Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 379

378
THE ALPHABET
scriptures of the Sikhs. The Gurmukhi is commonly, but incorrectly, considered to be the Punjabi writing, and sometimes it is even wrongly applied to Punjabi speech.
Actually, the Gurmukhi script is not peculiar to Punjabi, but is the character of the Sikh Scriptures, which are written in various dialects. The Gurmukhi character has spread widely, and being the vehicle of Sikh religious literature, it became an essential element for the consolidation of the Sikh religion. Its importance was augmented when, towards the end of the Mogul dynasty in India, in the eighteenth century, the Sikhs rose to be a great military power, and when at the beginning of the nineteenth century they established political authority over the Punjab and Kashmir.
The Gurmukhi script seems to be a polished form of the Landa character with the addition of some signs borrowed from the Deva-nagari. A peculiar feature of the Gurmukhi is that the order of the vowels is different from that in the Deva-nagari script, and that the vowels are followed by the signs sa and ha, which thus precede the other consonants, whilst in the Deva-nagari the two signs follow the other consonants. Instead of the three sibilants of the Deva-nagari, the Gurmukhi has only one sibilant, sa, which is sufficient for the purposes of Punjabi; in borrowed words, a dot is placed under sa to represent the sound sha. There are ten vowel-signs: three short ones (a, i, u), five long ones (a, i, u, e, o), and two diphthongs (ai and au). When the vowels are initial (the a, as in Devanagari, cannot be non-initial), special signs are added (aira for a, ai and au; iri for i and e; uru for u and o). All the vowels and consonants have definite names, a-kanna, i-siara, sassa, haha, and so forth. The inherent a of the final consonant is not pronounced.
South Indian Scripts
DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES
India may be divided into two parts, India proper (known also as Hindustan), or North India, the classical Aryavarta ("the abode of the Aryas") or Uttarapatha ("the path of the north, the northern road"), and peninsular or South India, the classical Dakshinapatha ("the path of the south, the southern road"), out of which was formed the modern term Deccan. The classic dividing line-which is neither exact nor complete-between the two parts is either the sacred river Narbada or the Vindhya range. On palæographic considerations, we must fix the border line on the west as running north of Kathiawar, and the border line on the east, as running south of Bengal.
South India was occupied in the historic period by a group of peoples known as "Dravidian," a term devised by the bishop Dr. Robert Caldwell from Dravida, or Dramida (in Pali Damila), the Sanskrit form of Tamil, which is the most important member of this linguistic family.
The main features of the primitive Dravidian race seem to have been: short stature, almost black complexion, head long, nose very broad. However, anthropological identification being very doubtful, "Dravidian" is nowadays essentially