indus civilization makes us proud ! Discuss
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The earliest attested writing system of India is the script of the Indus Valley civilization, dating back to c.2500 BC. Many of the symbols are of a pictographic nature, and the number of symbols identified suggests that this writing system is logographic, possibly partially syllabic. It is, however, presently poorly understood (and an object of academic controversy) and does not appear to have been the source of the Indian syllabaries that appear in the third century BC. These scripts, Kharoshthi and Brahmi, probably developed from the Aramaic consonantal writing system. Of the two, only Brahmi appears to have survived late antiquity; its perhaps best-known form is Devanagari, the writing system of Sanskrit, as well as that of Hindi and other modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Devanagari differs notably from the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian syllabic writing systems in that rather than having a distinct symbol for each possible consonant + vowel combination, Devanagari consists of a basic set of CV symbols having the vowel value a (i.e., Ca symbols). These CV symbols can be assigned different vowel values (Ci, Cu, etc.) by the addition of diacritic strokes (this is essentially the same strategy utilized by the Ethiopic syllabary, which traces its origins to a Semitic consonantal writing system, as apparently do the Indic scripts). Devanagari also has the capacity to transform basic CV symbols into ones representing more complex consonantal components (CCV, CCCV, etc.) through the use of conventionalized ligatures. Such ligatures consist essentially of a Ca symbol (representing the final member of the consonant cluster) to which a form, often highly abbreviated, of one or more other Ca symbols is attached. Word-final consonants are spelled utilizing the appropriate Ca symbol beneath which a diacritic mark, called virama, is placed, revealing to the reader that the symbol is to be read with no vowel component.
The Indian syllabaries were spread through much of Central and Southeast Asia, giving rise to writing systems for numerous languages. Not only does the Tibetan script trace its roots to India, but also the writing systems of Javanese, Thai, Burmese, Lao, and Khmer.