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| Ancient Carriage Wheel. Picture by Navneet Shanu. |
Writing has a long tradition in South Asia. The earliest writing script, the Indus script from the Indus Valley civilisation dates back to the mid-third millennium BCE. This means that the writing script was used about the same time as the Akkadian cuneiform writing system and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Following the discontinuation of the writing script, two thousand years passed until two writing scripts known as the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts emerged around the third century BCE. This does not mean that the two Indian scripts were never related to the Indus script. There are graphic similarities between some of the signs but without archaeological evidence to support the genealogy between the scripts, it is not possible to conclude a relation.
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| Kharosthi Writing Script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
The Kharosthi writing script is strongly influenced by the Aramaic script and, like most Semitic scripts, was written from right to left. Its use was limited to northwest India but it died out by the second century BCE.
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| Brahmi Writing Script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
The Brahmi script, on the other hand, had a much more influential impact to the development of writing in India. It is likely that the Brahmi script was also influenced or derived by some Semitic script because initially, the script was also written from right to left before the direction was later reversed and remained written from left to right for most of its history. The Brahmi script developed a structural design that is adopted and can be found in many modern Indian scripts such as Devanagari, Tamil, Thai and Tibetan. Some scholars estimate that upwards of 200 scripts are derived from the Brahmi script and they have been applied to languages from four different language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan and Austronesian. Geographically, the Brahmi-derived scripts can be found all over the Indian subcontinent, in South-East Asia and in Central Asia.
Structural Design of Brahmi-derived scripts
The two major design features that define a Brahmi-derived script are: (1) independent or initial vowel signs and (2) diacritic vowel indication in postconsonantal position.
One example of independent and initial vowel sign is /a-/ in alpha where /a-/ exists independently of the other preceding signs /l/, /p/, /h/, and /a/. Not all writing scripts provide this possibility as they may encode the initial vowel with the preceding consonantal sign or in the form of diacritics or other markers. The development of initial vowel sign is expected of the Brahmi script as it was used to write various Pakrits or Indo-Aryan dialects that had vowel-initial words and syllables consisting of only vowels. However, the majority of syllables are of the CV (Consonantal-Vowel) type. The CV-type syllable gives rise to the characteristic graphic syllable of Brahmi-derived scripts called the aksara. An aksara consists of one or more consonants followed by a vowel but the vowel is not encoded by an independent vowel sign as in /-a/ in alpha. Instead, the vowel is encoded by a diacritic sign called matra which is adjoined to the consonant sign.
Usually, there is a consonantal base that ‘inherits’ a vowel. This inherited vowel can be superseded by the use of another vowel diacritic on that consonant. The most frequently-used ‘inherited’ vowel is usually a reduced schwa or ‘a’, which is usually transliterated as ‘a’. Below is an example of Brahmi matras and how it re-interprets the aksara for the consonant letter k.
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| Brahmi's system of aksara & matra for /ka/. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
As you can see, the initial consonantal base has an inherited /-a/. However, with the addition of diacritic markers, the /-a/ can be replaced with an /-e/, /-u/ or /-o/ just as easily.
In Brahmi, as well as in some other Brahmi-derived scripts such as Tamil where there are syllables of the CCV type in the language the script encodes, conjunct consonant signs may be used where one consonant sign takes a reduced form graphically in the conjunct consonant signs. This shall be discussed further later on.
Devanagari Script
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| Hindi-Devanagari Script. Picture by Ketut Subiyanto. |
The Devanagari script is the major script of Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Nepali, Sindhi, and Marathi.
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| Devanagari's system of aksara & matra for /ka/. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
The basic make-up of the Devanagari script is the system of aksara and matra. For example, the aksara for /ka/ which contains the inherent vowel /-a/ can be modified with a matra like /-i/ to form /ki/. As you may have noticed, the diacritic /-i/ is used before the consonant. Another example is the matra /-e/ that is written above the aksara and /-u/ which is written below the aksara. Thus, in order to read the Devanagari script, you must view the unit two dimensionally and as a whole rather than a succession of linear consonants and vowels.
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| Conjunct Consonant '-lpa' in Devanagari script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
Devanagari also utilises conjunct consonant signs where one consonant sign takes on a reduced form such as, in many cases, omitting the characteristic perpendicular stroke on the right hand side of the sign. For example, the word 'alpa' which means small in Hindi is transliterated as a+lpa but is pronounced as al+pa rather than a+lpa. In this example, we see that the consonant sign for /la/ and /pa/ has been fused to form the new conjunct sign /lpa/ where the perpendicular stroke of /la/ has been omitted and fused into the preceding consonant sign /pa/. The initial vowel /a-/, however, remains as an independent vowel sign.
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| Virama used in Devanagari script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
Another innovation of the Devanagari script is the diacritic called virama. Virama is a stroke slanting from left to right below an aksara and if used, has the effect of muting the inherent vowel in the consonant sign. For example, in the consonant sign /ka/, if /ka/ is used with the virama diacritic it has the effect of producing the velar stop sign /k/. Virama is used only in word final positions when the word itself is used in pause or followed by a punctuation mark.
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| Anusvara used in Devanagari script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
Another diacritic that modifies the aksara in the Devanagari script is the anusvara. Anusvara is a dot placed above the aksara and when used in the consonant, has the effect of nasalising the consonant. For example, the aksara /pa/ can be modified by an anuswara to form /pam/. In Sanskrit for example, it is also possible to replace the anusvara with a nasal conjunct /n/ as in [əŋɡə] which means 'limb of a body' which can be written as either अङ्ग or अंग.
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| Visarga used in Devanagari script. Picture by @wantwotwee. |
Finally, the diacritic visarga can also be used to modify the aksara. Visarga is a colon placed on the right side of the aksara and if used, has the effect of producing a final fricative or guttural /h/ and homorganic echo of the preceding vowel. For example, the consonant /bho/ can be modified by a visarga to form /bhoh/ which means 'sir' in Sanskrit.
To summarise this article on the Devanagari script, Devanagari uses aksara as its main functional unit. The unmarked aksara is interpreted to carry the inherent vowel /a/ or a weak schwa. Diacritics can be written on the aksara which will then replace the inherent vowel of the aksara. Additional diacritics can also be employed to indicate that the aksara is not to be interpreted as an open syllable as in the case of virama, anusvara, and visarga.
Devanagari Script (Hindi)
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Pexels.
Writing Systems: An Introduction to their Linguistic Analysis by Florian Coulmas
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