reverse RAJANE AGATHUKLAYASA "Of King Agathocles" in Brāhmī.

Brāhmī is believed by some to be derived from a Semitic script such as the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, as was clearly the case for the contemporary Kharosthi alphabet that arose in a part of northwest Indian under the control of the Achaemenid Empire. Rhys Davids suggests that writing may have been introduced to India from the Middle East by traders. Another possibility is with the Achaemenid conquest in the late 6th century BC, that it was a planned invention under Ashoka as a prerequiste for his edicts.^{[citation needed]}

A glance at the oldest Brāhmī inscriptions shows striking parallels with contemporary Aramaic for a few of the phonemes that are equivalent between the two languages, especially if the letters are flipped to reflect the change in writing direction. (Aramaic is written from right to left, while Brāhmī is written from left to right)

Brāhmī script on stone Kanheri Caves

However, Semitic is not a good phonological match to Indic, so any Semitic alphabet would have needed extensive (and perhaps planned) modification. Indeed, this is the most convincing circumstantial evidence for a link: the similarities between the scripts are just what one would expect from such an adaptation. For example, Aramaic did not distinguish dental from retroflex stops; in Brāhmī the dental and retroflex series are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype.

Aramaic did not have Brāhmī’s aspirated consonants (kh, th), whereas Brāhmī did not have Aramaic's emphatic consonants (q, ṭ, ṣ); and it appears that Aramaic's extra emphatic letters may have been used to fill in Brāhmī's missing aspirates (Aramaic q for Brāhmī kh, Aramaic ṭ for Brāhmī th). And just where Aramaic did not have a corresponding emphatic stop, p, Brāhmī seems to have doubled up for its aspirate: Brāhmī p and ph are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source. The first letters of the alphabets also match: Brāhmī a looks a lot like Aramaic alef.^{[citation needed]}

According to others Brāhmī was a purely indigenous development, perhaps with the Indus script as its predecessor; these include the English scholars G.R. Hunter and Raymond Allchin.

The Brahmi symbol for /ka/, modified to represent different vowels

The oldest known examples of Brāhmī include fragments of pottery from the trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated to the early 5th century BC. Recently even earlier evidence of the script has been discovered in Bhattiprolu in Andhra Pradesh and on pieces of pottery in Adichanallur, TamilNadu, India. Radio-carbon dating has established that they belonged to the 6th century BC.^[2]

Characteristics

Brahmi is usually written from left to right, as in the case of its descendents. But a coin of the 4th century BC has been found inscribed with Brahmi characters running from right to left^[5]. Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, while vowels are written with obligatory diacritics. When no vowel is written, the vowel /a/ is understood. Special compound letters are used to write syllables that begin with consonant clusters, such as /pr/ or /rv/.

Usage

Brahmi and its sister Kharoshthi are the two oldest alphabets of India. While Kharoshthi was only used in Afghanistan and northwestern India, Brahmi was used across the Subcontinent. Over time, differing regional forms and styles of Brahmi developed into many descendant scripts. Kharoshthi, on the other hand, fell out of use without leaving any descendants.

Like the Kharoshthi script, Brahmi was used to write the early dialects of Prakrit. Its usage was mostly restricted to inscriptions on buildings and graves as well as liturgical texts. The earlier Sanskrit had not been written down while it was natively spoken, and was only written many centuries later. As a result, Brahmi is not a perfect match for Sanskrit, as several Sanskrit sounds have no letter or diacritic in Brahmi.

Descendant writing systems

Main article: Brahmic family

Brahmi evolved into many different scripts, which are commonly divided into a more rounded Southern India group and a more angular Northern India group. Over time, certain scripts became associated with specific languages. Alphabets of the Southern group spread into Southeast Asia, while the Northern group spread into Tibet. Today descendants of Brahmi are used throughout India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and scattered enclaves in Indonesia, southern China, southern Vietnam, and the Philippines. As the script of Buddhist scripture, Brahmic alphabets are used for religious purposes throughout China, Korea, and Japan, and Vietnam. Although controversial, it has been claimed that Hangul was based on a variant of the Tibetan alphabet used in the Mongol Empire.

See also

• Indian inscriptions

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} The link between Brahmi and Middle Eastern scripts is disputed, see Origins of Brahmi.
2. ^ ^{a b}
3. ^ Deraniyagala on the Anuradhapura finds International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Proceedings of the XIII International Congress of the Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. 1996.
4. ^ *Coningham, Robin, University of Bradford Anuradhapura Project
5. ^ [1]

Further reading

• Kenneth R. Norman's, The Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon the Pâli Canon, in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (36), 1993
• Oscar von Hinüber, Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990 (in German)
• Gérard Fussman's, Les premiers systèmes d'écriture en Inde, in Annuaire du Collège de France 1988-1989 (in French)
• Siran Deraniyagala's The prehistory of Sri Lanka; an ecological perspective (revised ed.), Archaeological Survey Department of Sri Lanka, 1992.

External links

• On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article by Richard Salomon, University of Washington (via archive.org)
• Brahmi project of the Indian Institute of Science
• Ancient Scripts - Brahmi
• Brahmi font
• Imperial Brahmi font and editor
• Omniglot - Brahmi (shows variants not on Ancient Scripts)
• Buddha Relics urn from Piprahwa with the inscription in Brahmi
• Windows Indic Script Support

Donate to Wikimedia