Blackwell Reference Online

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The parent script of all modern Indian scripts. It is thought to be derived from Semitic and to have been established on the Indian subcontinent before 500 bce . It is first attested in left-running inscriptions in the Semitic fashion, but as of the aśoka edicts of the third century bce its direction is from left to right ( figure 11 ). Figure 11 Stele with inscription of Aśoka edict in Brāhmī script (National Museum, New Delhi) Typologically the Brāhmī script is a syllabic alphabet which treats CV sequences as its basic units of writing. Yet consonant and vowel components are clearly distinguishable, as illustrated in table 7 . The unit of writing, the syllable, is hence not the same as the unit of the underlying analysis, the segment. The principles of vowel indication in the Brāhmī script can be summarized as follows: 1  The Brāhmī script has graphemes for syllabic - that is, word-initial - vowels: /a/, /i/, L /u/ and  /e/. 2  Every basic grapheme has a consonant and the inherent vowel /a/ as its value. 3  Other vowels are represented by modifying the respective C + a grapheme in a like manner for all basic consonant graphemes. 4  Consonant clusters are represented by ligatures, of which all but the last consonant graphemes lose their inherent vowel. 5  The inherent /a/ vowel can be muted by a special diacritic, typically used at the end of a line. These structural ... log in or subscribe to read full text