Monthly Archives: April 2011

Devanagari — 1000 AD, India

Posted on April 14, 2011 by ducky

Devanagari developed from Gupta via an intermediary script called “Nagari” which has very little information about it available.  “Nagri” means “urbane”, so presumably it was used for commercial purposes.  “Deva” means “deity”, so calling the derivative script “Devanagari” presumably was … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Rating: 3 "I did not know that" | 2 Comments

Tibetan — 630 AD, Tibet

Posted on April 13, 2011 by ducky

According to Tibetan tradition, Thonmi Sambhota went to India in about 630 AD to study writing, and devised a script based on Gupta or Siddham for the Tibetan language. Tibetan has some differences from mainline Brahmi-derived scripts.  For consonant clusters, … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 1 Comment

Siddham — 650 AD, India

Posted on April 12, 2011 by ducky

Buddhists in around 400 AD wrote Sanskrit with a version of Gupta script that eventually diverged into Siddham script.  At first, writing down the Sanskrit was used mostly as a memorization aid, but when Buddhism spread to the much-more literate … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, now ceremonial, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 2 Comments

Takri — 1550 AD, India

Posted on April 11, 2011 by ducky

Takri — also called Takkari, Takari, and Tankri — descended from Sharada.  Sharada evolved gradually, and at some point it started being called Devasesa; in the sixteenth century, a version called Takri (used for commerce) became distinct enough from Devasesa … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Rating: 1 "Dull, only here for completeness" | Leave a comment

Still sick-ish

Posted on April 10, 2011 by ducky

No, I haven’t lost interest, I am still getting over this cold.  I thought I was better; I went in to the office WThFri… but that took a lot more out of me than working from home.  I just couldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Administration | 1 Comment

Khojki — 1350 AD, Pakistan

Posted on April 10, 2011 by ducky

Khojki was developed in around 1350 AD by Pir Sadardin in the Sindh region of Pakistan for recording Ismaili (a branch of Shia Islam) religious literature, mostly in the Sindhi language.  As with its sibling Gurmukhi, it is very similar … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, now ceremonial, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Gurmukhi — 1539 AD, India/Pakistan

Posted on April 10, 2011 by ducky

In about 1539 AD, the second Sikh Guru Angad Dev Ji developed a script, Gurmukhi, from Punjabi Landa.  While he used this script to write religious works in several different languages, it came to be a symbol of Punjabi — … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, inventor known, National pride, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 4 Comments

Punjabi Landa — 900 AD, India

Posted on April 5, 2011 by ducky

As I mentioned in the Khudawadi post yesterday, merchants simplified Sharada, presumably to let them write more quickly.  In addition to dropping the vowel diacritics, they also used the same character for aspirated (“breathy”) and non-aspirated consonants, and dropped punctuation … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, mercantile script, private or secret, Rating: 2 "Not all that interesting" | 2 Comments

Khudawadi — 900 AD, Pakistan

Posted on April 4, 2011 by ducky

In the tenth century AD, merchants simplified the Sharada script for quick note-taking.  There were a number of common features in their scripts, common enough that the name “Landa” was given to all of these scripts.  However, as Landa was … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, mercantile script, Rating: 3 "I did not know that" | 1 Comment

Sharada — 800 AD, India

Posted on April 3, 2011 by ducky

Sharada — also called Sarada and Sharda — is descended from Gupta through Kutila (a writing system so obscure that I wasn’t able to find enough to write about, and I have pretty low standards).  Sharada’s use centered in Kashmir, … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, now ceremonial, Rating: 2 "Not all that interesting" | 3 Comments