Brahmi script:
- Meaning:
- The Brahmi script is the ancestor of all scripts used to write Modern Indo-Aryan languages, Dravidian and to some extent scripts of Tibeto-Burman and Munda families.
- It was also adopted by a large number of cultures in Southeast Asia and Central Asia.
- Salient feature of Brahmi script:
- It is written from left to right (though several specimens running from right to left have been found)
- It has an angular shape. As it evolved, this angular feature was gradually replaced by rounded shapes in cultures where palm leaves were used as a medium of written communication.
- Its key feature is the written syllable or akṣara. The akṣara system is based on the concept of admitting a full Consonant or Vowel as a node.
- Evolution:
- Brahmi evolved around the 3rd Century BC.
- By around the 3rd Century AD, Brahmi script in India had already divided itself into two main styles: Northern and Southern.
- Around the 12th Century AD, under the influence of vernacularisation (that went in parallel with Bhakti Movement) native scripts started growing.
- Neo-Brahmi group:
- It covers all such scripts used today and which are based on Brahmi.
- The 9 neo-Brahmi scripts in India are Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu scripts.
Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel (NBGP):
- it was formed under ICANN by 9 communities belonging to Neo-Brahmi group.
- NEGP consists of more than 60 technical experts and linguists from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Singapore, where these languages and scripts are used.
- NBGP is working on a proposal to enable registration of website name extension – i.e. top level domain (TLD) like .com, .net, .in – in 3 Indian scripts. Later on it will work on the other 6 scripts.
- With this, one can, e.g. enter the domain in Hindi to get Hindi content, instead of typing a domain name in English for this purpose, which is the current practice
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