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Tamil’s writing system is widely believed to be inspired by the Asokan Brahmi system, which is the original Indian script that all modern Indian script derived from. [36] There are 5 main categories of writing system which are the alphabet, abugida, abjad, syllabary, and semanto-phonetic. Old Tamil’s writing system fits under the abugida.
In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam, thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. [57] The Tamil Lexicon , published by the University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages.
Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamili or Damili, [3] was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in Old Tamil. [4] The Tamil-Brahmi script has been paleographically and stratigraphically dated between the third century BCE and the first century CE, and it constitutes the earliest known writing system evidenced in many parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra ...
The Tamil script (தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி Tamiḻ ariccuvaṭi [tamiɻ ˈaɾitːɕuʋaɽi]) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. [5]
Tamil-Brahmi is considered to be the earliest script used to write the Tamil language. This was replaced by Vattezhuttu, possibly due to writing on palm-leaves. The relationship between Vattezhuttu and Tamil-Brahmi are inconclusive. [1]
Iravatham Mahadevan dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the puḷḷi being an integral part of Tamil script. The puḷḷi (a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels) only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE. [ 11 ]
From the 11th century AD onwards the Tamil script displaced the Pallava-Grantha as the principal script for writing Tamil. [6] [2] In what is now Kerala, Vatteluttu continued for a much longer period than in Tamil Nadu by incorporating characters from Pallava-Grantha to represent Sanskrit loan words in early Malayalam.
Writing first appeared in the Near East at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. [citation needed] A very limited number of languages are attested in the area from before the Bronze Age collapse and the rise of alphabetic writing: the Sumerian, Hattic and Elamite language isolates, Hurrian from the small Hurro-Urartian family,