Deme Raja Reddy
EVOLUTION OF ANDHRA SCRIPT FROM BRAHMI
The Indian subcontinent is a conglomeration of languages and dialects. Indians speak 15 principal languages and some of the Indian languages have a long literary history spanning more than 3000-5000 years.
Today 18 officially recognized languages are in use in India. The languages of India exemplify the adage Unity in Diversity. The Indian languages belong to four-language families viz., Indo European, Dravidian, mar-khmer and sinotibetean. Indo-European and Dravidian languages are the predominantly used languages in India. Indian schools teach 58 languages, while there are 7 national newspapers, radio programs in 87 languages and films being made in 15 languages.
Brahmi was the ancient Indian script from which all-Indian scripts except Urdu, Sindhi and Punjabi evolved. Our ancient Indian languages namely Prakrit of the common man, Pali of the Buddhist scholars and Sanskrit of the elite were written it – There was another Indian script namely Kharosthi in ancient period which was prevalent in North Western part of our country. This script was written from right to left like other Islamic scripts and it died a natural death as it was not good enough for our languages especially Sanscrit. Urdu and Sindhi are written from right to left and these are of Persian Arabic origin. Punjabi is written in Gurumukhi script. Kashmiri was written in Sharada script in ancient times but now is written in religious basis, Muslims write it on Urdu and Hindus of Kashmiri write it in Devnagari. Same is true of Urdu and Hindi which are very similar languages except Sanskrit words are common in Hindi while Arbic and Persian words are found in Urdu.
Telugu script evolved from Brahmi and surprisingly scripts of Kannada and Telugu where similar till about Kakatiya period when they separated out. The reasons for the changes in the script of any language is to make it write faster. Same is true of Telugu and the knowledge of the changes in the script over the centuries will help in assigning to inscriptions found written on stones, coins or copper plates to their correct age.
Following are the names which were written the same way they would have been written in earlier times from 3rd century BC till the 19th century A.P, none of us know how Brahmi script looked like before Asokan times. Glimpses of the Asokan age scripts are because of this emperor’s inscriptions to his people which were incised on stones, pillars and these are found is various parts of our country. Inscribed coins also come into being around that period. After the eclipse of Maurya dynasty the coins and inscriptions of the kings and dynastic that followed till the present time allow us to decipher the script on them by knowing the evolution of Telugu script from Brahmi over the centuries.
Palvasha Samiksha Meghana
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Deme Raja Reddy |
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