Talk:Brahmi script/Archive 1

Archive 1

the earliest examples of Brahmi writing

the earliest examples of Brahmi writing, but recent archeological evidence in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, India suggest the dates for the earliest use of Brāhmī to be around the 6th century BC, dated using radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating methods.

The references do not describe the finding. Who know something more ? It will be good to describe it. Or if this is false remove the secondary or tertiary references. 24.13.244.169 06:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Brahmi the herb

Isn't Brahmi a herb too - Bacopa Monniera

Yes, I was looking for the herb, too. I added a disambiguation link because of the popularity of the herb. ॐ Priyanath 23:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Brahmi is a herb which is described in Ayurveda as one which improves your mind power & memory. Brahma ( not Brahmaa - one of trinity deva ) is the ultimate power in Hinduism ( see in Hinduism for the proper meaning ). You come near to this Brahma if you eat this herb. That's why the name given to it is Brahmi. Since Branhmi - the herb - improves mind & memory power, then only one can be more receptive to the higher knowledge of this universe.

Technically, it reduces Pitta in the body and cools mind & body.So, mind & memory power increases by this brahmi - the herb.

But why the same is given to a script in India ? Because, previously Sanskrit verses were preserved for centuries by only Oral tradition. But, by writing method one can preserve the knowledge more properly and become knowledgable easily. And, hence the script is also given the name Bramhi - one brings mankind nearer the ultimate Bramha.

Isn't it interesting to know this ? WIN 13:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

According to MW, brahmī is a name of Macrognathus pancalus, while brāhmī is a name of Clerodendrum siphonantus, Ruta graveolens, Enhydra hingcha and other plants, and other unrelated things (constellations, ants, fish). They apparently just called stuff brahmi on a whim because it sounded nice. dab (ᛏ) 13:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

That is interesting to know the source of the word. Maybe it's worth putting in the article? Gotu Kola, aka Asiatic pennywort, or Centella asiatica, is also sometimes referred to as Brahmi. It gets very confusing in Ayurveda. Bacopa monnieri is the most commonly named 'Brahmi' in Ayurveda, but there's still alot of confusion on websites and articles between the different Brahmis. ॐ Priyanath 14:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so the herb's name is brahmī while the script's name is Brāhmī. I always whether they were pronounced the same of different. Gizza^{Chat ©} 06:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Earliest Evidence for the Brahmi Script

According to this paper by Deraniyagala The word Anuradha in the Brahmi script was found on fragment of a burial urn found in an excavation Pomparippu.

"The Early Iron Age of Sri Lanka, at ca. 1000-500 BC, is referred to as protohistoric since there is no evidence of writing in this period. At ca. 600-500 BC, the first appearance of writing (in Brahmi almost identical to the Asokan script some 200 years later) heralds the commencement of the Early Historic period (Deraniyagala 1992: 739-50). This writing, radiocarbon dated on charcoal and checked by thermoluminescence dating, is inscribed on potsherds signifying ownership. Among the names was Anuradha, which, coincidentally or otherwise, is stated in the ancient chronicles to have been the name of a minister of prince Vijaya, the purported 'founder' leader of the Sinhalese, at ca. 500 BC." ...Deraniyagala

See full text of paper below..

http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/dera1.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.230.100.102 (talk) 15:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Annoyance

This is getting quite ridiculous. The Aramaic hypothesis as is stated is only a hypothesis. As such I don't think anyone has the right to start editing this or similar articles justifying the Brahmic Script under the Aramaic one. This article is litters with POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.15.180 (talk) 00:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It's the dominant hypothesis. We can add question marks to show it isn't certain, but not delete any ancestors as if Brahmi were a separate invention. Also, you left Karoshthi as a sister script, which would only be possible if Brahmi derived from Aramaic. You also deleted the classification of Brahmi as an abugida, which is rather ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 00:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It is true that the article needs better references, particularly tertiary ones. I have added a quote from EB. There it is clearly stated that the Aramaic hypothesis is the mainstream opinion. There is a minority view, which (a) emerged only a decade ago, and (b) remains limited to "some Indian scholars". It was also the view of "some early [pre-Bühler] European scholars". This is a fringe view which can be duly mentioned, but not more. On the face of it this is just as in the Out of India theory, some patriotic Indian scholars reviving a theory that has been seriously considered and rejected as implausible more than a 100 years ago. If there is any reason for reviving this theory other than idle patriotism, it would be the burden of the supporters to make the case. --dab (𒁳) 14:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about removing it as an abugida. It was actually an accident. Thanks for the help and improvements to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.140.95 (talk) 00:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion of the scholarly consensus (as of the latest definitive discussion of the issue in Richard Salomon's 1996 "On the origin of the early Indian scripts") was removed on 27 March with the purported justification "doesn't need to go in the origins section because it is just a theory". This, of course, betrays a basic misunderstanding of the function of theories in scientific investigation and deprives readers of an understanding of the literature. It is important that this (and a discussion of other origins hypotheses) remain in the article so that the reader will be able to follow up the references him- or herself and decide from there whether further research is justified.

I have restored the deleted section and added short references to the South Arabian hypothesis and the general lack of sufficient evidence for any of the existing hypotheses.

(Editorial note: My own research has revealed very strong evidence, far more systematic than that available for any of the previous proposals, for an origin in Old North Arabian scripts, specifically Safaitic with two extra borrowings from Thamudic. This is based on new discoveries in ONA palaeography in the past century and makes a case no less strong than the origins of Greek script in Phoenician. I have not yet published this, so it will be a year or two before it becomes part of the scholarly literature; naturally, Wikipedia is not the place for me to add my original research.

Obviously, I clearly disagree with all previous hypotheses on the origins of Brahmi, whaether borrowed from the West or an indigenous developement of the Indus Valley symbols (whose status as a linguistic script has been seriously cast into doubt by the work of Farmer, Sproat et al.). This said, my disagreement with these hypotheses would be no justification for me to delete anything in the article that refers to them: that would be censorship on my part. What has become part of the scholarly discussion on any issue must remain for readers to inform themselves on the history of the question, no matter how strongly anybody might disagree with such hypotheses or theories. No person should take upon him- or herself a right to censor the history of scholarly debate on any question. The Western origin hypotheses should remain in the article, along with the discussion of the far less plausible indigenous origin hypothesis.

I also agree with Kwamikagami about the editing of the related scripts sidebar that incongruously left Kharoshthi – clearly descended from Aramaic – in place as a "sister" script.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiwehtin (talk • contribs) 20:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

About Pre-Ashokan epigraphy section.

I propose to change this sentence: "....This might be explained by the cultural importance at the time (and indeed to some extent today) of oral literature for history and Hindu scripture." in this form: "...This might be explained by the religious importance of oral transmission for Hindu tradition and history..." Literature requires writing. It is not possible "oral transmission of literature and Hindu scripture".

--Andriolo (talk) 12:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I think your wording is an improvement, but your reasoning is false: oral literature is a common-enough term. — kwami (talk) 13:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Good scientific writing (as it should be that of an encyclopedia) must avoid the oxymoron that it is typical of colloquial or poetical language. "..... oral transmission of literature and ... scripture....." it is too much poetical or colloquial. In the place of "scripture" or "literature" it is possible to use the words "composition", "epic", "tradition", the meaning does not change but the form becomes scientific. It is possible use the word "scripture" for example for an sacred oral composition from the moment since it becomes crystallized in the writing. --Andriolo (talk) 22:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you agree to change these sentences ?--Andriolo (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Andriolo:

It seems to me that your objection to "literature" in conjunction with "oral" has to do with a narrow interpretation of the word that would restrict it to texts that are written down. However, the various fields of study that deal with literature have accepted a broader interpretation of the word for many years now, where literature is not necessarily something written down but can be oral or (in sign languages) signed. This is a useful metonymic expansion of the term because it expresses the various kinds of structural parallels and commonalities between written, spoken and signed literature. If you object to the broadened use of the term, you would really need to address your objections to scholars in the field of literary analysis.

Since this broad sense is so widely accepted, it is appropriate to use it in Wikipedia.

Kiwehtin (talk) 17:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It is not so widely accepted, those who have used that oximoron have been forced to write a chapter of introduction to explain why they use oral'-'“literature“. However they are antropologists and none literary or filology scholars. In the place, the Frenchs who are finkies about the meaning of the words, use a neologism “Orature”. In Germany and Italy about rich oral tradition of Alps and German Myths for example, it is used “oral narrative tradition” and “sacred oral tradition”; “tradition” because there isn’t an author.

In philosophy and filology the language follows mathematical rules so it need use the etimology indeed if we change the meaning of words giving wide or narrow interpretation, everything becomes incomprehensible.

However, it is well known that the language of the pub with time, becomes the language of culture ..... especially when the culture is tyrannized by time and the business.

--Andriolo (talk) 22:16, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Kanheri Caves Image

I'd bet money that the image of writing from the Kanheri Caves is not Brāhmī but a later derivative - it's hard to tell as the image isn't very clear, but it looks more like Gupta script to me. mahaabaala (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

right to left?

From the article: "Aramaic is written from right to left, as was Brāhmī originally, whereas Brāhmī later came to be written left to right." Says who? I've just been reading some of Asoka's edicts in Brāhmī script and didn't find any that were right to left. This needs a source! mahaabaala (talk) 16:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I hadn't noticed this. I believe Richard Salomon addresses this — there are some coins with right to left Brahmi — and discounts it as an unusual characteristic of coin inscriptions. I will have to check which of his publications is the one where he talks about this. I think it's in Indian Palaeography. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiwehtin (talk • contribs) 15:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Megasthenes

S.o. restored the Megasthenes quote saying the have a ref, but d n supply it. Bright (1990) discusses it in Language variation in South Asia, p. 138 ff. — kwami (talk) 08:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I just put in the references, including Bright, but thank you. Allens (talk) 09:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Classification as Abugida

In George Cardona's "The Indo-Aryan Languages" (2003) he states that the Brahmic scripts, though sharing features of abugidas like the Ethiopic ones, have far too many uniquely Indian features to merit being classified in the same group as them and suggests the alternate term "akshara script". As this is the opinion of an expert on the subject, I think it merits at least a mention here. Thoughts? GSMR (talk) 23:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The Brahmic scripts are the prototype for the term "abugida", so it seems odd to say they aren't abugida enough. And there are certainly subtypes within Brahmic abugidas (presence or absence of a halanta, consonant digraphs, diacritics for coda consonants, omission of coda consonants altogether, a null-consonant letter, use of y, w for vowels, etc.), just as there are within abjads and alphabets, but if we start saying that Brahmic scripts are Brahmic-like scripts, and that Arabic is an Arabic-like script, we're no longer conveying any useful information.

The various subtypes are discussed in the Brahmic article. I think Cardona's opinion would be better off there. kwami (talk) 23:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Why do you say Brahmic scripts are the prototype for the term "abugida"? In Daniels's article coining the term Ethiopic is cited before Sanskrit, and the word itself is from Ethiopic. --JWB (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Brahmi developed from Aramaic/Phonecian??!?

This is another example of the gross bias of the editors of Wikipedia and the Eurocentric so-called "scholars" in the west. How on earth can Brahmi be derived from Aramaic and or Phonecian? If the Brahmi numeral system (Hindu numerals) went FROM INDIA to the middle east, how can the language/script of Brahmi be derived from the Middle east? It is rather illogical to suggest that although the numeral system went FROM India westward, the script/language came eastward from the Middle East! The fact that the numerals traveled westward is ample evidence that Brahmi influenced the Semitic languages and even the Phonecian script. Despite the blatant bias and eurocentricity of the article, this scenario should at least be mentioned. Perhaps something like this: "Although the majority of the scholars today suggest that Brahmi was derived from Phonecian and consequently Aramaic, a few contend that the Brahmi script, along with its family of languages influenced the Semitic languages as well as Phoneician, suggesting a westward travel of information analogous to the Brahmi numerals from India."

Blaming Hindutva/Hindu Nationalism isn't going to help here. It's purely and simply logical to suggest that 'as the Brahmi numeral system traveled westward from India, so did the script and/or subset of languages'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.39.64 (talk) 19:05, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The Indian/Hindu numeral system is not a specifically "Brahmi" numeral system, and it was transmitted westwards by the Arabs from India many centuries after the appearance of the Semitic Aramaic/Phoenecian scripts. The Semitic scripts, on the other hand, were developed centuries before Brahmi, just as Indian/Hindu numerals appeared centuries before modern Arabic/Western numerals did. If we can conclude that Indian/Hindu numerals are the ancestors of the Arabic/Western numerals based on the latter phenomenon, we sure as hell can conclude (especially when supported by evidence of cross-linguistic adaptation, like those mentioned in the article) that the Semitic scripts are the ancestors of Brahmi based on the former phenomenon. You can't have your cake and eat it too. --SohanDsouza (talk) 08:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

When we find an example of Brahmi script dated to perhaps 1800 BC, then perhaps we can suggest the East-to-West direction. Otherwise, evidence clearly indicates that the Imperial Aramiac alphabet directly influenced the creation of Brahmi, probably around 600 BC or so. Washi (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

And where is your evidence to support an Aramiac origin. The article gives no references to support this theory and so it should be removed until evidence is provided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.206.125 (talk) 00:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC) Great Information. I would be obliged if some one could tell me whether ancient alphabet tables of Aramaic, Brahami, Bengali , Devangri and Telgu languages were have any sign to represent "F" ? Would it not be a good logical way to trace family of languages through the availablity or unavailability of different soundsZarin144 (talk) 12:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Brahmi script and Jain Legend

The name Brahmi is said to have come from a jain legend and this is included in the article page. The source is given which is in Kannada. That Kannada text is given below for reference:

"ಆದಿ ತೀರ್ಥಂಕರ ವೃಷಭ ದೇವನು ತನ್ನ ಕುಮಾರಿಯಾದ ಬ್ರಾಹ್ಮೀ ಸೌಂದರಿಯರಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆಂಕಾಕ್ಷರ ಗಳನ್ನು ವಿವರಿಸಿದ ಕಾರಣದಿಂದಾಗಿ ಈ ಅಕ್ಷರ ಲಿಪಿಗೆ ಬ್ರಾಹ್ಮೀಲಿಪಿ ಎಂದು ಅಂಕ ಲಿಪಿಗೆ ಸೌಂದರಿ ಲಿಪಿ ಎಂದು ಹೆಸರಾಗಿದೆ. ಈ ಖಚಿತವಾದ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಯನ್ನು ಸಿರಿ ಭೂ ವಲಯವು ಬಹಳ ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿಸಿದೆ ಎಂದರು."

Anyone who can get the Source link in English can edit and enter it. Regards. Sunder. 27.61.191.141 (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2010 (UTC).

Hey Sundar . I am interested in English text where to get it. I am doing some research work on the origin of Hindoism and Jainism and would be obliged if we can share information in this regards. I am of opinion the most of our history has been reproduced by copy and paste type writers without doing any research and today a lot of books leads us to only one sources which might be correct or incorrect . We need to anaylse and ready to accept truth.

