These points have been discussed in the books on the History of Telugu language. I shall check if any book/article written in English on the subject covered these details and get back to you. 

Regards,

Nagaraj

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004@gmail.com> wrote:

This is interesting. But, is the related history documented? Dani's account of the evolution of the southern scripts does not go into so much detail. I shall be glad to have a published account of the evolution.

Best

DB

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 12:08 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:

1. In Telugu (probably in all Dravidian) inscriptions, anusvāra , a full circle,  was a later borrowing from Northern Brahmi orthography. 

2. There is ardha (half) anusvāra, a verticle half of a circle also in classical Telugu orthography.  There is evidence to believe that this script symbol was used to indicate nasalization of the preceding vowel.

There is evidence also to believe that the script symbol survived even after the nasalization was lost in pronunciation by the preceding vowel.

3. The ardha (half) anusvara, the verticle half of a circle is a later invention in the Telugu orthography. During early Telugu inscriptions, when the ardha (half) anusvara, the verticle half of a circle was not invented yet, full anusvāra, full circle itself was used in the place of ardha anusvāra also. A full circle not followed by a glyph for a nasal indicated the ardha (half) anusvara (nasalization of the preceding vowel) whereas a full circle followed by a nasal indicated full anusvāra (nasal first part of a cluster).

This is just to see if this provides any clue here.

Nagaraj   

      

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Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044

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Prof.Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad-500044