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Vatteluttu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also: Tamil script
Vatteluttu (vaṭṭeḻuttu) or "rounded writing" is an abugida writing system used to write some Dravidian languages of South India and Sri Lanka. It was also an ancient writing system used for writing the Tamil language after the second century CE replacing an older Tamil-Brahmi script based on the brahmi writing system. This rounded form of writing was also used in Kerala to write in Tamil as well as in proto-Malayalam and Malayalam.
Inscriptional records in the Tamil language date from 300 BCE to 1800 CE and have undergone varying changes through history.[1] The Grantha Tamil was an alphabet in which extra letters were created specifically for Sanskrit words. It was also a modified form of Tamil script to write Sanskrit granthas, or books. In Tamil many of the alphabets or letters which are found in Sanskrit are missing.
Vatteluttu was also commonly known as the Pallava script by scholars of Southeast Asian studies such as George Coedes and D.G.E. Hall. The linguistic and cultural influence of Dravidian India on Southeast Asia is evident in the spread of writing and literacy beyond South Asia: the Pallavas, a Tamil dynasty from the early centuries of the Common Era (c. 275 to 500 CE), carried their writing system on their voyages to the east. The Pallava writing system forms the basis for several writing systems of Southeast Asia and beyond: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sulawesi (the Celebes) and the Philippines.[2]
- ^ Agesthialingom, S. & S.V. Shanmugam (1970). The Language of Tamil Inscriptions. Annamalainagar, India: Annamalai University.
- ^ Steever, Sanford B. (1998). The Dravidian Languages. London; New York: Routledge.
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