Category Archives: mercantile script

Mahajani — 1600 AD? <1850 AD?, India

Posted on May 9, 2011 by ducky

Mahajani, like the Punjabi Landa, was used as a mercantile script (and is sometimes classified with Landa).  Unlike Punjabi Landa, which dispenses with vowels altogether, Mahajani is sort of like a sloppy alphabet.  It is possible to show a vowel … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Alphabet, mercantile script, Rating: 3 "I did not know that" | Leave a comment

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