Zarin144 (talk) 12:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)

Please find my collection of papers on literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

Before mature phase of Indus valley civilization (before 2600 BC)

- There are some potters marks but none qualify as full writing

Indus valley civilization (2600 BC to 1900 BC)

1. The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis (very logical and self explanatory paper)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Script-Final-Version-Final-Final

2. The reintroduction of the lost manuscript hypothesis (the case for this thesis has obviously become much stronger in the recent past)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Reintroducing-Lost-Manuscript-Hypothesis

Post-Harappan India (1600 BC to 600 BC)

1. Literacy in post-Harappan india (obviously literacy in post-Harappan India existed in certain pockets & were limited to very small sections of society- alphabetic scripts were brought from West Asia and the Indus script also continued – this a very logical and self-explanatory paper and anyone can cross-verify the conclusions)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-and-origin-of-Brahmi

Sujay Rao Mandavilli 182.72.239.115 (talk) 09:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Please replace this absurd image

Government of Aryavart? What the hell on earth is it? Ministry of cultural affairs? What else bullshits are in store? The link provided is "Just another WordPress site" as it says. I checked their facebook page and it says they wanna overthrow secular govt. of India. What these craps are all about? Please replace this image with any of the inscriptions of Ashoka. -PrinceMathew (talk) 08:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, tell me which rule of wikipedia bans getting images because of politics? Ashoka's example was good but old and not very readable. I got fonts from those guys via request on there facebook page. Then I had to make some designs and submit to them and they allowed publication under favorable licenses. Let's not bring politics in wikipedia... Let those political leaders fight each other. Donating that images to them which ultimately they released under favorable license is great help to me as now I have font with unlimited license to make more good works in Brahmi Script :) Don't take it as there work, as I really worked on it for hours to make stuffs in my fav script :) Rawal of Jaisalmer (talk) 14:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

No politics in wiki. Image is good so let's keep it.--FPSTurkey (talk) 14:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Gratuitous Mention of Hindu Nationalism

I think to mention Hindu nationalism while speaking of theories of origin of Brahmi is not only gratuitous but in bad taste. It is not only some Indian scholars who are convinced that there is preponderant evidence for an indigenous origin of Brahmi, but also prominent Western scholars such as Raymond Allchin (quoted in Jack Goody's The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (C, 1987, pp. 301-302) and G.R. Hunter. And if they are good scholars, I am sure Hindu nationalism is not what has made them reach their position. MarcAurel 04:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Marc. Blaming Hindu nationalism is quite fashionable these days! deeptrivia (talk) 04:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You should read that paper by Kak that was referenced as evidence for the increasing acceptance of the indigenous origin theory. http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/writ.pdf Kak doesn't even acknowledge that the Aramaic/Semitic theory exists. That's not scholarship, that's pure and simple nationalistic propaganda. You couldn't get away with that in an undergrad term paper in the US. There's nothing gratuitous about mentioning a significant controversial issue in the field, and I have added a discussion of it, with references that actually support the text they're attached to.

One paragraph, which I've largely removed said:

Even though there is little intervening evidence for writing during the millennium and a half between the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization c. 1900 BCE and the first appearance of Brahmi in the mid-4th century BCE, the Indus hypothesis is slowly gaining momentum because of the sheer differences between how Semitic alphabets work and how Brahmi works for an Indo-Aryan language.

I actually looked up 2 of those references. Salomon's cited paper does not accept the theory (though he discusses it, as he should), nor does it say that it is "slowly gaining ground." Kak obviously accepts it, but he does not discuss "sheer differences between how Semitic alphabets work". He only mentions Aramaic long enough to concede that Karosthi derives from it. There is no comparison of Brahmi with Semitic alphabets at all, and as I said Kak is clearly not a reliable source if he doesn't even mention a theory that has dominated the field for over a century. I didn't read the 3rd reference, but since the first two were bogus, I have to assume the 3rd probably doesn't say what the author of this text claims either. This is an obvious and rather feeble attempt to gin up support for this claim. I don't know what you think the motive was for doing that if it wasn't Indian nationalism. Tarchon (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia assignment collaboration

Hey Jessica! It seems like this page is pretty compresensive to cover most of the topics related to Brahmi script. Some further expansion may include the following topics: how adaptable it is to use by other languages what medium it is most often used in Thanks.

Lunabunny (talk) 07:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey thank you for editing my writing. I've considered your comment and tried to include what you've suggested in my writing. However I realized that my writing is on "Basic Grammar" so writing about how other languages were based on the Brahmi script would kind of deviate from the topic. But I think the writing systems that descended from the original Brahmi script sum up what you've told me to consider. Some other users have already written about the descendant writing systems. Therefore, I don't think I would be able to include it in my writing. Anyways, thank you again for your suggestions! --Frandis (talk) 07:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Its great that you can add extra information to an article which already have quite a bit of information. It seems that this article has covered most if not all of the topics available. Just as a suggestion, I would elaborate more upon the vocabulary you used. what is pillar edicts? What is the difference between basic and secondary vowels? What is trianglewise? Jcc349 (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey thank you for your suggestions. I initially thought the vocabs that you pointed out were kind of self-explanatory. However, I decided to take your suggestion and added the definition of pillar edicts. For "trianglewise" I thought it would be better just to refer it to the chart. Also, for basic and secondary vowels, I put an internal link to "vowels." Hopefully, this will clear up some vague vocabs. Thank you for pointing that out!--Frandis (talk) 07:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

WHY THERE IS NO MENTION OF NORTH SEMITIC AND SOUTH SEMITIC DERIVATIVE? THE ARTICLE OVEREMPHASIZES ON ARAMAIC DERIVATION WHICH IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AS ANOTHER INDIAN SCRIPT KHAROSTHI IS TOO DERIVED FROM ARAMAIC. TWO DIFFERENT SCRIPTS DERIVED FROM SAME SOURCE IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY. Avantika

Uhm, what? It's well-documented that many different scripts arose from Aramaic. In point of fact, virtually all major scripts based on the alphabetic principle (i.e. abjads, abugidas, and true alphabets) are in fact derived from a single script developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs among Semitic miners (read: slaves) in the Sinai. The Ge'ez script directly developed from this script (via the intermediary of South Arabian, while the remainder of the family traces back to Phoenician. A western group descends from Greek (e.g. Latin and Cyrillic), while an eastern group descends from Aramaic. The modern Arabic and Syriac alphabets both unquestionably descend from Aramaic; why can't Brahmi, too? And now back to our regular programming.... Lockesdonkey (talk) 17:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

No thats not the exact crticism. Two different scripts may be derived from a same script, but in the same region? And these are not my words. Richard Saloman has pointed it out in his book,"Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages", 1998 OUP, pp 28 where by the way he also dicusses various other origins and also difficulties in accepting them. There is no doubt about Kharosthi being derived from aramaic. In fact we can derive entire Kharosthi letter by letter, by adding few diacritics. But Bramhi it is difficult and Buhler's attempt, though admirable is not perfect. Avantika

You keep saying there is evidence. What you provide is not evidence but similarities. Why can't there be an East to West influence. This article is so POV its unbelievable. The section is getting removed unless someone wants to provide citations and references to support any foreign origin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.203.15 (talk) 21:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

um, the evidence is in Bühler (1895). We do not construct arguments ourselves, we figure out which are the arguments used in mainstream scholarship and then report on them. If you are interested in the evidence, read Bühler's book. If you have references that offer constructive criticism of the evidence, let's see them. --dab (𒁳) 14:03, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Buhler's attempt is only one such attempt.

Obviously, Glagolitic and Cyrillic are perfect counterexamples to the claim that "TWO DIFFERENT SCRIPTS DERIVED FROM SAME SOURCE IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY." Both are contemporary and well known to be derived from Greek, but Glagolitic has a lot more originality to it. They originated in the same period and coexisted for a long time until the Cyrillic alphabet won out. Cyrillic probably derives some glyphs from Glagolitic; essentially Cyrillic is Greek in which (mostly) only the glyphs that represent exclusively Slavic sounds are taken from Glagolitic, while all the more familiar Greek sounds use their Greek equivalents. I could see an argument that something similar happened with Brahmi and Karosthi, but in that case the more nativized alternative eventually predominated. Tarchon (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Or hiragana and katakana - same source script, and they've been in parallel use for, what, over 1000 years now? Tarchon (talk) 19:03, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Keep Indus Origin

I have been in conflict on keeping the Indus Script origin hypothesis with User:Kwamikagami .

I have given the enough evidences of relevance, importance, notability of Indus Script hypothesis. Both Indus Script origin and Aramaic hypothesis are controversial.

It is part of Aryan-Dravidian politics of India because of this good scholar work haven't been easy.

But now, both of them are equally important so both of them should have a rightful place here. So let's discuss to solve this problem.

List of great Scholars who supports this Indus theory, to name few(As I can name many many many more):

1. V. S. Wakankar - Leading reseacher of Saraswati Sodh Sansthan which thoroughly surveyed the now dried Saraswati river. In 1958 Wakankar discovered the Bhimbetka rock caves. In 1970 UNESCO inscribed the Bhimbetka rock caves as a World Heritage Site. The Bhimbetka rock caves exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India. He is considered as the father of rock art in India and established the Wakankar Indological/ Cultural Research Trust in Ujjain, India. In 1975, he was awarded the Padmashree award, one of India's highest civilian honors.
2. David Frawley- David Frawley (or Vāmadeva Śāstrī वामदेव शास्त्री) is an American Hindu author, publishing on topics such as Hinduism, Yoga and Ayurveda. He is the founder and director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda, and Hindu astrology. He is also a professor of Vedic Astrology and Ayurveda at the Hindu University of America at Orlando, Florida. He is a Vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor), and a Jyotishi (astrologer). In publications such as In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (1995), Frawley has also defended theories of historical revisionism advocating the "Indigenous Aryans" ideology popular in Hindu nationalism.
3. N. S. Rajaram- Indian Mathematician and former NASA scientist, worked with many great scientists at NASA. Did the scientific analysis of Vedanta. With Natwar Jha, made the best Indus Script decipherment attempt( of what I know up of ). He analized the late Vedic Sulb-sutras (mathematical text) and showed how they are related to the Harrapan architecture and hence showed how Vedic Age fall with Indus Civilization and shift of post Vedic Hindu civilization towards Ganges plain.
4. S. R. Rao - He is an famous Historian and an Indian archeologist who led teams credited with the discovery of a number of Harappan sites including the famous port city of Lothal in Gujarat. He also discovered the ancient city of Dwarka and Indus seal there. Dwarka was an important Vedic city. He tried to decipher Indus script and compared it with Semitic script and gave phonetic value to the Indus symbols and got a Sanskritic reading! He notices that by time Indus script become more and more cursive and then, it developed into other scripts of India and middle east. So Brahmi and Phonician are sister scripts. Similarity between Aramaic and Brahmi is because of common ancestor.
5. Koenraad Elst - He is a Belgian writer and orientalist (without institutional affiliation). He was an editor of the New Right Flemish nationalist journal Teksten, Kommentaren en Studies from 1992 to 1995, focusing on criticism of Islam, various other conservative and Flemish separatist publications such as Nucleus, 't Pallieterke, Secessie and The Brussels Journal. Having authored fifteen English language books on topics related to Indian politics and communalism, Elst is one of the most well-known western writers (along with François Gautier) to actively defend the Hindutva ideology. His writings are frequently featured in right-wing publications. He have written great works on the Uheimat of Aryans and un masked the pseudo-scientific linguistic basis of Dravidianism.
6. Natwar Jha- The main person behind the best decipherment attempt of Indus Script. Studied the Indus script for 20 years. He is a great Sanskrit Scholars and matched the Indus seals with the Vedic Glossary.
7. Dattopant Thengadi - He built the largest trade union in India, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. Formed in 1955 it over took INTUC, the largest trade union, in just three decades. In 1989, the strength of BMS was 31 lakhs and more. That was more than the combined strength of CITU and AITUC - monopolists of the trade union movement. Today its membership is over 83 lakhs, more than the collective number of most other trade unions. Yes, he built the most powerful trade union. Yet, he was not a Communist. He actually opposed the Communists, stormed their citadel and captured it. Never a Socialist, but, he defeated them in their own territory. He waged an open war, an ideological war, against them, and defeated them in a straight war, not in guerilla warfare. Also he never used his strength, never called for a bandh, the normal weapon of large trade unions, and never brought any city to a standstill. He is also a great scholar, with books authored by him on most topics of scholar's importance, from History to Economics to Politics.

Besides, it's integral part of Hindu Nationalism. Hindu Nationalist organisations are largest non government affiliated organisations in the world with millions of Hindu Nationalists. It's de facto believed by all. Top RSS leaders like Dattopant Thengadi (who is also a scholar) have highly criticized the Dravidianism and claimed that there is only one civlization in India and so called Dravidians and Indus people are also Aryans (if North Indians are called Aryans).

This theory is very strong theory. Many late Harrapan symbols 100% resembles Brahmi. And Many many many more Middle Harrapan symbols are very much close to Brahmi(Much closer than Aramaic). Any researcher who is expert in Brahmi and have knowledge of Indus Script know it, if he is really an honest scholars. I am a Brahmi expert. Use it in my day to day life. Mainly personal in nature like diary. I have been researching on Indus Script for 2 years and on Vedic civilization for 6 years.

Rejection of putting Indus Script Hypothesis at it's rightful place in wikipedia with it's rightful respect by an admin( not naming him/her) is nothing other than either ideologically motivated or because it is against what he/she learnt first. And is an attempt to shake the Indian self respect by not allowing the neutral knowledge about here culture to known.

But again and again removing it, given that I have provided sources of one of the greatest scholars of our time is nothing other than vandalism.

--User:Leodescal (talk)

We're an encyclopedia. Politics has no place in our articles. You are making your hypothesis primary, which violates WP:WEIGHT. The nearest thing to consensus in this regard is the Semitic hypothesis. You claim that WEIGHT does not apply because you have WP:TRUTH – please read those policies. And allow some discussion here rather than edit warring. If sources support your edits, they will get the exposure they deserve.

But I notice you have not given a single WP:reliable source for your edits. — kwami (talk) 20:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell (i.e. in all the sources I have read), the Semitic hypothesis is by far the most accepted regarding the origin of the Brahmi script. The only real discussions I've ever seen documented are whether Brahmi dates from the time of Ashoka (derived from Aramaic) or an earlier period (derived directly from Phoenician)....either way the proposed ancestor would be Semitic. That Brahmi developed indigenously from the Indus Valley Script, after a silent gap of over a millennium is at best a fringe theory only championed by those with a political, nationalist agenda, which you freely admit above: "Besides, it's integral part of Hindu Nationalism."(sic). Please read and understand WP:COI, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTRELIABLE (regarding sources with a conflict of interest) WP:FRINGE, and WP:RS.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 05:31, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

@William: Indians didn't do public writings. They mainly did personal writings and wrote trade contracts. We learnt Vedas by rote. Vedas are the best example. They are written quite recently. And it should be noted that when Aramaic hypothesis was born when India was not independent. It wasn't even under British Crown. But under Company rule. And Company did everything to destroy the self pride of Indians(I have it's sources, if you want.) And, Indus Valley Civilization was also found much later. Much after independence some scholars tried to find out correct history of India. And Aramaic hypothesis isn't near to be a consensus. consensus is consensus. Either something is consensus or it is not a consensus. Aramaic hypothesis because of being old enjoys greater votes.

