Brahmi script

The ancient Indian Brahmi script is the forerunner of more than a hundred Indian scriptures, a combination of syllabic and alphabetic writing, according to more recent name a Abugida.

Special

In addition to independent vowel signs for the letters the other vowels are represented by modifications of the preceding consonants. Here, a is an inherent vowel. The arrangement of the characters in the alphabet is a well thought-out classification based on place of articulation and manner of articulation after.

History

The oldest evidence of the Brahmi script are located throughout India on inscriptions of Emperor Ashoka (3rd century BC), which are partially written in Aramaic, and Greek magadhischer. These rock edicts proclaiming the Buddhist faith and documented by their placement the enlargement of Mauryareiches. It is believed that writing was invented only in the Middle Indic language period. Probably the Brahmi was even commissioned by Ashoka. Older texts were for centuries transmitted orally and only written down later.

At the same time also became emperor Ashoka uses the Kharoshthi font in inscriptions (8th -6th centuries BC ) harks back to an Aramaic model and how this is counter-clockwise, but is only found in northwestern India.

Hypotheses

A small number of researchers wants to return the Brahmi script to the 3rd millennium BC dated Indus script, to which, however, no intermediates were found. Another is in the research as much more likely held view that the creators of the Brahmi script ideas of Semitic writings, most likely the Aramaic script (as well as the Greek alphabet is called ) have taken over and developed on the basis of this principle, its own font.

Depending on various writing materials, the font already developed further in the following centuries. Although the shapes significantly altered, the basic principle has been retained.

Unicode

In Unicode character in the Unicode block are Brahmi (U 11000 to U 1107 F) encoded.