Category Archives: Rating: 4 “Huh, interesting!”

Orkhon — ~700 AD, Mongolia

Posted on October 11, 2011 by ducky

Orkhon is also called Old Turkic or Göktürk script.  It was used mostly in Mongolia and Western China, but there are dialects that were used in Siberia (Yenisei) and Kazakstan. Orkhon is sometimes called Turkic Runes because of  their angular … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 2 Comments

Younger Futhark — 800 AD, Scandinavia

Posted on October 10, 2011 by ducky

Elder Futhark evolved into Younger Futhark, with the transition happening between 650 AD and 800 AD.  Younger Futhark was most different from Elder Futhark in the number of characters: Younger Futhark had only two-thirds as many letters as Elder Futhark.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Evolved slowly from parent, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Elder Futhark — 160 AD, Denmark

Posted on October 9, 2011 by ducky

Elder Futhark, an early runic script, was definitely used in 160AD in Denmark.  Based on linguistic clues, some people think that it is much older. One of the clues cited is that it is written both left-to-right and right-to-left, like … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, first in its area, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!", technology influenced | 3 Comments

Sora Sompeng — 1936 AD, India

Posted on September 24, 2011 by ducky

In the history of writing systems, it is not uncommon for people create writing systems based on dreams or visions.  It is also not uncommon for writing systems to have particular religious significance.  It *is* somewhat rare for people to … Continue reading →

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

Thanna — 1700 AD, Maldives

Posted on September 22, 2011 by ducky

Thaana, used in the island chain of the Maldives off of the Indian coast, is one of the very very few alphabetic or abugida writing systems whose glyphs (apparently) are not ultimately derived from Proto-Sinaitic.  Like most blanket statements on … Continue reading →

Posted in Abugida, Numbers, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!", spiritual or supernatural | 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

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

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