Brahmi
OriginIndia
Earliest300 BC
TypeAbugida
About Brahmi
The ancestor of nearly every script of South and Southeast Asia, from Devanagari to Thai and Khmer. First fully deciphered by James Prinsep in 1837 from the pillar inscriptions of Ashoka. Vowel diacritics modify consonants that carry an inherent a. Debate continues over whether it arose from Aramaic or independently. Its descendants serve well over a billion people today.
More Abugidas
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Used for Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali, Marathi, and over 120 other languages. The distinctive h...
Thai Script
Created by King Ramkhamhaeng. Has 44 consonants, 15 vowel symbols, and 4 tone marks. Writt...
Tamil Script
One of the oldest surviving classical writing systems. Used for Tamil with 78 million spea...
Bengali Script
Used by over 230 million people for Bengali and Assamese. Evolved from the Siddham script....