Brahmi Script

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Brāhmī
Type	Abugida
Spoken languages	Early Prakrit languages
Time period	perhaps 6th, and certainly 3rd, century BCE, to c. 3rd century CE
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet  → Phoenician alphabet   → Aramaic alphabet    → Brāhmī
Child systems	Gupta, Pallava, and numerous others in the Brahmic family of scripts.
Sister systems	Kharoshthi
ISO 15924	Brah
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Brāhmī script refers to the oldest 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 BCE. These were long considered the earliest examples of Brāhmī writing, but recent archaeological evidence in South India^[1] and Sri Lanka^[2][3] suggest the dates for the earliest use of Brāhmī to be around the 6th century BCE, dated using radiocarbon dating and thermoluminescence, though these dates are controversial. Having fallen into disuse for over a millennium, the script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the British East India Company.^[4]

The Brāhmī script is a systematic writing system in its spacing of sounds across the alphabet ^[5], which may explain its wide influential across Asia, compared to contemporary scripts like Kharoshti. The alphabet was a result of contact with Sanskritic concepts in phonetics,^{[dubious – discuss]} e.g. the arrangement of stop consonants, into a 5x5 varga or square, in which distance between sounds is preserved whether one recited these horizontally or vertically.

This script was ancestral to most of the scripts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, some Central Asian scripts like Tibetan and Khotanese, and possibly Korean hangul (1444 AD). The organization of Brahmi was adopted for modern order of Japanese kana.^[6]

The descendants are used in many language families, these are Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Mongolic, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Tai, sometimes Japonic and possibly Korean.

Origins

Ashoka inscriptions

A fragment of Ashoka's 6th pillar edict.

Connections between Phoenician (4th column) and Brahmi (5th column). Note that 6th- to 4th-century BCE Aramaic (not shown) is in many cases intermediate in form between the two.

Brāhmī script on stone Kanheri Caves

Brāhmī is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka, who used the script for imperial edicts. It has commonly been supposed that the script was developed at around this time, both from the paucity of earlier dated examples, the alleged unreliability of those earlier dates, and from the geometric regularity of the script, which some have taken to be evidence that it had been recently invented.^[7]

Aramaic hypothesis

Brāhmī is believed by most scholars to be derived or at least influenced by 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.A possibility is with the Achaemenid conquest in the late 6th century BCE,^{[citation needed]} or that it was a planned invention under Ashoka as a prerequiste for his edicts.

A glance at the oldest Brāhmī inscriptions shows striking parallels with contemporary Aramaic for 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, as was Brāhmī originally, whereas Brāhmī later came to be written from left to right.) For example, both Brāhmī and Aramaic g resemble Λ; both Brāhmī and Aramaic t resemble ʎ, etc.

However, Semitic is not a good phonological match to Indic, so any Semitic alphabet would have needed extensive modification to represent Brahmi. 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 these emphatic letters were used for Brāhmī's aspirates: Aramaic q for Brāhmī kh, Aramaic ṭ (Θ) for Brāhmī th (ʘ). 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 in Aramaic p. The first letters of the alphabets also match: Brāhmī a, which resembled a reversed κ, looks a lot like Aramaic alef, which resembled Hebrew א. (See the illustration above for some examples.)

Table showing the possible derivation of Brahmi from Phoenician script

Phoenician	Brahmi	Devanagari
		अ
		ग
		त
		थ
		द
		प

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 F. Raymond Allchin. In northern India, there is a gap of over a millennium between the Indus script and Brāhmī, but the earliest fragments of Brāhmī exist in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, including fragments that may be pre-Mauryan,^[8] leading to a theory that some derivative of the Indus script may have survived in the South, eventually emerging as Brāhmī.

Bhattiprolu Brahmi

Main article: Bhattiprolu Script

The earliest evidence of Brahmi script in South India comes from Bhattiprolu^[9][10]. The script was written on the urn containing Buddha's relics. The languages were Prakrit and old Telugu^[11]. Linguists surmise that the Mauryan Brahmi evolved in 500 BCE and travelled to Bhattiprolu giving rise to its variant in 300 BCE^[12][13]. Twenty three symbols were identified in Bhattiprolu script. The symbols for 'ga' and 'sa' are similar to Mauryan Brahmi. 'bha' and 'da' resemble those of modern Telugu script. Although Telugu evolved by 6th century BCE from it was not used in the inscriptions because of its unofficial status

Sinhala (Sri Lankan) and Tamil Brāhmī

Main article: Tamil-Brahmi

Recent claims for earlier dates include fragments of pottery from the trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated to between the 6th and the early 4th centuries BCE;^[14] discoveries in Bhattiprolu in Andhra Pradesh^[15]; and on pieces of pottery in Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu, which have been radio-carbon dated to the 6th century BCE.^[1]

Characteristics

Some common variants of Brahmic letters

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

Brāhmī is usually written from left to right, as in the case of its descendants. But a coin of the 4th century BCE has been found inscribed with Brāhmī characters running from right to left^[16]. Brāhmī 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

Brāhmī and its sister Kharoshthi are the two oldest alphabets of India. While Kharoshthi was only used in Afghanistan and northwestern India, Brāhmī 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 Kharoshthi, Brāhmī 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^{[citation needed]}, and was only written many centuries later. As a result, Brāhmī is not a perfect match for Sanskrit, as several Sanskrit sounds have no letter or diacritic in Brāhmī.

