Brahmi

Brahmi is a family of ancient scripts used in the Indian subcontinent and surrounding regions. The term denotes a broad writing system that emerged in the early centuries BCE and is the ancestor of most modern scripts of South Asia.

Origins and dating: The exact origin is debated. The earliest securely dated Brahmi inscriptions are from the 3rd century BCE, such as the edicts of Ashoka. Some scholars propose earlier forms or related scripts in central and western India that influenced Brahmi's development.

Characteristics: Brahmi is an abugida in which each consonant carries an inherent a vowel and diacritics modify the vowel. It uses a virama to suppress the vowel, and includes independent vowels, numerals, and punctuation forms.

Geographic spread and languages: It was used to write Prakrit, Sanskrit, and later regional languages. Its inscriptions are found across much of the Indian subcontinent, including northern, central, and western regions, with later descendants influencing scripts in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

Descendants and influence: Brahmi scripts are the source of most modern writing systems of the Indian subcontinent, such as Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu, among others, and they also informed Pallava-derivative scripts in Southeast Asia.

Decipherment and scholarship: The script was deciphered in the 19th century by James Prinsep, enabling modern readers to access Ashokan edicts and other inscriptions. Brahmi is a central focus of epigraphy, historical linguistics, and palaeography.