Author Archives: ducky

About ducky

I'm a computer programmer professionally, currently working on mapping applications. I have been interested non-professionally for a long time in the effect on society on advances in communications technology -- things like writing, vowels, spaces between words, paper, etc.

Saurashtra — <1880AD, India

Posted on May 30, 2011 by ducky

The Saurashtra people have a very unsettled past.  They lived in Gujarat, but then Gazni Mohammed invaded around 1000 AD and the Saurashtras took off for Devagiri, farther south.  They stayed there for two centuries, but then that empire collapsed … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Rating: 2 "Not all that interesting" | Leave a comment

Sinhala — 700 AD, Sri Lanka

Posted on May 29, 2011 by ducky

Sinhala has my vote for the prettiest script on the planet. Sinhala has two sets of characters: the Elu set represents all the spoken Sinhala phonemes, while the Mixed set represents characters for loan words, mostly from Sanskrit and Pali … Continue reading →

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

Malayalam — ~830 AD? ~1600 AD, India

Posted on May 28, 2011 by ducky

The Malayalam script is used in Kerala, the southernmost province on India’s western shore.  Kerala has been a destination for trade and travellers for thousands of years; Kerala is the easternmost point on the only surviving map of the Roman … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Evolved slowly from parent, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 1 Comment

Tamil — 700 AD, India

Posted on May 24, 2011 by ducky

Tamil is descended in part from Grantha and in part from Vatteluttu.  Grantha and Vatteluttu are relatively closely related, and the two were used together for a time, so it was relatively easy to smear the two together. Tamil has … Continue reading →

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

Grantha — 500 AD, India

Posted on May 23, 2011 by ducky

Around 500 AD, the Tamil people of Southern Inda started using Grantha, a slightly different form of the Brahmi alphabet, to write Sanskrit (the language of sacred Hindu texts), while still continuing to use Vatteluttu to write representations of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Evolved slowly from parent, now ceremonial, previous script didn't quite work, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 4 Comments

Vatteluttu — 500 AD, India

Posted on May 22, 2011 by ducky

In southern India, the Tamil people first used the Tamil-Brahmi script, and then over time, developed the Vatteluttu (also called Vattezhuttu) script.  From what I can tell, this was an evolutionary change and not a sudden invention. Vatteluttu was used … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Rating: 1 "Dull, only here for completeness" | 3 Comments

Tamil-Brahmi — 400 BC?, India

Posted on May 19, 2011 by ducky

The Brahmi script had two major branches: a northern branch (frequently called Ashokan Brahmi, after the king who put up the Edicts of Ashoka) and a southern (frequenly called Tamil-Brahmi).  So far, all the Brahmi-derived scripts that I have described … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, first in its area, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 2 Comments

Lepcha — ~1700 AD, India

Posted on May 18, 2011 by ducky

The Lepcha script was developed either by prince Phyagdor Namgyal or by the scholar Thikúng Men Salóng sometime around 1700 AD.  Although it was pretty clearly derived from Tibetan, which is written left-to-right, early Lepcha was written vertically, probably from … Continue reading →

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

Tani Lipi — 2001 AD, India

Posted on May 17, 2011 by ducky

A gentleman named Tony Koyu designed the Tani Lipi script in 2001 for the Tani group of languages in the far northeast of India.  It is explicitly designed to unify the many Tani tribes.  There is pretty fierce debate over … Continue reading →

Posted in inventor known, National pride, Rating: 1 "Dull, only here for completeness" | 3 Comments

Varang Chiti — 1963 AD?, India

Posted on May 16, 2011 by ducky

The Ho language is a minority language in northeastern India, but in India, minority languages can have a large number of speakers: there are over a million Ho speakers. At some point in the 20th century, a gentleman named Lako … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, inventor known, National pride, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!", revealed in a dream | Leave a comment