Basic Grammar

The Initial Vowels

Only six initial vowels were used in Asokan Brāhmī. These vowels consist of: a, i, u, ā, e, and o. The first three vowels, a, i, and u are considered basic, while the other three ā, e, and o are considered secondary. Some of the rules of forming vowels include: The long ā: formed by adding a horizontal bar to the right of the vertical. The letters i and e: they are in a close relationship. The letter i has three dots placed trianglewise. (To get a clear idea of how it looks like, refer to the chart above.) The letter e is formed by joining these dots with lines. The letters u and o: The letter u is formed with two straight lines joined at a right angle. The angle opens on the right. The letter o is only a slight variation form u: a horizontal line added to the top left of u. ^[17]

• Note that syllables consisting of a vowel only are written with the initial vowel sings. However, when the syllable has a consonant followed by a vowel, a diacritic sign is used to indicate the vowel.

Punctuation

Punctuation can be perceived as more of an exception than as a general rule in Asokan Brāhmī. For instance, distinct spaces in between the words appear frequently in the pillar edicts but not so much in others. ("Pillar edicts" refers to the texts that are inscribed on the stone pillars oftentimes with the intention of making them public.) The idea of writing each word separately was not consistently used.

In early Brāhmī period, the existence of punctuation marks is not very well shown. Each letter has been written independently with some space between words and edicts occasionally.

In the middle period, the system seems to be in progress. The use of a dash and a curved horizontal line is found. A flower mark seems to mark the end, and a circular mark appears to indicate the full stop. There seem to be varieties of full stop.

In the late period, the system of interpuctuation marks gets more complicated. For instance, there are four different forms of vertically slanted double dashes that resemble "//" to mark the completion of the composition. Despite all the decorative signs that were available during the late period, the signs remained fairly simple in the inscriptions. One of the possible reasons may be that engraving is restricted while writing is not.

Four basic forms of the punctuation marks can be cited as: 1) dash or horizontal bar, 2) vertical bar, 3) dot, 4) circle. ^[18]

Conjuncts

As previously explained, the syllable types,CV and CCV are the major characteristic units of Brāhmi. When expressing simple syllables of the CV form, diacritics are attached to the consonant base. However, when expressing more complex syllables of the CCV type, conjunct consonant signs are used. Consonant clusters are widely used in the Prakrits as well as in many descended Indian languages. Thus, various conjunct consonant signs have derived from the basic consonant signs.^[19]

Descendant writing systems

Variants of Brahmi over time

Main article: Brahmic family of scripts

Brāhmī 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 Brāhmī are used throughout India, Bangladesh, 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, Japan, and Vietnam.

Although not universally accepted, it has been claimed that Hangul, was based on Phagspa script, used in the Mongol Empire, a derivative of the Tibetan alphabet. Canadian Aboriginal syllabics may also show systematic similarity with principles and characters of Brāhmī.

See also

• Indian inscriptions

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Subramanian, T.S., Skeletons, script found at ancient burial site in Tamil Nadu
2. ^ 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.
3. ^ *Coningham, Robin, University of Bradford Anuradhapura Project
4. ^ More details about Buddhist monuments at Sanchi, Archaeological Survey of India, 1989.
5. ^ Frits Staal, The science of language, Chapter 16 in Gavin Flood, The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism Blackwell Publishing, 2003, 599 pages ISBN 0631215352. This essay also outlines its spread across Khmer, Sinhalese, Tibetan, Khotanese, Balinese, etc.. "Like Mendelejev's Periodic system of elements, the varga system was the result of centuries of analysis. In the course of that development, the basic concepts of phonology were discovered and defined." p.352.
6. ^ Daniels & Bright, The World's Writing Systems
7. ^ Richard Salomon, Brahmi and Kharoshthi, in Daniels and Bright, The World's Writing Systemes, 1996
8. ^ Salomon, Richard (1998), Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195099842  at pp 12-13
9. ^ The Bhattiprolu Inscriptions, G. Buhler, 1894, Epigraphica Indica, Vol.2
10. ^ Buddhist Inscriptions of Andhradesa, Dr. B.S.L Hanumantha Rao, 1998, Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust, Secunderabad
11. ^ Antiquity of Telugu language and script: http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/20/stories/2007122054820600.htm
12. ^ Ananda Buddha Vihara; http://www.buddhavihara.in/ancient.htm
13. ^ Epigraphist extraordinaire; http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/19/stories/2007031911650400.htm
14. ^ Salomon, Richard (1998), Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195099842  at pp 12-13
15. ^ Antiquity of Telugu language and script: http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/20/stories/2007122054820600.htm
16. ^ Brahmi - Crystalinks
17. ^ S.R. Goyal, Brāhmī Script: An Invention of the Early Maurya Period, 2006
18. ^ Ram Sharma, Brāhmī Script: Development in North-Western India and Central Asia, 2002
19. ^ Florian coulmas, Writing Systems: An introduction to their linguistic analysis, 2003

Further reading

• Kenneth R. Norman, 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, Les premiers systèmes d'écriture en Inde, in Annuaire du Collège de France 1988-1989 (in French)
• Siran Deraniyagala, 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
• Windows Indic Script Support

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