suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
>
> > Salomon accepts the Mahadevan interpretation but notes that it was
> an
> > aberration and was abandoned after the period dealt with in the new
> > edition of Old Tamil inscriptions. He notes one other area where
> the
> > abugida seems to have turned into an alphabet (where the plain
> akshara
> > represents C only).
>
> I think that what we are talking about here is a system in which all
> vowels, including short a, were represented by a mark added to the
> consonant. This system *preceded* the system in which there is an
> inherent short 'a' vowel.

NO, IT DID NOT.

> So alphabet to abugida?? (And now that I
> have surfed the net on this I find that Mahadevan's ideas were
> accepted in the 70's, not so recent.)

While you were "surfing the net," I was reading the relevant page in
Salomon's book.

> The next interesting point is that there is a theory which claims
> that Brahmi could be the invention of an individual who based
> symbols on geometric forms. Sounds like a sophisticated grammatogeny
> (?) - don't you think. I would never suggest that it was invented
> by someone who did not already know what writing was but that it was
> invented and not derived.
>
> http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Epigraphy/epig_invention.htm
>
> The Invention of the Brahmi Script.
> Madras Christian College Magazine, Vol. 46, 1977
> also in, Indological Essays Commemorative Volume II for Gift
> Siromoney
> edited by Michael Lockwood, Madras Christian College, 1992
>
> "Here we wish to claim that the Brahmi script was invented at one
> strokepossibly by one individual. This means that we reject both the
> theory that it was evolved from the Indus script and also the theory
> that it was borrowed and developed from some non-Indian script.
>
> The basis we have for postulating the spontaneous invention of the
> Brahmi script, as against a continuous evolutionary derivation, is
> as follows. We can show that there were central, unifying principles
> from which most of the letters of the Brahmi alphabet can be
> derived. We claim that there were two basic geometric patterns from
> which the inventor of the Brahmi script derived the letters. These
> basic patterns were the cross inscribed in a square, and a circle
> superimposed on a vertical line."

Is this the first time you've ever come across the ravings of Indian
nationalists who refuse to recognize any outside influence on their
civilization?

How do "they" -- since "they" apparently has or have no name -- account
for the similarities to Kharoshthi? Or have "they" perhaps never heard
of Kharoshthi?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...