Can you answer me these questions:

1. Why late Harrapan Script have many signs exactly as Brahmi symbols?
2. Why other late Harrapan Script symbols are 85% or more like Brahmi symbols when Aramaic symbols are more than 65%(most of them) as Brahmi symbols?
3. Why S. R. Rao got Sanskritic reading of Indus script when he gave it Indus symbols values acc. to the Semitic script?
4. Why so many key scholars(whom I named above) supports Indus hypothesis.

@kwami: I have used Koenraad Elyst's article and N. S. Rajaram's article as main source. So, articles of these scholars aren't reliable?

Also, I have evidences that Vedic Indians were literate when Vedas were composed. If you want I would show. --Leodescal(Harshvardhan) (talk) 09:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Justification or proof of an hypothesis is not in the scope of WP; what we shall do is that, if something is academically accepted or considered or somewhat notable we can scribe them in. If "Indus origin hypothesis" has notable coverage, which Leodescal claims to be, then it shall be in the article. Indus hypothesis may not be true, not even the Aramaic Hypothesis be - that is why they are called hypotheses; but even if only a considerable amount of Indians do support "Indus theory" we shall place it in the article along with its criticisms, supporting grounds and falsifying grounds. Same shall be for Aramaic hypothesis.

<personal POV>Apart from this, as Leodescal asked about "Harappa Script - Brahmi similarities", let me share some personal thought, Harappa script might also come from Aramaic or even from earlier Phoenician. And as Indo-European language family binds all Indian languages to the same root as other Semitic and European members of the family (consensus), it is obvious assumption that, their script also came from a common root </personal POV> » nafSadh did say 15:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Any theory of the origin of Brahmi should explain the strong similarity between Brahmi and Karoshthi. One cannot accept that this similarity is a coincidence. Since Karoshthi seems to have appeared somewhat earlier than Brahmi, the thought is near that Brahmi is derived from Karoshthi. This is possibility that is mentioned in Henry Rogers Book "Writing systems, a linguistic approach" (Blackwell Publishing) in section 11.3.3.4. User: Malo Hautus

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.163.111.205 (talk) 15:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Kharoṣṭhī, as also noted in current version of relevant WP article, is already been identified as Sister of Brahmi, where both Brahmi and Kharoshthi are considered to be descendants of Aramaic alphabet. » nafSadh did say 16:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

@Leodescal 1) Regarding the questions you posed, those are beside the point, this isn't the place for editors to argue their beliefs. I need to echo kwami's sentiment from above: this is an encyclopedia. Please see WP:NOT and specifically WP:FORUM. Please keep your discussion limited to the quality of the sources as that is all that is relevant. 2) Regarding your "sources", you say "I have used Koenraad Elyst's article and N. S. Rajaram's article as main source. So, articles of these scholars aren't reliable?" to answer bluntly, no they are not reliable sources. Please see WP:RS and WP:OR for Wikipedia's definition of what is, and is not, a reliable source. Neither Elyst's nor Rajaram's "articles" regarding this topic appear in peer reviewed journals. Neither Elyst's nor Rajaram's main field of study is linguistics (or even history of writing systems), their opinions on the matter are incidental to their main areas of activity. In fact, when experts in the field do mention Elyst or Rjaram, their "articles" are always described as pseudoscience and propaganda.

I have provided you many links to Wikipedia policy and guideline pages. The community has spent a lot of time producing these policy pages. I do hope you take full advantage of them by reading and understanding them. These pages are what we have to base our discussions on here, not our own personal beliefs or agendas.

@nafSadh The "Indus Valley hypothesis" is currently covered in the article according to the weight of its "sources".--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 18:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

@WilliamThweatt: I ain't taking a side. Yes I see a coverage there. I don't see enough evidence on Indus thing anyway, but they are duly covered here. With current sources in hand, I think Leodescal might understand the consensus on closing the debate :P » nafSadh did say 20:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

@William: You said Koenraad Elyst is not a Linguist. But actually he is. See this article- http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/indo-european-urheimat-elst.html The kind of work presented by him is excellent. It's totally based on linguistics. About Rajaram. I agree he is more of a historian than a linguist but he have considerable knwoledge of Vedic Sanskrit which Mortimer Wheeler lacked. When V. D. Wakankar said that it's written in Vedic literature that Sambhars are from mountains not from plains(what he said). When he showed him Vedic grammar he said he don't know it and isn't interested in it!
And it should also be noted that both schools call it's counterpart pseudoscience. It's a fact. And it's not possible that Harrapan script was derived from Phonecian. It's way older than that. Thousands of years. What can be questioned is, if Harrapan have independent origin or it was derived or at least influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs or even Cuneiform script. It might be true was Indus people were widely travel people. But I think it's not the topic of discussion here....
What I am saying is that Indus Script hypothesis have overwhelming support in North India, good support in south(by scholars mostly) and it's supported by millions. This is for notability. I have given name of S. R. Rao too. He discovered the ancient city of Dwarka and many major Harrapan civilization sites including Lothal. He was the first one to give a hypothesis that gradually Indus script was becoming cursive, changing. He is also celebrated at secular spheres. The problem is when I gave the sources they were very big! Koenraad Elyst's articles had given information about which all scholars support S.R. rao's hypothesis, etc. etc. Now I'll point exactly where it is said.
No I'll go back, collect all the facts, sources, etc. and show them here. And then we can together work at giving final work to Brahmi article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leodescal (talk • contribs) 05:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Before you go to all that work, please read WP:reliable sources. The scholars you cite need to be authorities in this field. It won't do any good to find people whose expertise lies elsewhere. For example, if you found a famous physicist who supports the Indus hypothesis, we wouldn't accept it, because there'd be no reason to believe he understands anything about the evolution of writing systems. Also, the work you cite needs to be peer reviewed in a reputable journal or other publication, again, in this field. — kwami (talk) 07:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Seriously, we still get Elst/Rajaram/Kak style "Voice of India" type trolling about Indigenous Aryans, in the year 2012? This is just so 2006. Leodescal, we have been there. People have tried this. Nothing came of it. So please don't bother, you are six years late. --dab (𒁳) 12:13, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Time would prove who's is trolling... I'm currently busy, after 12th I'll show all the proves. And it isn't 2006 idea. British did conspiracy against Indians. Truth always win. Since India got independence, there is struggle for real history. Saraswati river's discovery is a great set back to the anti Indian politicians. Truth would have the final victory. I have read most important scholars of Aryan and Dravidian hypothesis. Max Muller is a fool. It's reason behind saying that Vedic Indians were illiterate and age of vedas to be 1500 B.C. is ridicules. More and more scholars are now supporting the indigenous aryan hypothesis. One day it would be proved that India is the cradle of Aryan civilization and eternal light of civilizational knowledge to all. -Leodescal — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.212.20.116 (talk) 10:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

You were born two generations too late, weren't you. Back in 1952 you would have been a hero for bashing the evil colonialists for hiding the truth about Vedic UFOs.

The point is that Brahmi appears just in time to be derived from Semitic-derived scripts. Darius goes to India in 519 BC and, bam, in 518 BC the Indians suddenly remember that they have this old indigenous script that has been lying around unused since 1900 BC, no connection? Please try to separate indigenist patriotic wishful thinking from rational thinking aware of Occam's razor.

The real discussion is how Brahmi was inspired by Aramaic-derived "Scythian" scripts. It wasn't straightforward. It's a bit like the origin of hangul, or hiragana, scripts clearly inspired by Chinese writing, but still local innovations. --dab (𒁳) 08:32, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Brahmi and Indus aren't different things. Brahmi was just the evolution of Indus Script, as shown by SR Rao how Indus script was evolving. Indus wrote all that time, but writing material didn't survive. --Rawal of Jaisalmer (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

There is an great, important, exceptional, wonderful, democratically accredited scholar who argues that Brahmi come from Mars with a Vimana. Why isn’t he included in the article ??!! Undoubtedly there is a colonialist plot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.73.50 (talk) 12:09, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

"Why late Harrapan Script have many signs exactly as Brahmi symbols?"

There are only so many basic geometric forms in the world. If you study writing systems other than Brahmi and the Indus script, you'll see the same basic glyph forms over and over again. You can really only relate the simple ones if they have something else connecting them, like the same phonetic value or the same position in the collation order. You can find many completely random glyphs that are identical between Ogham and Brahmi - that doesn't mean they're related. Until someone actually deciphers the Indus script, there's simply no good reason to say that they're related just because they both have, say, a circle with a line through it. So do about 100 other scripts. This basic fallacy is the source of most of the flocks of amateur decipherment claims flying around in the ether. Tarchon (talk) 06:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Origin of Brahmi : New paper

i am pleased to announce the publication of my fifth research paper in a peer-reviewed journal

this deals with the origin of Brahmi . this is a logical and self-explanatory paper and is written using a multi-disciplinary approach. it is written in such a way that anybody can cross-verify the conclusions.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-Final-Final-Final

sujay rao mandavilli — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.196.176.66 (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

What kind of peer review process would let you casually say "Some scholars, such as F. Raymond Allchin, John Marshall, Alexander Cunningham and the Assyriologist Professor S. Langdon have considered Brahmi as an indigenous development, with the Bronze Age Indus script as its predecessor. Other Indian scholars such as S.R Rao have also supported this hypothesis." and not call out the references? As it happens, Cunningham, for instance, later backed off from that position, as Buehler took pains to point out. You are also misrepresenting Allchin's position, which was not so much to hold that it was certainly an original indigenous development but to consider it a plausible theory. When you say "so and so said such and such" YOU MUST REFERENCE THE SOURCE so the reader can judge the veracity of your assertion. This is not optional by ANY standard of modern scholarship. Tarchon (talk) 07:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is Brahmi listed under Aramaic?

Since the article itself points to various inconsistencies between Brahmi and Aramaic, why is it still listed under Aramaic on the chart? Since it is a point of contention, this should be put under the Indian language tree, since that is the most visibly connected family. Tu160m 23:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

+1, Can someone point to a study that justifies this placement ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.225.48.118 (talk) 06:44, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

yea Indians are other so called so lost tribes described in Christian literature. Everyone came from Middle east according to christian science, Losers and scoundrels killing reality. Now they attacking on Civilizations and their history with new instruments- pseudo science and pseudo history. This is making its way with its right-wing fanatic agenda — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.89.157.10 (talk) 01:32, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

origins

universally accepted concept is that Proto-Sinaitic is earliest known true writing system

(thus excluding Egyptian hieroglyphs; news to me.) If so, can't one legitimately say that the earliest true writing system is descended from an earlier almost writing system? —Tamfang (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes we can. We can even go back to cave arts for the hierarchy. It doesn't make any sense. For Brahmi, we can find strikingly close resemblance with Aramaic alphabet. Probably Brahmi evolved from it, or (seemingly more probable) Brahmi was modeled based on Aramaic alphabet; but we are not certain - hence is the (?) in the hierarchy. It is obvious that Proto-Sinatic (PS) was closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs (EH); they even co-existed. But, we can not tell for certain, whether PS was evolved from EH or was developed in parallel. Also, note that EH included both alphabetic elements and logographic elements, while PS is alphabetic.

It is just convenient, to consider PS as the root of this tree. It is like saying, all alphabets has its root in PS, while PS has its own long story. – nafSadh did say 02:15, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to reform the layout of the "Origins" section

I would like to propose that the layout of the "Origins" section be reformed as the section is quite expansive in the amount of information it contains. Furthermore, the section now covers a large number of points all mixed in the "Origins" section; some of which could be better organized into various subheadings that already exist. As of now the section is very muddled and the information unclear, this would be best resolved by moving some of the more expansive points that clearly should be under a more appropriate subheading. For example many points seem to be developing arguments and points of views these should be under the appropriate heading but not under the broad auspices of "Origins", which should provide brief and concise information about currant theories, with extended evaluation/development under the relevant subheading of the main "Origins" section.Bodha2 (talk) 06:23, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree that the entire section needs paring down and reorganized. The bloat has crept in over time, mostly from supporters of the so-called "Indus Valley Hypothesis" inserting things trying to refute the standard view. Also, I just read the "South Indian epigraphy" sub-section twice and I'm still not sure what point, if any, is trying to be made there regarding the origins of Brahmi. The "Indus Valley Hypothesis" is fringe at best, only supported by nationalists most of whom aren't even experts in the field. No serious scholar (i.e. ones without an agenda) give any credence to it. It deserves a brief mention of its existence, but following every fact with a weaselly sentence attempting to refute said fact is giving WP:UNDUE weight to a fringe idea. Fixing this would go a long way in improving the flow and readability of not just the section, but the entire article. Add in the reorganization you propose and the resultant article will be a much improved.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 07:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Most of the bloat is indeed attributable to Indus hypothesis cranks who won't leave it alone until you at least mention their whacky newspaper articles and self-published crankery. I've tried to hack that stuff out but it keeps coming back, so the easiest thing to do is mention it and then drown it with real information.

I would get rid of the South Indian Epigraphy section since the only reason that was put in is to showcase those half-baked the Hindu articles written by wahoos who want to trace Tamil-Brahmi back to the dinosaurs (and I am not even exaggerating). The stuff about the Greek sources is keepable as are the (non-Tamil) Brahmi finds from the Anuradhapura article by Coningham et al., which I think are well accepted enough as being 4th C BCE. I am for keeping the Indus origin section, but I want to make sure that the hobbyist cranks (e.g. Kak) are sorted from serious scholars on the subject who have legitimate points (e.g. Mahadevan and Allchin) and the formerly legitimate but now seriously antiquated ideas (e.g. Cunningham and Hunter). It's not totally ridiculous that the megalithic graffiti has some connection to Brahmi, and even with the tenuous punch coin connection, there's clearly some semiotic system there that we don't really understand. Also the "Aramaic" section really ought to be Semitic since most scholars don't really make it that specific - the structural features in Brahmi that link it to Semitic models are common to a lot of Semitic scripts besides Aramaic, and it's not totally ridiculous to suppose that Phoenician or Demotic could have been in the mix somewhere. Aramaic just comes to the front by way of proximity. Personally, I think the influence of Old Persian Cuneiform is underappreciated, but dredging up the sources for that is probably too much detail for a wiki article.Tarchon (talk) 01:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Your comments all sound good and on the mark. The only thing I'd add is that when we mention the Indus hypothesis, we should be explicit about its lack of general acceptance. If we can find a RS-sourced comment about its supporters being nationalists or cranks, even better. IMO, the only way to deal with pseudo-science and pseudo-history is to be very clear that's what it is, and to protect the article from those who would attack it. Also, Tarchon, if you have a RS positing an Old Persian link or influence, it would be worth mentioning too. — kwami (talk) 02:04, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you all for reading my original post regarding reorganizing the "Origins" section. I must point out that it was I who added the "Indus valley hypothesis" section (in an attempt to rectify the bloat of the main Origins article) as whilst defiantly a fringe theory, and generally accepted as such, it is a theory that exists and is also a theory of historical interest (not for the theory itself but to illustrate the evolution of the changing ideas regarding the origins of the Brahmi script, in that the theory is a piece of history itself). Also whist the content of the Origins section should probably be under review, my original intention was only to reorganize it to make it less cluttered and more systematic and user friendly, with the information presented in a coherent and logical manner. I must also commend and profusely thank those who have taken considerable effort in beginning to sort the section out. If you have anything to ask/tell me please do.Bodha2 (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

remove section

I'm taking out this from the lede:

It was innovative in its presentation, with the alphabet arranged in a grid (varga) according to phonetic principles. [ref: Frits Staal, "The science of language", Chapter 16 in Gavin Flood, The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, Blackwell Publishing, 2003, 599 pages ISBN 0631215352. "Like Mendelejev's Periodic system of elements, the varga system was the result of centuries of analysis. In the course of that development, the basic concepts of phonology were discovered and defined." p.352.]

