Devanagari/Ranjana (Re: SV: Workshop on Islamicate Culture)

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Swaminathan Madhuresan wrote:

> Yes, to many South Indians, some temple practices of Northern Hindus
> appear highly Islamicate.

Some North Indian practices have been influenced by Muslims,
for example the use of vail. But which temple practices?

> One of the main differences between Hindi vs. Urdu and the
> creation of Devanagari vs. Islamic scripts is the Hindus'
> efforts to "come out" of their Islamicate culture.

Devanagari was not created in response to "urdu" script. The
script in North India continuously evolved from Brahmi to
Devanagari. The term "Devanagari" is often used for script
forms from say 10-11th century, but the dividing lines
are fairly artificial and have been drawn for convenience of
naming only. Devanagari has been continuously in use.

The Urdu script is derived from Farsi (in turn from Arabic),
it adds several Indian sounds.

The South Indian scripts too have evolved from Brahmi. Tamil
script has retained the original Brahmi shapes better than
all the Indian scripts.

Yashwant

Languages & Scripts of India
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/scripts.html

ps: A page on Lanydza/Ranjana script of Tibet/Nepal
has been added. Many charms from the region use this
script for sacred mantras. It is very close to Devangari.
It is still often used by the Newar. It represents one of
the last surviving calligraphy traditions of North India.