Mithilakshar
| Tirhuta | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Abugida | |
| Languages | Maithili | |
| Time period | ||
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Mithilakshar (Dev. मिथिलाक्षर; also known as तिरहुता Tirhutā ) is the traditional script of the Maithili language, which is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and eastern Nepal. The language has a rich history spanning thousands of years, but years of official neglect by the Bihar government and migration have taken their toll on the use of the Mithilakshar script. Most speakers of the language have switched to using the Devanagari script which is used for neighboring languages such as Hindi. As a result, the number of people with knowledge of Mithilakshar has dropped considerably in recent years.
The first two images shown below are two samples illustrating the history of Mithilakshar. The first is the sacred sign of Ganesha, called āñjī, used for millennia by students before beginning Mithilakshar studies. Displayed further below are images of tables comparing the Mithilakshar and Devanagari scripts.
Oldest specimen of this Mithilākshar or Tirhutā script is at a Shiva Temple inscription in Tilkeshwar-sthāna near Kusheshwar-sthāna in Darbhangā district of Bihar, in which it is mentioned in Eastern Māgadhi Prākrit that the temple was built on "Kāttika sudi" (i.e., Kārtika Shukla pratipadā , or first tithi in the bright half of the Hindu lunar month of Kārtika) in "Shake 125" (AD 203),i.e., on the day following Diwāli which is still regarded as very auspicious for installing the icon in a temple. The script of this inscription has little difference with modern script of Maithili. But in 20th century, most of Maithili writers gradually adopted Devanagari for the accepted vehicle of Maithili. Some traditional pandits still use this Tirhutā or Mithilākshara script for sending 'pātā' (ceremonial letters related to some important function such as marriage) to each other. Fonts for this script were developed in 2003 AD.
An effort is underway to preserve the Maithili script and to develop it for use in digital media by encoding the script in the Unicode standard, for which a proposal[1] to encode the script in the Unicode Roadmap has been submitted as the first step.
References
- ^ Pandey, Anshuman. 2006. Request to Allocate the Maithili Script in the Unicode Roadmap
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