Do we know that the varga dates back to Brahmi? The ref suggests not.

Jainism

According to Jain belief, Brahmi, one of two daughters of the first Tirthankar Lord Rishabdev (Lord Aadinatha), composed the first text known to human-kind, and its script was called Brahmi in respect to her name. Several Sutras of Jain scriptures, particularly in temples in Tamil Nadu, were found written in the Brahmi script.

No citations, and dubious: Since 'Brahmi' is a modern name, where does this idea come from? — kwami (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a real legend, though I don't know if it's worth taking the time to cite the source for it. One of the Chinese Buddhist sources similarly attributes the invention of Brahmi to the god Brahma, and the invention of Kharosthi to a similarly named deity, but I think those are generally thought to be such stereotypical etiological myths that they're not worth much note. It's not entirely clear when and why the name Brahmalipi was first applied, but it was certainly in use by the 2nd century. Someone speculated that it was intended to indicate that it was the writing of the Brahmins, though I can't remember who. Tarchon (talk) 02:44, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Richard Salomon

In one of the recent POV vandalism sprees, the vandal objected to the use of sources by "Soloman who was an architect and not even a trained linguist". I would like to note that Professor Salomon has a BA in oriental studies and a PhD in Sanskrit. https://asian.washington.edu/people/richard-g-salomon Tarchon (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Earliest Evidence for the Brahmi Script

Has somebody counter-checked that single reference for the supposed finds of Brahmi writing as early as the 6th century? Because there is

a) no mention of them in three of the four below quoted sources, namely Norman, von Hinueber and Fussman. b) I can't find further evidence in the internet c) there is no mention neither in the French nor the German Wiki article on the Brahmi script d) such a find would mean a TREMENDOUS scientific sensation as it would push the earliest datable hard evidence fully 3 centuries back, making obsolete thus an scholarly consensus which has endured now for over a century.

I propose to bring up more references or otherwise significantly weaken the proposition of such an early origin of the Brahmi script. Right now, it looks like a dubious, unbacked insertion.

"A glance at the oldest Brāhmī inscriptions shows striking parallels with contemporary Aramaic for a few of the phonemes that are equivalent between the two languages, especially if the letters are flipped to reflect the change in writing direction."

I was comparing the two but could not identify any. Although I did find some characters between Phoenician & Brahmi that matched. Also, I was curious about why, if Brahmi descended from Aramaic, it is not written right to left.

The illustration shows several parallels. One problem is that the illustrations we have of Aramaic are not the closest in place and time to the origin of Brahmi. As for direction, it is rather common for scripts to change direction. There are several examples of Brahmi written from right to left, but unfortunately these are not dated. kwami (talk) 08:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That's true that part of the reason people can't see the Aramaic-Brahmi similarities is that they're looking at the wrong forms of Aramaic. The more conservative lapidary script has a lot more similarity, though I do think that the person who originally wrote the Aramaic origin section was leaning more heavily on Aramaic than the literature justifies. Buehler uses the term "Semitic" a lot, but if you look at his models they're mostly what we now call Phoenician, though he does find some Aramaic influence too. I have a hard time not seeing 'a' as an alef. It looks like an alef with the direction reversed, which is conventional in Semitic-family scripts when the writing direction changes. It's a vowel. It's the first letter. There's ample evidence of historical contact at the right time. How much else do people need? The fact that it does have a vowel quality though is an important clue about the dating. That innovation appears first in Greek; in early Phoenician there's little evidence for its use as a mater lectionis (vowel marker, though there are others), but the alef-vowel does show up in the late 1st mill. BCE in Aramaic and several descendant scripts (e.g. Punic) (the exact date is much argued, but the trend was probably spreading in 4th-2nd C BCE frame).Tarchon (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

And I guess I might as well toss out this completely OR observation too - the Sanskrit word for a vowel diacritic is mātrā (Pali mattā), and the Sanskrit word for mother is mātṛ (Pali mātā). The Latin expression mater lectionis is actually a calque of the Semito-Aramaic for "mother of reading" (a consonant that acts a vowel marker). What if mātrā is a reanalysis of a calque of the Aramaic, much as lipi was reanalyzed from the original Perso-Gandhari loanword dipi (by analogy with a verb that means to smear)? The usual explanation of mātrā is that it refers to a beat, the (atomic) length of a short vowel, which on the surface makes sense, but why would you refer to the vowel quality marker as a unit of vowel quantity? It's quite clear that the Sanskrit grammarians knew the difference. I can see the possibility that a vowel quantity marker could be called that de novo, but since it's actually a quality marker it seems possible that the Semitic metaphor was borrowed literally and then reanalyzed after the original sense of the metaphor has been forgotten. I mean, how rigorously did Prakrits observe length and gemination? Tarchon (talk) 22:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Dealing with the increasingly OR-ish "Comparison of Brahmi to other scripts"

Over the years, the "Comparison of Brahmi to other scripts" table has developed a lot of bloat, mostly unsourced and mostly with material largely irrelevant to the Semitic origins section. While I have nothing against the Kannada script, it doesn't really belong there. Consequently, I have removed the table (you can still mine it out of the section below) and replaced it with a much more direct extract of the table given by Buhler, which is amply sourced, much more concise, and generally a lot clearer in its implications. Feel absolutely free to clean up the old table and put it in a more appropriate location. Tarchon (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Comparison of Brahmi to other scripts

Attic Greek	Α	Β		Γ	Δ		Ε	Υ	Ζ		Η	Θ		Ι	Κ		Λ	Μ	Ν		Ξ	Ο	Π		Ϻ	Ϙ		Ρ	Σ	Τ
Phoenician
Aramaic																									,
Kharosthi											?
Brahmi							?				?											?
Assamese/Bengali	অ	ব	ভ	গ	ধ	ঢ			দ	ড		থ	ঠ	য	ক	চ	ল	ম	ন	ণ	শ		প	ফ	স	খ	ছ	ৰ	ষ	ত	ট
Devanagari	अ	ब	भ	ग	ध	ढ		व	द	ड		थ	ठ	य	क	च	ल	म	न	ण	श		प	फ	स	ख	छ	र	ष	त	ट
Malayalam	അ	ബ	ഭ	ഗ	ധ	ഢ		വ	ദ	ട		ഥ	ഠ	യ	ക	ച	ല	മ	ന	ണ	ശ		പ	ഫ	സ	ഖ	ഛ	ര	ഷ	ത	ട
Tamil	அ	ப		க	த	ட		வ	த	ட		த	ட	ய	க	ச	ல	ம	ந	ண	ஶ		ப	ப	ஸ	க	ச	ர	ஷ	த	ட
Kannada	అ	బ	ಭ	ಗ	ದ	ಧ	ಇ	ವ	ಡ	ಢ		ಥ	ಠ	ಯ	ಕ	ಚ	ల	ಮ	ನ	ణ	ಶ	ಒ	ಪ	ಫ	ಸ	ಖ	ಛ	ರ	ಷ	ತ	ಟ
Telugu	అ	బ	భ	గ	ద	ఢ		వ	ద	ఢ		థ	ఠ	య	క	చ	ల	మ	న	ణ	శ		ప	ఫ	స	ఖ	ఛ	ర	ష	త	ట
IAST	a	ba	bha	ga	dha	ḍha	IAST	va	da?	ḍa?	IAST	tha	ṭha	ya	ka	ca	la	ma	na	ṇa	śa*	IAST	pa	pha	sa*	kha	cha	ra	ṣa*	ta	ṭa

Brahmi script is older than Aramaic & Phoenician Script

Someone wrote this, "Aramaic is also considered to be the most likely source of the Brahmi script, ancestor of the Brahmi family of scripts, which includes Devanagari". But how can it be true? Brahmi script is found in Indus valley. Fully mature Indus valley civilization (Harappa, Mohenjo daro) is 3500 BC old . Phoenician alphabets are 1200 BC old. Aramaic script is only 800 BC old. Some scholars believe that Brahmi script is older than Aramaic & Phoenician script and probably source of Aramaic & Phoenician script — Preceding unsigned comment added by 43.248.152.55 (talk) 08:35, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Brahmi is obviously found in the geographical Indus valley, but it's not found anywhere in Harappan archaeological contexts. Please read the article. All these things you're commenting on are addressed in the article. The idea that Brahmi is the source of Aramaic & Phoenician is a WP:Fringe theory. I would assume the one you're talking about is Kak's. Tarchon (talk) 18:05, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Norman, Goody and other recent scholarship on Brahmi script

@Tarchon: This article fails to properly summarize Kenneth Norman, Jack Goody and related recent 30-years of WP:RS on Brahmi script. This is not appropriate per WP:NPOV. Recent reviews by Richard Salomon includes this research. Norman/Goody/etc... you must now be aware of, given our interaction in the Lipi article. We should add these to improve this article. Do you have the time to? If you are too busy, I will try to add a summary in the coming days. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

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Origin section, rewrite

This article is patently ridiculous, instead of presenting any sort of pertinent information about the script it has been overtaken by pseudo scholars who are using Wikipedia as a way of pushing their views. This is not confined to the oft derided Indian Nationalist, but also those who keep inflating this article with THEIR drivel on the Aramaic origins of the Brahmi script, when a sentence or two could do the job equally as well. But here there are charts, and diagrams prepared by these bounders to advance their ideas, with no regard to the fact that this is a encyclopedia not an outlet for armchair scholarship. The Origins section, as I said before needs to be cleaned up, the debate currently seen should have it's own page. Indeed, the origins section could be condensed into three paragraphs. Here is a brief outline of what I propose:

Origins

(link to a Origins of the Brahmi script page)

The earliest known inscription(s) in Brahmi is an inscription.... found in.... and thought to date to .... of the .... empire (give citation). (Perhaps a one sentence description of the aforementioned inscription). Brahmi is the earliest form of writing to appear in South-Asia after the Indus valley script, currently there are two theories as to the origins of the script the first being the Aramaic hypothesis and the second arguing indigenous development. Currently, the Aramaic Hypothesis is more prevalent theory.

Aramaic Hypothesis

This hypothesis contends that Writing and the concept of writing was reintroduced to the Indian subcontinent by Semitic traders Circa.... (citation). The hypothesis was first proposed in... by..., being further supported by ...(list of proponents). All noting a number of graphical similarities between the Brahmi and Aramaic scripts and the apparent lack of a writing system in South-Asia since the collapse of the Harrapan civilization (citations). Further evidence can be seen in ...(archaeological finds and references of Indo-Semitic trade and other primary sources referencing to writing during this period) (citations). However,(concise and fair explanation of criticisms, only a sentence or two long, these criticisms are not to be rebutted, specify who made this criticism (no ad hominem attacks).) (citations).

Indigenous hypothesis

This hypothesis states that Brahmi script was an indigenous development, either a direct descendant of the Indus script or a Indigenous creation arising with the reintroduction of writing (citations). The first version, with proponents such as..., notes... (concise list of arguments, noted graphical similarities, archaeological evidence, and primary sources as given by proponents) (citations). These second version, with proponents such as..., notes (concise list of arguments, graphical similarities, archaeological evidence, and primary sources as given by proponents) (citations). However,(concise and fair explanation of criticisms, only a sentence or two long, these criticisms are not to be rebutted, specify who made this criticism (no ad hominem attacks).) (citations).

That is it. Three paragraphs are sufficient. The origin section needs no more. The travesty that exists now should be relegated to another page. with that point of contention removed the overall quality of the article should improve i.e noting different regional forms and more thoroughly noting the vowel diacritics etc. This I feel is a concise and fair presentation of information, rather than an argument. Bodha2 (talk) 21:25, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Bodha2: No. To the contrary, the article is decently comprehensive as it should be, and reflects a lot of work by many editors (other than me). Your edit history shows that you have argued about this article in past. Your starting off with "pseudo scholars", "Aramaic origins drivel" etc is not a constructive approach. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:02, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: You misunderstand my point. Firstly I am not taking any sides in said debate, neither am I discounting the thoroughness of the work here, hence why I am suggesting that it have its own page because of how extensive it is. Furthermore, my own remarks are wholly independent from the nature of my proposed edit, and the "drivel" I mention only referrers to the highly in depth nature of the section and how I feel it is inappropriately inflated for this page. Finally my earlier arguments were on the same lines that the bloat in this section needed to be trimmed for this page (again transfer everything in the origins section onto its own dedicated page), and my previous comment was well received and led to an overhaul of the origins section so that it were more readable. What my mentioning "pseudo-scholars" has to do with anything is beyond me and is a asinine criticism. I am more than willing to accept that what I propose is not perfect, but that is why I put it here here on the talk page so that its' merits and faults could be debated by fellow editors but thus far the actual proposal is yet to be critiqued. The amount of work editors fut in is besides the point the information could be presented in a more concise manner, and those desirous of more information could access a separate page, because as of right now it is the origins section that is the primary focus of the page rather than anything actually about the script.Bodha2 (talk) 01:33, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

@Bodha2: The origins of Brahmi script has been highly debated, notable and due section in this article. Splitting it into a new article is not prudent, as that would create WP:CFORK issues. It is a comprehensive summary, and needs to be. There is table of contents at the top. Other than the "Letters", "Characteristics" etc section, is there something else you mean by "actually about the script" in your last line? If yes, can you provide a reliable source with page numbers? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: While I still maintain the origins section is bloated in my opinion, I can see and do accede to your point. As for the rest of the page I will start adding information about some significant regional variations of the script and its diacritics. Furthermore, I also intend to add a section about spelling convention especially how it dealt with consonant conjunctions. While these will obviously be sourced I would appreciate any extra material anyone could find. Bodha2 (talk) 20:43, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Falk's dating

The "Falk's dating" subsection should certainly be deleted. Its main problem is that it presents Falk's chronology and then proceeds to show why it's doubtful, so one has to wonder what the point of adding it was in the first place. Falk's review is great, and his personal theories about the chronology and origin are at least interesting, but they're obviously not widely accepted. On top of that, the section is confusing and poorly composed. I cleaned up some basic grammar, but for part of it I'm not even entirely sure what it's attempting to say. Plus, the person who wrote it isn't even taking it directly from Falk but rather from Salomon's description of Falk (I assume because Falk wrote it in German), which doesn't do any great things for its general coherence.68.5.230.209 (talk) 06:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia. Please see WP:RS and WP:NPOV content guidelines. We rely on secondary and tertiary sources. Salomon review of Falk meets that content guideline. The Falk summary herein is largely the effort of many editors before I ever edited this article, and it meets the NPOV guidelines. Please don't delete it. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:35, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

