Saturday, February 12, 2011

Sourashtra Language


Sourashtra alphabet    Sourashtra

Origin

The Sourashtra alphabet was developed towards the end of the 19th century. A number of Sourashtra letters a similar to letters in the Oriya and Gujarati alphabets. Sourashtra has also been written with Telugu and Devanagari alphabets but is usually written with a slightly modified version of the Tamil alphabet.

Notable features

  • Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to, are used to change the inherent vowel.
  • Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
  • When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.

Used to write

Sourashtra, an Indo-Aryan language closely related to Gujarati and spoken by about 310,000 people in southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, particularly in Salem, Thanjavur, and Madurai cities.

Sourashtra vowels and vowel diacritics with 'ka'

Sourashtra vowels and vowel diacritics

Sourashtra consonants

Sourashtra consonants

Sourashtra numerals

Sourashtra numerals

Links

Sourashtra - information about the Sourasthra people and language
http://www.sourashtra.com/
Upamanyu - a blog about Sourashtra language and literature
http://subramanian-obula.blogspot.com
Information about the Sourashtra alphabet (in PDF format)
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2549.pdf
Vishwa Sourashtram - First International Journal in Sourashtra
http://sourashtra.info
Free Sourashtra fonts and other information about Sourashtra language & culture
http://www.palkar.org

Other Indo-Aryan languages

Other syllabic alphabets

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