Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 383

APRIL, 1932)
ALPHABETS AND PRONUNCIATION
[ $$ 132-133
132. It now remains to deal with the methods employed in India for recording IAV. sounds. As a broad statement of fact it may be accepted that all IAVs. are capable of being written in the Nāgari character, or in some character related to it, sounds not provided for by that character being indicated with the aid of diacritical marks. The influence of the Musalman conquerors has however made it more usual in the case of some languages to em. ploy the Persian character modified to suit local peculiarities. I say the Persian' character, because the forms of the letters of the Arabic alphabet used are those which have deve. loped in Persia. The Nagari character itself is seldom employed except in MSS. of books and in printing, and then only in Marāthi, Bihari, Hindi, Rājasthāni, and Pahāļi.! For writing ordinary documents, these languages, and also Gujarati, use what is most generally called the
Kaithi' alphabet, or alphabet of Kāyasthas, i.e., of men of the writer caste. In Gujarāti, and sometimes in Bihārī, this is also used for printing. In Marāthi Nagari is called 'Bal-borth, or 'teachable to children,' and the modification of Kaithi employed is called 'Modi,' i.e.,
twisted,' crooked,' or broken.' Being used over a very large area, Kaithi varies slightly according to locality. We see this most clearly in the case of Modi. In all its varieties, also, with some educated writers it shows a tendency to approximate the style of Nāgari.3
1 In Eastern Bengal the Nagari character is also used by Musalmans.
• The adoption of the Kaithe alphabet for printing G. is quite modern. It was due to the direct influence of the Covornmont Educatiou Department. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, e.g., in tho Sorampur New Testament.--the Nagari character was employed.
3 Kaithi differs from Nagari mainly in wanting the top line familiar to renders of the latter chexacter. In writing the character, a line of ink is generally drawn across the page near the top, and the letters nung from it, so that the resemblance to Nagari is more complete, but in the socond and subsequent lincs of writing this is omitted. It makes no distinction between initial i and i or between initial u and ů. For the medial vowels, it employs * for both i ands, and u for both u and a. In Bihari it has only one aign, 6, for eand d, and usually employs the sign for kh instead of when the latter letter occurs, as it sometimes does, in Tes. Really the sign for kh was originally that for y, which has been adopted to represent th over the whole of Northern India, except in Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese. In ordinary speech is pronounced as kh. Many writers employ n not only for its own purposes, but also as a substitute for 1, A, and ; indeed it is customary everywhere to employ conjunct consonants such as ng, nd, etc. Some of the Kaithi consonants, such uc, jh, or d differ widely from the corresponding forms in modern Nägarl, but the origin of all of them can he traced in Tablew IV, V, and VI of Buhlor's Indische Palæographic (vol. 1, Part 11 of the Grundriss). The Mödi character has partly an independent origin. It was invented for tachygraphical purposes by Balaji Ayaji, secretary to the Marathă chieftain Sivaji (1627.80) (300 B. A. Gupte, IA, xxxiv, 27). A reference to the table of characters given below will show that most of them aro clearly borrowed from some form of Kaithi. We may taus look upon all these alphabets as descended from Bühlor's Siddhamälçka type of the eighth to tenth century A.D. (op. cit., 50).
133. Another group of characters belongs to the North-West of India. These are the Sāradā of Kašmir, the sākari used for writing Western Pehäpi, and other hill dialects of the Panjāb Himalaya, the Landă alphabet of the Panjāb and Sindh, and the Mahājani, or Baniyai, script of Western Rājputānā. To these may be added the Gurmukhi, or literary alphabet of the Panjab Sikkhs. All these alphabets are clearly derived from an ancient alphabet of the Gupta type (see Bühler, op. cit. 46) as will be soen from the table of characters given below. The Sārada character is well known. As an alphabet of a modern language, it is used only by Hindūs in writing Kašmiri. The mass of the population of Kašmir, being Musalmäng, employ the Persian character. Takari, Landa, and Mahājani are all very closely connected. They are muoh degraded, having a most incomplete vowel system. They have only initial forms for a, i, and u, E being represented by the character for i, and o.by that for u, Medial short vowels are not represented in writing, and for medial long vowels, if represented at all, the initial forras are employed. The name Täkar' or Takkari' is probably derived from that of the Takkas, a tribe once powerful in the Panjab Himalaya (Grierson, JRAS., 1911, 302). The word · Landa' means clippod,' and refers to the nature of the letters, which
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