It's also completely wrong in one place. "The Sanskrit language on some pillars shows a mix of Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī." Obviously Falk never says that, since Falk, being an expert on the subject, knows that none of the Ashoka inscriptions are in Sanskrit. Then take this sentence "Brahmi script, written left to right, in Falk's dating proposal was entirely borrowed from Semitic scripts, but instead of copying it, the Indians invented the Brahmi therefrom." Did Falk say it was "entirely borrowed" or did he say that "the Indians invented" it? It's self-contradictory. This whole section is a nonsensical mess full of elementary mistakes and misrepresentations. The English is weird and clunky. Your posting of wiki policy links also does not counter my criticism that there's no point in including a whole section that says "so and so says this but most other experts disagree". At most, it's worth a sentence, and really, I've never seen anyone give Falk's idea much of a positive review, so it's pretty hard to argue for any particular notability. Do you know how many theories about Brahmi origins there are? Falk gives a pretty long list. What is your criterion for spending so much space on this, as opposed to the other 2 dozen theories that nobody accepts? And I don't want you to post a couple facile wikilinks, I want you to actually justify it in words that convey logical points. Simply being "NPOV" does not make some text sufficiently notable for inclusion. Another wikpedian has complained about the "bloat" in this section, and this is clearly some of the bloat that ought to be removed. 68.5.230.209 (talk) 06:12, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

@68.5.230.209: Falk's work on this notable, much cited by other scholars and it stays. Your comments, such as "I've never seen anyone give Falk's idea much of a positive review, so it's pretty hard to argue for any particular notability" is strange, to say the least. Please see WP:RS, WP:POV, WP:WWIN and other content guidelines of wikipedia. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Do you seriously not understand what's wrong with this subsection? Are you maintaining that the Ashoka pillar inscriptions really are written in Sanskrit!? Falk is cited by other scholars as being "speculative" and "doubtful". What kind of encyclopedia wastes time name-checking every discarded theory just because it's been cited by someone? Let me explain the principle of academic literature reviews. You're supposed to go through the decent quality literature and list anything relevant, whether or not you think it's correct or important. The reviewers are looking for THOROUGHNESS in the lit review, not correctness of the cited sources. Falk himself lists dozens of theories, not because he thinks they're all great theories, but because it's a lit review. Simply being cited in a lit review does not make something notable or worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. If this section were well written, factually correct, and accurately representative of Falk's views, I probably would leave it in, notability aside, but it's a misrepresentation of Falk that also misrepresents a commentator on Falk, ends up completely missing the original points, makes multiple absurd misstatements, and reads like it was written by a freshman high school student of middling ability in an ESL class. This section is simply not worth the time it would take to edit it into a semblance of accuracy. I'm replacing it with an appropriate and factual résumé.68.15.76.10 (talk) 18:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

@68.5.230.209: The Falk section has been long-standing work of many editors, see the archived discussions. You are not welcome to delete it, as you originally proposed above. But you are welcome to edit or replace parts, thus improve the Falk section. Expect a partial or full revert from others or me, if your version makes it worse or POV-y or does not cite reliable sources with page numbers. On rest of your comments, see WP:NOTFORUM guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

If you want to put it back in, you have to fix it. It cannot stand as it is. You are not the dictator of wikipedia, and again posting things like WP:NOTFORUM doesn't justify your high-handed refusal to accept corrections to obviously flawed material. Regarding WP:NOTFORUM, this is not a forum discussion, this is a specific and relevant criticism of severe and unacceptable flaws IN THIS SUBSECTION IN THIS ARTICLE, which you refuse to even recognize. The purpose of the talk page is to discuss the article. It does not matter how many people worked on it. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If it misrepresents sources, it misrepresents sources. This is not your personal blog, and its purpose is not to give you a place to preserve your expository writing for posterity.68.15.76.10 (talk) 21:44, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Neither is it your blog, nor are you the dictator of wikipedia. The best way forward in content disputes is collaboration, not calling someone else a dictator. If you embed quote from page NN, and better re-summarize that source about Falk's work, that would be welcome. But just making sweeping claims such as "I've never seen anyone give Falk's idea much of a positive review, so it's pretty hard to argue for any particular notability" and therefore delete it, is not constructive. Falk is a well-cited scholar on Brahmi script, and a summary of Falk's work is appropriate for this article. Feel free to take this to DRN. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:14, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

You say you understand that, but it does not show up in your insistence on fighting tooth and nail to preserve any text that you worked on, regardless of how many problems there are in it. I may not agree with Bodha2 on a lot of things, but he's been bringing this bloat problem up for a while, and he's got a pretty good point. This is supposed to inform people who don't know the subject, and you can't inform people when you're just meandering around aimlessly, contradicting yourself, and saying things that are just flat out wrong. Points need to be gotten to, and I mean factual points.

Can you tell me what this sentence means: "Brahmi script, written left to right, in Falk's dating proposal was entirely borrowed from Semitic scripts, but instead of copying it, the Indians invented the Brahmi therefrom, around and after 258 BCE (the era of Ashoka)."? It's a simple question. If you can't answer that, why are you reposting it in an encyclopedia which is intended to inform people who don't already know the subject? I know what it ought to say, because I've read Falk's article, but if I'd never read Falk before, I'd have no idea what that's trying to imply, particularly in the context of this dichotomy between Semitic and indigenous origin theories. It's hardly got anything to do with the key points of Falk's theory of Brahmi development.

Importantly, this section also completely misses the whole point of what Falk's critics are criticizing, which is the idea of Greek influence. Salomon and Scharfe both seem to be pretty content with Falk's Kharosthi derivation otherwise (which is not really original with him anyway), which is certainly not the impression you get from this section. This Greek thing is their real sticking point as far as Brahmi origins go.

Now, with this Bronkhorst citation, what is he talking about? Well, Bronkhorst didn't give a fig about the Semitic origins of Brahmi. It's just not something he's thinking about. Bronkhorst is really concerned about the existence and role of writing in India. He says: "Staal’s reflections find support, at least at first sight, in subsequently published studies about writing in ancient India. Harry Falk’s Schrift im alten Indien (1993) is widely regarded as the definitive study on this subject. It shows that all the literary indications that had been taken to prove the use of writing before the period of emperor Aßoka (ca. 268 - 233 B.C.E.) do no such thing. Moreover, Falk maintains that the inscriptions of Aßoka themselves show that writing was new, and underwent important improvements during the realm of the emperor itself. In other words, writing was not introduced into India until just before, or during, the reign of Asoka." Bronkhorst makes no claim about whether Falk's Brahmi origin theory is the greatest thing ever or throw-away speculation that was immediately dismissed by every expert on Brahmi origins. What he takes issue with is Falk's dismissal of the existence pre-Ashokan writing, without spending too much time considering what that might be, and he just comments that it could be "Aramaic, Kharosthi, or an early form of Brahmi, or indeed any two or even all three of these." You have to read the reference to get an idea what it's talking about. That's probably part of the reason this section is so bad and so inaccurate - it doesn't seem to reflect any attempt to understand the references beyond pasting them in to make the entry look more authoritative. I mean these quotations don't seem to have any connection to the presumptive points being made. It's like they're just there so someone can say, "look, it's a direct quotation!" I think anyone who's ever graded a composition class research paper is familiar with that phenomenon. 68.15.76.10 (talk) 00:30, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@68.15.76.10: You are either misunderstanding or ignoring my welcome to you to revise and improve that section. But complete deletion and omission of Falk's work is inappropriate, according to wikipedia content guidelines. The sentence "Brahmi script, (...), in Falk's dating proposal was entirely borrowed from Semitic scripts but instead of copying it, the Indians invented the Brahmi therefrom (....)" means [1] According to Falk's 1992 proposal, Brahmi script was entirely borrowed from Semitic scripts; [2] Ancient Indians borrowed from it, but did not copy it blindly or wholesale; etc. The Greek part is explained later. Feel free to copyedit, improve or replace it with something better. If something is inaccurate, make it accurate and cite your source. Don't cite the whole book, please cite the page number(s) as well that verifies your summary. Please see Salomon's book published by Oxford University Press, Falk's paper, etc on all of this. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:04, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, so when you say "entirely borrowed" you don't mean it was entirely borrowed. So... why did you say "entirely"? See, when you say "entirely borrowed", that kind of implies entirety of the borrowing. What's wrong with just saying "borrowed"? If you say it's entirely borrowed by such and such, that means it's not invented by such and such. If what you mean is "X invented it with some inspiration from Y", say that. That's bloat; saying something in 30 words when you could say everything important in 8. Dropping in the parenthetical phrase "written left to right". What does that do for you? We already knew that, and it's hardly an argument for Brahmi being borrowed from Semitic, so what is it doing there? BLOAT. Confusing, pointless bloat. Words that aren't used to mean what they actually mean, pointless parentheticals. And this whole section is peppered with that stuff, along with huge quotations that are talking about things that we didn't even mention. Bloat.

All you need to say is what I replaced it with: "Falk saw it as a very late Ashokan-era derivation from the Aramaic-derived Kharosthi script with Greek influence, though the hypothesis of Greek influence (first proposed by James Prinsep himself) is not now generally regarded as being very likely.[15][31] The idea that the borrowing occurred much later than Bühler's 8th-century BCE date has been more popular, with Scharfe, for example, rejecting Falk's notion of Greek influence but concurring with regard to its being a late Kharosthi derivation.[3]" Did you not notice my other changes? I did replace it. It took me two sentences to say everything that this whole section sort of stabs at, and I worked it in with an overview that puts it in context with the whole field. This section is called "Falk's dating" but it's only got two dates, the Ashokan era and a possible date of the development of Kharosthi. And? You needed a whole section to present two dates, one of which is already pretty well established? That's why I deleted it. It has been replaced by more economical, more accurate, and better integrated material. It now serves no informative purpose. If you want to say somewhere that Falk dated Kharosthi to around 325 BCE, sure, put that in, or maybe in the Kharosthi article. It takes maybe 5 words to say that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.15.76.10 (talk) 01:33, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Buhler's theory

Should we trim and revise the large section on Buhler's 1898 theory, remove OR and base it on more recent reviews of it? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:25, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

You should not. You are clearly not a native speaker of English. You have repeatedly demonstrated that you cannot understand the references and cannot represent them accurately. You should not be editing this article at all until you master the language. You demand that I fight to save every single element in this article that you disagree with, and you refuse to confront my arguments against your edits, instead relying on vague references to wiki policies. Your edits are destructive and seriously reducing the quality of this article. 68.15.76.10 (talk) 17:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Please see no personal attacks and talk page guidelines of wikipedia. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 19:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

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Categorization

if the article itself states that the origin is disputed and there are two hypothesis and one among them being Aramaic origin why is brahmi script categorized as derivative of Aramaic?Rameezraja001 (talk) 00:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

brahmi letters in earliest indian coins

Kuru janapada (450 to 350 BC)

Kuru coin

this punch marked coin has brahmi symbols of tha, sa, ma

---

Avanti janapada coin (500-400 BC) punch marked

i can spot da, tha, ma

Avanti janapada coin 202.188.53.210 (talk) 23:31, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

See: Punch-marked_coins#Indian_punch-marked_coins

This is relevant, the introduction of marked coins in the 6th century no doubt introduced the general idea of writing, and Brahmi was somehow derived from that over the next two centuries. In this sense, the coins are relevant to this article. But they are, afaict, considered proto-writing, and not an early instance of Brahmi. --dab (𒁳) 13:39, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Semitic descent on the infobox

The descent of Brahmi from a semitic alphabet has no scientific or scholarly consensus. It is intellectually dishonest to write that it is descended from the Aramaic or Sinaitic alphabet in the infobox (same for any other indic script). The Controversy is clearly detailed in the article itself, so why is the disputed origin written in the language descent? Any unsuspecting reader would assume this to be consensus. (whence it is not). A simple note linking to the controversy is sufficient. Abh9850 (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Abh9850 has recently (and repeatedly) been removing the family data about Brahmi script from this and other related articles based on the argument that "there is absolutely no consensus on brahmi coming from any semitic script, it is intellectually dishonest to write it as the "parent" of any indic script when the controversy is mentioned in the article". I believe that the previous arrangement, in which the infobox notes the major theory while including a footnote that it is not universally accepted, is preferable. Can others interested editors chime in? Abecedare (talk) 14:18, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Why exactly would it be preferable when it is just a theory? The theory is mentioned in the article. Should the infobox now contain all supposed theories? The infobox should contain facts with evidence (established, proven and scholarly consensus). There is no direct evidence for the semitic origin theory, which is why so many scholars dispute it ardently. Abh9850 (talk) 14:23, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Abh9850 the whole family tree of languages is a theory. There is no "direct evidence" for the language tree.-SharabSalam (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Oppose. Don't quote any random theories and involve in ad hominem arguments.

Indix22019 (talk) 02:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Abh9850. Agree with Abecedare. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

There is no direct evidence for the semitic origin theory, which is why so many scholars dispute it ardently

The argument against the Semitic origin is a minority one: most scholars of repute accept the Semitic theory because of the persuasive weight of evidence in its favour. Laying hopes upon an undeciphered Indus script is extremely unscientific. It leads one to speculate therefore that the only reason must be the motivation of Hindū rāṣṭravāda.

Nuttyskin (talk) 13:10, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Earliest inscriptions

@Robin7013: you insist on adding the following information:

The earliest known inscriptions are from the potsherds recovered from Keezhadi, Tamil Nadu, India dated to be from the 6th century BCE in Tamil language.

References

let's have a look at those sources (which yoy didn't even bother to edit, justgiving bare links):

• Dennis S. Jesudasan (20 september 2019), Keezhadi excavations: Sangam era older than previously thought, finds study, The Hindu - “These results clearly ascertained that they attained literacy or learned the art of writing as early as 6th century BCE,” the 61-page report stated. "An Urban Settlement", p.9. Interesting, but just one find, with a dating in a publication by an archaeological department, not in a peer-reviewed journal.
• Scroll.in (19 september 2019), Tamil Nadu: Artefacts dated to 580 BCE hint at script continuity from Indus Valley Civilisation:

Artefacts found at the archaeological site in Keezhadi, about 12 km from Madurai in Tamil Nadu, have been dated to 580 BCE, with “graffiti marks” on them pointing to a possible continuity in script from the Indus Valley Civilisation [...] These graffiti marks are the one evolved or transformed from Indus script and served as precursor for the emergence of Brahmi script.

The garffiti continuity is one proposal,; concluding from these graffiti signs point to Brahmi in the 6th century BCE may be far-stretched.

None of the three earlier major excavations in the region had provided strong evidence of an ancient urban settlement – a significant feature of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The IVC relocated after 1900 BCE, abandoning thier big cities, and setling in smaal urban settlements. Wonder how those archaeologists see urbanisation as a continuity of the IVC, when there is a 1000 year gap?

