Category Archives: Rating: 1 “Dull, only here for completeness”

Old Kannada, also called Halegannada, Proto-Kannada, and Old Karanese, developed from Kadamba.  It has evolved into present-day Kannada and Telugu, but has a couple of characters which are no longer used, including “rra” (shown illustrating this posting). Links: Wikipedia, Ancient … Continue reading →

Kadamba derived from Bhattiprolu script, and was the ancestor of two more modern scripts, Kannada and Telugu.  There is very little information about the script.  It is even sometimes called “Pre-Old-Kannada script”, which just goes to show how little of … Continue reading →

Bhattiprolu is a very close variant of Brahmi script.  Some inscriptions were found at a site in Andhra Pradesh — on the Eastern coast of India, a bit south of the north-south center line but not yet at the southern … Continue reading →

The Maldives, despite being a chain of really tiny islands ~400km off the coast of India, was literate enough to develop its own script no later than the 12th century AD.  This script was a evolutionary derivative of Grantha.  In … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

Gupta was an immediate descendant of Brahmi, used in Northern India from about 400-800 AD, and the forerunner of many important scripts of Northern India and the Himalaya. The Gupta empire was very powerful and important.  “Gupta” is still a … Continue reading →