• Sivanantham, R.; Seran., M., eds. (2019), Keeladi. An Urban Settlement of Sangam Age on the Banks of River Vaigai (PDF), DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY. GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU, pp. 14, 15

It's interesting, but as noted above, it's a specific interpretation of one site, based on one specific theory, for which there is not general consensus. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:57, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Joshua, Read the book I have referred. The conclusion that the brahmi script found there dated 6th century BC is based on the appropriate tests by foreign laboratories. Don't you believe that? I could not understand your objection about "continuity". What I mentioned that brahmi is dated to 6th century BC. I have given solid evidence. Please do not suppress the facts and lets keep the Wiki up to date.

Regards Robin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robin7013 (talk • contribs) 08:17, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Joshua, that the report is presenting the available data from one side, the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Department. Calling the conclusions of TNAD as fringe view is wrong, because it's really a pioneering work based on completely new data for which there can't be any other viewpoints at this point. Furthermore, the people who were involved in this report, have reliable credentials and hence the presented view must be taken seriously by us. I think there should be no problem to include the report in the article as long as the source is presented as what it is, a report from TNAD. We shouldn't present it as the unversally accepted consensus (yet).ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 11:14, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

A publication by the DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY. GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU and The Hindu articles are really not peer-reviewed academic sources. There is also too much politics and nationalistic claims going on here. We have to wait until reputable scholars actually evaluate the results and publish their analysis of the question. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:23, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Plus see. Robin, please gain consensus and do not edit war here or ever again in any other wikipedia article(s). Your cooperation is requested, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

ThaThinThaKiThaTha: On your "completely new data for which there can't be any other viewpoints at this point": I read TNAD's work and publications critically a while ago. I found it unpersuasive. What they are reporting is the carbon dating of carbon found attached or the carbon used to burn in the pots, then jumping to the conclusion that that date must be the same date for graffiti / Brahmi inscription fragments. Neither is necessarily so. Old carbon material can get attached to later era archaeological earthenware, old dead wood/carbon material could have been used to produce later era pottery or items, and graffiti/inscription could have been added on old items (someone can add modern Tamil and TNAD logo on those ancient potsherds today, but that would not mean modern Tamil and TNAD existed in 1st-millennium BCE). The TNAD findings are thus terminus a quo, not terminus ad quem. We need caution here. Never plug anything from TNAD or any minority/fringe exceptional claim(s) in wikipedia voice. I have tentatively added something from TNAD's work in the Tamil Brahmi article with attribution, but I would favor we don't as it is a fringe minority at this point. Wikipedia is not the place for RIGHTGREATWRONGS, and we generally try to be slow and behind the scholarship curve on topics related to ancient scripts, history, religion, archaeology, medicine, etc. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

From what I've got from the report is they looked into the methodology of how the inscriptions were engraved on the pot and they came to the conclusion, that the engraving was burnt after the good (pot) was purchased. I've not seen any other opinion about this suggestion yet, neither a confirmation nor a negation of it, just that the report was reviewed by the officials and "critically edited" by K. Rajan. Please keep your personal opinion aside and respect those suggestions of the involved expert team. Having said that, I also prefer to wait for feedback from the scholarly community, as the findings would be exceptional indeed. I can also understand the Tamil community, which has good reasons to cheer. The findings trended on Twitter India at position #1 for a week or so, it had also massive coverage in Tamil media. I'm not surprized regarding the bulk of premature edit requests, lately.ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 15:11, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

People involved in this discussion may also be interested in the article Tamil inscriptions, which makes similar claims. utcursch | talk 13:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

And the three latest requests at Talk:List of languages by first written accounts - arguing for Tamil as the mother of all languages, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some organisation of some sort behind it, a Facebook page, a blog, something. Doug Weller talk 14:39, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Yep. Many of our Tamil-related articles have serious issues because of similar reasons/editing. They need some attention and cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:27, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Original research and synthesis

This concerns the work of पाटलिपुत्र. I have long had an interest in James Prinsep. (See here for evidence from 2008.) Prinsep, of course, is the genius who deciphered the Brahmi Script. The Prinsep page was created and ably maintained by Shyamal, whose other work on Allan Octavian Hume and naturalists of British India I have long admired from afar. Well, I happened to stop by the Prinsep page yesterday and noticed some changes.

In the section of the decipherment of Brahmi, there was some curious original research, including a devaluation of the work of Prinsep. I was struck more by a picture, File:Danam letters on Sanchi inscription.jpg, of an inscription from Sanchi, with two letters highlighted in red, extracted, with minimal explanation, from a picture: File:Sanchi Stupa Nr. 2 Chimäre (1999).JPG. On the Prinsep page, its caption is sourced to page 207 of Richard Salamon's Indian Epigraphy, which, in turn, quotes at great length, Prinsep's article from the 1830s, a primary source, which begins, "I was struck by their all terminating in the same two letters ..."

I then came to this page. I noticed the same pattern of many images which have been extracted from other images and are being used to make dubious points: File:Shastana inscription.jpg, File:Brahmi Sva (Sa+Va).jpg, File:Ashoka Sarnath Lipii word.jpg, File:Dhamma inscription.jpg, File:Brahmi Kya (Ka-Ya) conjunct consonant.jpg. The real doozy is the file, File:Buddha Sakyamuni on the Rummindei pillar of Ashoka.jpg, extracted from, File:Lumbini - Pillar Edict in Brahmi Script, Lumbini (9241396121).jpg of a pillar in Lumpini, the birthplace of the Buddha, and spammed on seven Wikipedia pages. It has been cut up further into five images, some of which are still waiting to be used on Wikipedia. All this is the work of पाटलिपुत्र

I know that we can cut and paste text and images on Wikipedia, but is there no limit to it, no judicious restraint that we need to exercise, especially when engaging in edits that overstep WP:DUE?

This editor has been warned several times, on Talk:Neolithic#PLOS_citation_and_image_spamming, User_talk:Ms_Sarah_Welch#User:神风, and Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_69#A_spree_of_dubious_edits, for example, where Ms Sarah Welch wondered if our concern needed to be escalated to a Formal Review. I'm sure पाटलिपुत्र knows that his contributions lie in a gray zone. I don't know what a formal review involves. Please advise. Pinging editors who work on similar pages: @Joshua Jonathan:, @JimRenge:, @Ms Sarah Welch:, @Joe Roe:, @Johnbod:, @RegentsPark:, @Drmies:, @Kautilya3:, @Shyamal:, @Doug Weller:, पाटलिपुत्र Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:44, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:ANI would be the place for a formal review. I am concerned too. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: "Prinsep, of course, is the genius who deciphered the Brahmi Script." [1] Fowler&fowler, your argument is quite inaccurate and misleading. The first secure deciphernment of several Brahmi letters was made by Norwegian Christian Lassen using the Greek-Brahmi coins of Agathocles of Bactria, as also recognized by Prinsep himself in his 1836 communication. Prinsep then indeed completed the decipherment of the full alphabet. This is not "a devaluation of the work of Prinsep", just a statement of fact and a correction of unbalanced hagiographical editing. For the rest, I am just trying to use freely available images to illustrate properly important elements of Indian epigraphy: comments such as "I know that we can cut and paste text and images on Wikipedia, but is there no limit to it, no judicious restraint that we need to exercise" are futile at best and run counter to the free availability of Commons images. I will not respond further. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:51, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: Your main source, which you cite as "Himanshu Prabha Ray" is, in fact, a paper of Sanjay Garg about Charles Masson, (Garg, Sanjay (2017), "Charles Masson: a footloose antiquarian in Afghanistan and the building up of numismatic collections in the museums in India and England", in Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections, Taylor & Francis, pp. 130–153, ISBN 978-1-351-25274-4 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chapterurl=, |laydate=, |laysummary=, and |authormask= (help)) and an account that clearly inflates Masson's role in contrast to the higher level tertiary sources such as Salamon (see evidence in sub-section below). You have taken two offhanded lines in that paper. Having written the section Discovery and history of excavation of the Indus Valley Civilisation page, I am aware of the history of Charles Masson and Alexander Cunningham, and having written the Halmidi inscription page (see my references from 2013, which include Salamon), I am aware of Richard Salmon's Indian Epigraphy. I do not think that Prinsep had no help. But we are bound by rules of reporting the consensus of sources correctly so the WP:DUE is maintained. You are welcome to not respond, but I will keep adding evidence for a formal review in sub-sections below. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:34, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Example 1. Issues of WP:DUE and spamming of text

The paragraph in question, which has been spammed on half a dozen pages is:

The first successful attempts at deciphering Brahmi were made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen, who used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coins of Indo-Greek kings Agathocles and Pantaleon to correctly identify several Brahmi letters. The task was then completed by Prinsep, who was able to identify the rest of the Brahmi characters, with the help of Major Cunningham.

Consider the sources. The third source, an ASI site, Archaeological Survey of India: More Detail about Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi (1989), says:

James Princep, who deciphered Brahmi, the script of ancient India, which was a sealed book till 1837, got his first clue for decipherment of Brahmi from Sanchi inscriptions most of which ending with the word danam (gift). With this clue and insight he was able to read Ashokan Edicts, Pillar inscriptions of Delhi and Allahabad, coins of several kings and hundreds of inscriptions. Had Sanchi not offered him the first clue of Brahmi script much of ancient Indian scripts like that of Harappan script might have been a sealed book for us. For many years Princep worked in the wilderness of Sanchi copying the inscriptions and then every morning wishfully gazing at unknown alphabets which concealed the history of India's past. The decipherment was a great moment not only in his life but also in the life of the ancient world. But the outstanding scholar died at the young age of forty.

Not only does it idolize Prinsep, but there is no mention of Lassen or Cunningham. The second source Richard Salmon, who describes the decipherment of Brahmi, and Prinsep's contribution in great detail and nuance, mentioning Lassen, Stevenson, and others, from page 203 to 209 (Wikipedians can read him here) but begins with:

"6.2 The Era of Decipherment (1835-1860) After the slow but steady progress of the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the study of Indian inscriptions erupted in a blaze of glory in the middle of the 1830s. The “Glanzjahre" (German: Shining years; brilliant years; years of glory) of 1834 to 1838 were largely, though by no means exclusively, due to the remarkable efforts and insights of James Prinsep (1799-1840), ... But he is best known for his breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. (pages 203–204)

and ends with

"None of this, however, should be taken as minimizing Prinsep’s contributions as a whole. Despite his weaknesses on the linguistic side and the important assistance provided to him by others, he still stands as the unquestioned master of the early phase of Indian epigraphic and paleographic studies. His stature may be measured by what happened after he left India in 1838 and died in 1840; the flood of epigraphic articles in JASB immediately diminished to a trickle from volume 8 (1839) on, and the leadership in epigraphic research was only gradually taken up by other institutions and journals."

The first source is not cited correctly, and its use is not WP:DUE. It is a chapter on Charles Masson, whose correct citation is: Garg, Sanjay (2017), "Charles Masson: a footloose antiquarian in Afghanistan and the building up of numismatic collections in the museums in India and England", in Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections, Taylor & Francis, pp. 130–153, ISBN 978-1-351-25274-4 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chapterurl=, |laydate=, |laysummary=, and |authormask= (help) It is clearly promoting Masson. Please read the relevant paragraphs:

"It was Masson’s numismatic discoveries in Afghanistan that helped in deciphering the ancient Indian scripts — the Brahmi and Kharoshthi — which ‘made a vast wealth of inscriptional and textual material available for the first time, for use in attempting to reconstruct a historical picture of the past’ ... Thus in 1836, Brahmi legend on the coin of Agathocles (c. 190-180 BCE) was correctly read by the Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen (1800-1876) (Errington and Curtis 2014: 21-22). By the next year, the task of deciphering the rest of the Brahmi characters was completed by James Prinsep (1799-1840) with the help of Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893). ... Another ancient script widely used in the Gandhara region was the Kharoshthi. It was used on the bilingual (also some rare monolingual) coins ... Masson, who calls this unknown script Pehlavi or Bactrian, was the first to make a successful attempt towards its decipherment in 1835. ... Once again, Prinsep carried forward the spade work done by Masson and completed the task." (pages 134–35)

And, "Major" Cunningham? See his own page. He arrived in India in 1933 at the age of 19. Prinsep adopted him. He acknowledges the debt himself. (See here, top of page 213) Cunningham, moreover, is mentioned nowhere in the Brahmi section of Salamon, between pages 203 and 209, except in a footnote about Prinsep's ardent language. (See here). Cunningham is mentioned in Kharosthi, but there again the assessment is cautious,

"Thus while it is undoubtedly true that Cunningham did discover several of the letters which he claimed ... he cannot be said to have equaled the brilliant insights and fundamental contributions of Prinsep and his other predecessors. In balance it may be fairest to say that the decipherment of Kharosthi was a combined effort in which Prinsep again takes the place of honor, with Lassen and Norris making important contributions and Cunningham, Grotefend, and Masson playing significant secondary roles.

How does all this evidence from the sources here alone, support the two sentences, which have been spammed on [James Prinsep]], Edicts of Ashoka, Christian Lassen, Brahmi script, ...? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:34, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry to see two valued contributors falling out like this. I have no knowledge of Indic language issues, & can't really comment on these, except to say that in "Example 1" the distance between you, though clearly explained above, doesn't seem enormous. Could you (F&F) suggest a more suitable wording on this point? Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

  Hi Johnbod, Thanks for a compassionate comment. I am rewriting the lead and will soon get to the paragraph of Example 1 as well, but the problem we are dealing with here is not just of a two-sentence paragraph. In the content that I have examined, it is one of using throw-away lines in obscure sources (violating WP:DUE), tilting the content to POVs favorable to Magadha, Bihar, and the Hindu Hindi-speaking belt, and their contributions to the history of India, and finally copying that content across a large number of WP pages. It is not the first time I have pointed this out to him. He has even thanked me for it (see here). The problem is that he does not stop. Consider Art of Mathura for example. It was begun by one sockpuppet of his, further edited by another, and finally by himself. If you examine the page's history, you will see that every significant addition is a copy-and-paste from somewhere else. When someone does this over and over again, we begin to see the same sentences everywhere. It is a much bigger problem with images. He takes an image usually uploaded by someone else, cuts it up into half a dozen images, then pastes each in half a dozen pages. In the links that I have supplied above from Talk:Neolithic, you and others have acknowledged that issue. He knows he is editing in a gray zone. He routinely receives messages from Dianaa about copying. Someone needs to take him to the wood shed (and it doesn't have to be a formal review) and tell him that he cannot do this. Otherwise, the rest of us will be left with a Brobdingnagian task of restoration. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think this is correct as regards Art of Mathura actually. Without fully analysing the history, the first couple of years, taking it to c. 27K crude bytes, does seem to be essentially a patchwork of copied bits (mostly declared in the edit summaries), but the very large additions since this October/November, which have taken it nearly 120K bytes, seem newly written, or very largely so - we don't have enough articles, for example on Indian terracottas, for them to be copied from within WP. I have only looked briefly at it, but it seems a very useful article, exactly the kind of article, on a topic rather than a particular work, that WP is especially poor at. As a general principle, I don't mind internal copying within WP, when attributed & appropriately re-tailored, & have done a good deal myself, for example when I worked over sculpture - nearly all of this had to be freshly written, but the bits were then useable in at least two places. Persian art was like that too, & other Asian articles, where the general standard of art history articles remains dire (East Asia partly excepted). As you may know, he started Gupta art (a big hole) with bits from elsewhere, & then asked me if I could expand, which I've done. Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

The new lead and its new citations

I've revised parts of the lead; made it more coherent and removed unencyclopedic speculation about the Jain origins of its name, which are shrouded in myth; expanded the portion on decipherment, giving due historical credit, and explaining the nature of the breakthroughs; and cited to the sources in the collapsed below with quotes and Google Scholar citation indices). There are quotes within the citations in the lead as well. They may be removed after a few days once the lead has stabilized. I will revise the (current) third paragraph later.

• Lahiri, Nayanjot (2015), Ashoka in Ancient India, Harvard University Press, pp. 14, 15, ISBN 978-0-674-05777-7, Facsimiles of the objects and writings unearthed—from pillars in North India to rocks in Orissa and Gujarat—found their way to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The meetings and publications of the Society provided an unusually fertile environment for innovative speculation, with scholars constantly exchanging notes on, for instance, how they had deciphered the Brahmi letters of various epigraphs from Samudragupta's Allahabad pillar inscription, to the Karle cave inscriptions. The Eureka moment came in 1837 when James Prinsep, a brilliant secretary of the Asiatic Society, building on earlier pools of epigraphic knowledge, very quickly uncovered the key to the extinct Mauryan Brahmi script. Prinsep unlocked Ashoka; his deciphering of the script made it possible to read the inscriptions. (Google Scholar citation index 35)
• Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE, Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–72, ISBN 978-0-521-84697-4, Like William Jones, Prinsep was also an important figure within the Asiatic Society and is best known for deciphering early Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. He was something of a polymath, undertaking research into chemistry, meteorology, Indian scriptures, numismatics, archaeology and mineral resources, while fulfilling the role of Assay Master of the East India Company mint in East Bengal (Kolkatta). It was his interest in coins and inscriptions that made him such an important figure in the history of South Asian archaeology, utilising inscribed Indo-Greek coins to decipher Kharosthi and pursuing earlier scholarly work to decipher Brahmi. This work was key to understanding a large part of the Early Historical period in South Asia ... (Google Scholar citation index 66)
• Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2016), A History of India, London: Routledge, pp. 39–, ISBN 978-1-317-24212-3, Ashoka's reign of more than three decades is the first fairly well-documented period of Indian history. Ashoka left us a series of great inscriptions (major rock edicts, minor rock edicts, pillar edicts) which are among the most important records of India's past. Ever since they were discovered and deciphered by the British scholar James Prinsep in the 1830s, several generations of Indologists and historians have studied these inscriptions with great care. (Google Scholar citation index 736)
• Verma, Anjali (2018), Women and Society in Early Medieval India: Re-interpreting Epigraphs, London: Routledge, pp. 27–, ISBN 978-0-429-82642-9, In 1836, James Prinsep published a long series of facsimiles of ancient inscriptions, and this series continued in volumes of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The credit for decipherment of the Brahmi script goes to James Prinsep and thereafter Georg Buhler prepared complete and scientific tables of Brahmi and Khrosthi scripts.
• Salomon, Richard (1998), Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 204–205, ISBN 978-0-19-509984-3, Prinsep came to India in 1819 as assistant to the assay master of the Calcutta Mint and remained until 1838, when he returned to England for reasons of health. During this period Prinsep made a long series of discoveries in the fields of epigraphy and numismatics as well as in the natural sciences and technical fields. But he is best known for his breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. ... Although Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods, it is still no less a tribute to his genius that he should have thought to apply such modern techniques to his problem. (Google Scholar citation index 353)
• Wolpert, Stanley A. (2009), A New History of India, Oxford University Press, p. 62, ISBN 978-0-19-533756-3, James Prinsep, an amateur epigraphist who worked in the British mint in Calcutta, first deciphered the Brāhmi script. (Google scholar citation index 1069)
• Thapar, Romila (2004), Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, University of California Press, pp. 11, 178–179, ISBN 978-0-520-24225-8, The nineteenth century saw considerable advances in what came to be called Indology, the study of India by non-Indians using methods of investigation developed by European scholars in the nineteenth century. In India the use of modern techniques to 'rediscover' the past came into practice. Among these was the decipherment of the brahmi script, largely by James Prinsep. Many inscriptions pertaining to the early past were written in brahmi, but knowledge of how to read the script had been lost. Since inscriptions form the annals of Indian history, this decipherment was a major advance that led to the gradual unfolding of the past from sources other than religious and literary texts. (p. 11) ... Until about a hundred years ago in India, Ashoka was merely one of the many kings mentioned in the Mauryan dynastic list included in the Puranas. Elsewhere in the Buddhist tradition he was referred to as a chakravartin, ..., a universal monarch but this tradition had become extinct in India after the decline of Buddhism. However, in 1837, James Prinsep deciphered an inscription written in the earliest Indian script since the Harappan, brahmi. There were many inscriptions in which the King referred to himself as Devanampiya Piyadassi (the beloved of the gods, Piyadassi). The name did not tally with any mentioned in the dynastic lists, although it was mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka. Slowly the clues were put together but the final confirmation came in 1915, with the discovery of yet another version of the edicts in which the King calls himself Devanampiya Ashoka. (pp. 178-179)(Google Scholar citation index 700)
• Daniels, Peter T. (1996), "Methods of Decipherment", in Peter T. Daniels, William Bright (ed.), The World's Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, pp. 141–159, 151, ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7, Brahmi: The Brahmi script of Ashokan India (SECTION 30) is another that was deciphered largely on the basis of familiar language and familiar related script—but it was made possible largely because of the industry of young James Prinsep (1799-1840), who inventoried the characters found on the immense pillars left by Ashoka and arranged them in a pattern like that used for teaching the Ethiopian abugida (FIGURE 12). Apparently, there had never been a tradition of laying out the full set of aksharas thus—or anyone, Prinsep said, with a better knowledge of Sanskrit than he had had could have read the inscriptions straight away, instead of after discovering a very minor virtual bilingual a few years later. (p. 151)(Google Scholar citation index 20)
• Chakrabarti, Pratik (2020), Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 48–, ISBN 978-1-4214-3874-0, Prinsep, the Orientalist scholar, as the secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1832-39), oversaw one of the most productive periods of numismatic and epigraphic study in nineteenth-century India. Between 1833 and 1838, Prinsep published a series of papers based on Indo-Greek coins and his deciphering of Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts. (Google Scholar citation index 2)
• Sircar, D.C. (2017) [1965], Indian Epigraphy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 11–, ISBN 978-81-208-4103-1, The work of the reconstruction of the early period of Indian history was inaugurated by European scholars in the 18th century. Later on, Indians also became interested in the subject. The credit for the decipherment of early Indian inscriptions, written in the Brahmi and Kharosthi alphabets, which paved the way for epigraphical and historical studies in India, is due to scholars like Prinsep, Lassen, Norris and Cunningham. (Google Scholar citation index 206)

Finally, I have corrected the citation: Ray, Himanshu Prabha (2017). Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections. Taylor & Francis. p. 181. ISBN 9781351252744., to: Garg, Sanjay (2017), "Charles Masson: A footloose antiquarian in Afghanistan and the building up of numismatic collections in museums in India and England", in Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections, Taylor & Francis, pp. 181–, ISBN 978-1-351-25274-4 (Google Scholar citation index 1) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:44, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

User:Pat, you cannot just argue with me in reverts made with uncited edit summaries. I have added sources here, the sum total of whose verdict is that Prinsep deciphered the script, building on the epigraphic work of others, which we say, and which is the verdict of Nayanjot Lahiri in her 2015 book on Asoka published by Harvard University Press. Besides we cannot, neither syntactically nor semantically, say "... was deciphered chiefly by Prinsep in a series of articles in ..." Similarly, we don't say the "Special Theory of Relativity was proposed chiefly by Albert Einstein in a series of papers in 1906 ..." I suggest that you not keep nipping at the heels of my edits. You need to live with the fact that Prinsep was the genius, just as Einstein was. We don't mention the Lorenz-Fitzgerald contraction or Henri Poincare in the same sentence as Einstein when talking about relativity, only in later sentences.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

In other words, if Einstein were British, you would have begun the Special Theory page with an article of a citation-index 1 article, such as Sanjay Garg's, stating, "The Special Theory of Relativity was proposed by Lorenz, Fitzgerald, and Henri Poincare, and the rungs of its ladder were painted by Einstein. So, in conclusion, please don't keep making edits based purely on a POV-dislike for things British. On WP you need sources, the consensus of sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Use proper linguistical sources please

@Fowler&fowler: Not only are you fundamentally incivil in your dealings with other Wikipedians [2], you visibly have no understanding at all of collaborative editing if I look at your series of wholesale reverts since this morning. You should know that in an article such as this one, Wikipedia always prefers specialist linguistic sources rather than generalist ones. Look at your sources for the decipherment of Brahmi: "Women and Society in Early Medieval India: Re-interpreting Epigraphs"? "A History of India"? "Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity"?? These are not good, relevant sources for Indian linguistics, when you could use Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy. pp. 204–209., with a detailed description of the decirpherment of Brahmi. How can you erase such a good source [3]? Your sources only give shorthand summaries, and yes state in a simplistic way "Prinsep deciphered Brahmi". But Salomon tells you in detail that the reality is much more complex, and, although Prinsep might be the chief decipherer, he is by no means the only one, and probably not the earliest one either. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

You have failed to understand what a lead is. It is a summary, a precis, a short description of the article content that matches the reliable tertiary sources' summary of the topic. That is the only way to adhere to WP:DUE (see WP:TERTIARY: "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other.)" You cannot do original research, which you are doing or bordering on doing on many pages on which I've encountered your edits, and then write up the summary of what you have done to pass as the lead. To amplify on the example in another field above: there are plenty books giving a detailed history of the Special Theory of Relativity, starting with (a) the Michelson-Morley experiments and the failure of celestial mechanics to explain the invariance of the speed of light with respect to orientation; the failure in turn of the theory of the "ether," leading to (b) the fixes proposed by Lorenz and Fitzgerald, (c) the further critiques of the classical theory by Henri Poincare and Ernst Mach, and (d) the final proposal by Einstein in 1906. Einstein himself said of M-M: "If the Michelson–Morley experiment had not brought us into serious embarrassment, no one would have regarded the relativity theory as a (halfway) redemption." But yet, the Britannica article on the Special Theory, written by Sidney Perkowitz (the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus, Emory University, Atlanta. Author of Empire of Light, Universal Foam, Hollywood Science, Slow Light, and others.) begins with:

Relativity, wide-ranging physical theories formed by the German-born physicist Albert Einstein. With his theories of special relativity (1905) and general relativity (1915), Einstein overthrew many assumptions underlying earlier physical theories, redefining in the process the fundamental concepts of space, time, matter, energy, and gravity. Along with quantum mechanics, relativity is central to modern physics. In particular, relativity provides the basis for understanding cosmic processes and the geometry of the universe itself.

There is no mention of Michelson, Morley, Lorentz, Fitzgerald, Poincare or Mach. There is no chiefly, largely or other modulating adverbs. Do you understand now? I hope you do because you are causing great harm to Wikipedia. Just examine how much reworking of your edits, your POV, and your UNDUE edits others have to do. It creates a major disruption; others are not able to work on the things they like working on. Examine how quickly, slapdashedly, you appeared on Karkota Empire and made a few quick perfunctory edits so that you could hang your pictures. Please stop this. Please. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

But I have Salomon. A long quote from him. Here it is again:

• Salomon, Richard (1998), Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 204–205, ISBN 978-0-19-509984-3, Prinsep came to India in 1819 as assistant to the assay master of the Calcutta Mint and remained until 1838, when he returned to England for reasons of health. During this period Prinsep made a long series of discoveries in the fields of epigraphy and numismatics as well as in the natural sciences and technical fields. But he is best known for his breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. ... Although Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods, it is still no less a tribute to his genius that he should have thought to apply such modern techniques to his problem. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler:

• It is ironic that I have to defend an expression which you yourself introduced into this article: [4] with the edit summary "switching sentences for coherence; adding chiefly as thapar uses largely...".... So what you have been promoting as a "perfect synthesis of Tertiary Sources", is not anymore. That's double standards, and shifting rethoric. Be coherent with your yourself, most proper sources that actually delve into the subject are indeed honest enough to give some nuance to avoid the blunt and misleading statement "Prinsep decipherd Brahmi": although he was indeed the main decipher, particularly completing the task, he was not the only one.
• As usual, you write at great length about how excellent and unassailable your contributions are. Do you realize that you have been introducing a total, unsourced, falsehood into the lead of the article?:[5]

Brahmi was decisively deciphered chiefly by James Prinsep, the secretary of the Society, in a series of scholarly articles in the Society's journal in the 1830s. Prinsep did so by cataloging the characters found on Ashoka's edicts and arranging them in a pattern that was used for teaching the Ethiopian abugida.

Not only is this an incredible level of detail and technicality unworthy of a lead, which you usually argue against when it suits you, it is also plain wrong. Prinsep's cataloging of the characters is a statiscal method that was just a great way of ordering the unknown, but ultimately did not allow Prinsep to decipher the script (see Salomon: "Although Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods..." [6]). That's really a shame to misunderstand the subject in such a way, and you are lucky that I came around and debunked such a misrepresentation.

• Your unrelenting and self-righteous misrepresentations of facts are getting tiresome, and I am not the only one to say that [7]. You are rude and incivil in your interactions with others [8][9]. Please edit Wikipedia in a polite, open and collaborative manner, and stop thinking you are the only one to hold the truth. Improve on the contributions of others, rather than mass delete them.[10] पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 06:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

You had a paragraph of speculations about the origins of the name "Brahmi" in the lead. You still have dubious material about the pin-man script and UNDUE statements about the origins of Brahmi. I had to clean up the text you had on the Brahmi numerals in the lead. I had to clean up the first paragraph. You are welcome to take this issue to any other forum on Wikipedia. But before you do, please read the following from the widely-read textbook of R. S. Sharma, who along with Romila Thapar is one of the major historians of ancient India:

• R.S. Sharma (2006), India's Ancient Past, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 29, 37, ISBN 978-0-19-908786-0, In India the earliest deciphered are Ashokan inscriptions. They are generally written in Brahmi script and Prakrit language in the third century BC. They throw light on Maurya history and Ashoka's achievements. ... These epigraphs were first deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, a civil servant in the employ of the East India Company in Bengal (p. 29)

Sharma then has a chronology of the dates relevant to oral transmission, writing, and written works in Indian history Here it is (p. 39):

• Chronology:
  

• 3rd Millennium: Writing enters the Indus culture;
  
• 1500-1000: Rig Veda; 1000-500: Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda, the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and the Upanishads;
  
• 600 to 300 BC: Shrautasutras and Grihasutras
  
• 6th Century BC: Mahavira and the Buddha as per literature;
• 450 BC: Grammer of Panini;
  
• 5th century BC: Mahavira and the Buddha in the context of archaeology
• 326 BC: Alexander's invasion
• 322 BC: Accession of Chandragupta Maurya

...

• 3 Century BC: Decipherable writing in India;
  

...

• 1st century AD: Arthshastra of Kautilya finally compiled
• 400 AD: Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the major Puranas are finally completed;
  
• ...
• 12 Century AD: Rajatrangini by Kalhana;
• 1837: Ashokan inscriptions first deciphered by James Prinsep.

This is what students at universities, especially in Delhi and Patna in India, have read. Prinsep is that important. The chronology ends with him; there is a 600-year gap between him and the previous entrant. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Prinsep was a genius. Like others, among which are Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Srinivasa Ramanujan, ... it does not help to idolize them; but at the same time, it doesn't help to reduce them with a thousand moderating cuts. The long entry for Prinsep in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says among other things:

His official duties as assay master drew him first to scientific research, and to the means for more accurate measurement of very high temperatures. He invented the first practical pyrometer utilizing the expansion of gases for such measurements; his research was communicated to the Royal Society in London and published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1828. He was shortly afterwards elected FRS. In Calcutta he organized the reform of Indian weights and measures in 1833, and advocated the introduction of a uniform coinage based on a new, East India Company's, silver rupee. This was introduced in 1835."

I own some of those coins. They appear on the Company rule in India page (here)

The ODNB entry for Prinsep continues:

"Prinsep's major contributions, however, fell outside his official duties. ... In 1832 he succeeded Wilson also as secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and he brought new vigour to the society's meetings and publications. In the same year he became editor of a new monthly title, The Journal of the Asiatic Society, which absorbed the earlier Gleanings. To this new journal Prinsep contributed articles on chemistry and mineralogy, and above all on Indian antiquities, into the study of which he now wholeheartedly threw himself. As a result of both his own labours and his encouragement of others, Prinsep's seven years as editor of the Journal was one of the most fruitful periods of ancient Indian studies. Coins and copies of inscriptions were transmitted to him from all over India, to be deciphered, translated, and published. He reduced to order the complex dynasties and dating systems of pre-Islamic India. His Useful Tables, published in 1834, stands as a monument to his labours in this field. Prinsep's greatest achievement was to decipher the hitherto unreadable scripts of the most ancient of Indian inscriptions: the results were published in a series of papers in the Journal in 1837–8. These scripts were the Brahmi used on the pillars at Delhi and Allahabad and on rock inscriptions from both sides of India, and also the Kharosthi script in the coins and inscriptions of the north-west. He demonstrated that the pillar and rock inscriptions were put up by the emperor Asoka Maurya, whose dates could be approximately fixed through his references to contemporary kings of western Asia in the third century bc. They allowed the first verified correlation of Indian history and archaeology with those of the Western world. In consequence of these discoveries Prinsep was elected a corresponding member of many of the learned societies of Europe.

And you are seriously trying to bicker and propose that the Wikipedia entry on him should state, "he completed the work begun by blank, blank, and blank" and cite it to an unwept, unhonored, unsung, not to mention a mostly-unread article by Sanjay Garg (which too I had to correct) with Google Scholar citation index 1? In Salamon's book Prinsep is mentioned 44 times; Lassen 9 times; Norris 7 times; and Masson 5 times, and you are insisting that is a summary in the lead we should give primacy to the others. I see this to be nothing but your continuation of gray-zone, POV-ridden, editing, which I am gradually removing. Your unceasing, inflexible, posts on this and other talk pages, I see as not only disruptive but also as a form of baiting me, of trapping me to say something uncivil out of exasperation, in order that I can be dragged to ANI or some other forum for bad behavior. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:42, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Additional sources of Fowler&fowler

Here I am compiling secondary sources, mainly journal articles with a high citation index, to counter the fringe POV (of citation index < 1) that is being introduced into the article insistently.

Sources

• Trautmann, Thomas; Sinopoli, Carla (2002). "IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD: EXCAVATING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN SOUTH ASIA". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 45 (4): 492–523. doi:10.1163/156852002320939339. ISSN 0022-4995.

• "The decipherment of the Brahmi script of the Ashokan pillars would be one of the great accomplishments of the Asiatic Society—fully as important as the better-known decipherments of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian cuneiform—under James Prinsep in 1837-38." (p. 495)
• "Prinsep’s decipherment of Brahmi and the reading of the Ashokan inscriptions were critical in this, opening up a vast new period in Indian history and new resources with which to explore it. (p. 499)
• It would be several decades after its first publication that James Prinsep and his team, working with the bilingual coins of Indo-Greek rulers of the Panjab, inscribed in Greek and Brahmi scripts on opposite sides, would decipher the Brahmi and restore Ashoka's voice. Ashoka's inscriptions became the premier source for the recovered knowledge of the Mauryan Empire. (p. 505)

• The article was cited by 39 other sources listed in Google Scholar

• John S. Strong (2014) [1982], The Legend of King Asoka: A Study and Translation of the Asokavadana, Princeton Legacy Series, Princeton University Press, pp. 5, 11, 15, ISBN 978-1-4008-5709-8

• "There is a very simple explanation for the predominance of the legends. Although the edicts were inscribed in the third century B.C., the Brahmi script in which they were written was soon forgotten, and it was only with its decipherment by James Prinsep in 1837 that the Asoka-of-the-edicts came to the fore once again." (p. 5)
• "It is understandable, then, that when James Prinsep deciphered the Brahmi script in 1837 and correctly read the edicts, he did not know whose they were. Misled by Asoka’s use in his inscriptions of the name “Beloved of the Gods” (Devanampriya), he claimed the pillars had been erected by King Devanampiya Tissa of Sri Lanka. Shortly thereafter, George Turnour corrected him and rightly attributed the edicts to Asoka." (p. 11)
• " It is good to remember that the authors of the Asoka legends were as much in the dark about the content of Asoka’s inscriptions as we were until James Prinsep deciphered them." (p. 15)

• The book was cited by 363 other sources listed in Google Scholar.

• Pollock, Sheldon (2015), "Introduction", in Sheldon Pollock, Benjamin A. Elman, Ku-ming Kevin Chang (ed.), World Philology, Harvard University Press, pp. 15–, ISBN 978-0-674-05286-4{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

• "Texts (at least culturally important texts) were recopied over the generations in ever-modernizing scripts or passed down orally so that no gulf between writing and reading ever developed. Texts that could not be recopied, or were thought unworthy of recopying, or were not transmitted orally did become illegible. Inscriptions in the Brahmi script, for example, including the Asokan edicts of the third century B.c.£. that mark the start of Indian literacy, remained illegible to Indians for a millennium (until the British civil servant James Prinsep deciphered them in 1836). But no one seems to have been much concerned with this loss, not even the Buddhists, who had appropriated Asoka in their legends. Other ancient languages that had no cultural or religious base gradually became more or less illegible too, such as Prakrit outside of the Jain community (for which Prakrit, in one of its registers at least, was the medium of scripture). (p. 15)

• The book was cited by 71 other sources listed in Google Scholar.

• Coningham, R.A.E.; Allchin, F.R.; Batt, C.M.; Lucy, D. (2008). "Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 6 (1): 73–97. doi:10.1017/S0959774300001608. ISSN 0959-7743.

• Brahmi, the ancestor of most of South Asia’s modern vernacular scripts, holds the position of being that region’s earliest known script because generations of scholars have failed to produce an acceptable decipherment for the earlier Indus or Harappan script (Parpola 1995). Ever since Brahmi was first read in the 1830s by James Prinsep, various theories have been advanced to explain its development and spread.' (p. 73)

• This article was cited by 48 other sources listed in Google Scholar

• Ray, Himanshu Prabha (2021), "The Mauryan empire", in Peter Fibiger Bang, C A Bayly, and Walter Scheidel (ed.), The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume Two: the History of Empires, Oxford University Press, pp. 198–218, 211, ISBN 978-0-19-753276-8, By the end of the nineteenth century, 34 separate edicts had been found all over the subcontinent referring to Piyadasi as the issuer of the inscriptions, who was also termed devandmpiya or beloved of the gods. James Prinsep (1799-1840), the assay master of mints at Calcutta and Benares and secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, deciphered the Asokan edicts in 1837. It was in the same year that George Turnour published a translation of the Sri Lankan chronicle the Mahavariisa, which led scholars to identify the Piyadasi of the inscriptions with King Asoka of the chronicles.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:37, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

@Fowler&fowler: Please don't waste your time with peripheral sources, or sources that only mention Prinsep's accomplishments in passing. Just read one of the foremost authorities on the subject of linguistics and Indian scripts, Richard Salomon, it's all there, and it's available for anyone to read Indian Epigraphy. And Salomon, after describing the decipherment of Brahmi in detail and all the contributions of many others in addition to Prinsep (4 pages), nicely summarized Prinsep's achievement, clearly mentioning that, despite his greatness, he relied in great part on the work of others:

"Despite his weaknesses on the linguistic side and the important assistance provided to him by others, he still stands as the unquestioned master of the early phase of Indian epigraphic and paleographic studies."

— Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy. pp. 204–209.

And Romila Thapar's perceptive qualification of Prinsep's contribution:

In India the use of modern techniques to ‘rediscover’ the past came into practice. Among these was the decipherment of the brahmi script, largely by James Prinsep.

— Thapar, Romila (2004), Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, University of California Press, pp. 11, 178–179, ISBN 978-0-520-24225-8

These sources are all we need to use, they are the most relevant, and are anything but "fringe".

To summarize these academic source, you yourself used the expression "deciphered chiefly by James Prinsep", in your very own rewrite of the article, and that was correct [11]. To paraphrase User:Johnbod, you don't need to compulsively argue forever [12], especially against the very things you wrote. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:36, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I have twice as many scholarly sources in epigraphy, archaeology, philology, and history now as I did when I had added "chiefly." The clear consensus in the larger set is to not use it. They are highly cited books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Salamon references Prinsep 93 times on 27 pages. He says a lot more than what you've selected to present above. His full quote on page 209 (of my edition) is:

None of this, however, should be taken as minimizing Prinsep's contributions as a whole. Despite his weaknesses on the linguistic side and the important assistance provided to him by others, he still stands as the unquestioned master of the early phase of Indian epigraphic and paleographic studies. His stature may be measured by what happened after he left India in 1838 and died in 1840; the flood of epigraphic articles in JASB immediately diminished to a trickle from volume 8 (1839) on, and the leadership in epigraphic research was only gradually taken up by other institutions and journals (see 6.2.3)."

But Salamon's first mention of Prinsep in that book in the introductory section on Writing and Writing Systems in India (page 22), where he says,

James Prinsep, the decipherer of Brahmi (see 6.2.1), was the first to suggest a possible connection between Greek and the ancient Indian scripts. (p. 22)

In other words, when text has to be summarized, such as is done in a book's introduction or the lead of a WP article, Salomon chooses to describe Prinsep as the "decipherer."

As for Romila Thapar, I have written the lead of her Wikipedia page. She is a social historian. She is not an archaeologist of Asokan inscriptions, such as Nayanjot Lahiri is. I have already quoted liberally from both Thapar and Lahiri above. There is no need to repeat them here in a reduced form. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• @Fowler&fowler: Again, these are cherry-picked shorthand statements, which gloss over the complexities and the shared credits of the decipherment of the Brahmi script. Salomon goes on for pages, explaining how important the contributions of others were to the work of Prinsep (Indian Epigraphy 204-209). Such simplifications would be OK for generalist or tangential articles, but we could do better in an article specializing on the Brahmi script.
• I also remain uneasy with the prominence of your sentence in the lead about the "Ethiopian" classification of the Brahmi script contributing to the decipherment [13]. This is a vestige of your previous false statement that it was the reason for the decipherement ("Prinsep did so by..."), whereas Salomon is very clear and specific that, although brilliant, it was not what finally permitted decipherment... old-fashioned paleographic and contextual investigations did (Indian Epigraphy 204-205). In addition to this sentence being broadly untrue, it is also way too technical for the lead (almost obscure), and is better left in the body of the article, where the classification is already amply described. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 07:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we discuss the markup of the sample texts?

Greetings,

I find the markup of the sample texts quite odd.

𑀤𑁂𑀯𑀸𑀦𑀁𑀧𑀺𑀬𑁂𑀦 𑀧𑀺𑀬𑀤𑀲𑀺𑀦 𑀮𑀸𑀚𑀺𑀦𑀯𑀻𑀲𑀢𑀺𑀯𑀲𑀸𑀪𑀺𑀲𑀺𑀢𑁂𑀦
Devānaṃpiyena Piyadasina lājina vīsati-vasābhisitena
𑀅𑀢𑀦𑀆𑀕𑀸𑀘 𑀫𑀳𑀻𑀬𑀺𑀢𑁂 𑀳𑀺𑀤𑀩𑀼𑀥𑁂𑀚𑀸𑀢 𑀲𑀓𑁆𑀬𑀫𑀼𑀦𑀺𑀢𑀺
atana āgāca mahīyite hida Budhe jāte Sakyamuni ti
𑀲𑀺𑀮𑀸𑀯𑀺𑀕𑀥𑀪𑀺𑀘𑀸𑀓𑀸𑀳𑀸𑀧𑀺𑀢 𑀲𑀺𑀮𑀸𑀣𑀪𑁂𑀘 𑀉𑀲𑀧𑀸𑀧𑀺𑀢𑁂
silā vigaḍabhī cā kālāpita silā-thabhe ca usapāpite
𑀳𑀺𑀤𑀪𑀕𑀯𑀁𑀚𑀸𑀢𑀢𑀺 𑀮𑀼𑀁𑀫𑀺𑀦𑀺𑀕𑀸𑀫𑁂 𑀉𑀩𑀮𑀺𑀓𑁂𑀓𑀝𑁂
hida Bhagavaṃ jāte ti Luṃmini-gāme ubalike kaṭe
𑀅𑀞𑀪𑀸𑀕𑀺𑀬𑁂𑀘
aṭha-bhāgiye ca

The links are perhaps interesting, but I feel that in this context they can be quite misleading. This article is about the script as such, not the intepretation of individual words; furthermore, the alignment between glossed terms is difficult for the reader to interpret (for instance, 𑀮𑀸𑀚𑀺𑀦𑀯𑀻𑀲𑀢𑀺𑀯𑀲𑀸𑀪𑀺𑀲𑀺𑀢𑁂𑀦 appears as a single word, but is transliterated lājina vīsati-vasābhisitena. Even more confusing, only part of the word is linked, and even then it links to the cognate form Raja. It does make some sense on etymological grounds, but such observations seem more appropriate in the articles having to do with Prakrit itself, or the history of Indic languages.

One possibility would be to move such “etymological” links out of the Brahmi text itself, and into the English translation. I’m not qualified enough to make these changes myself, but as an interested reader about Brahmi, I found these links confusing myself, and I suspect others will as well.

babbage (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The Pictures of the letters are broken

In middle and late brahmi it doesnt show up Art3mist6 (talk) 14:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Intro too long and has excessive detail like a full list of all scripts which are not brahmic

Please see the unjustified revert by user learnindology. He even had the nerve to throw a 'disruptive' warning on my talk page. Putting every script which is not brahmic in the introis unwarranted and undue, besides it's already mentioned in the notes in the intro.Metta79 (talk) 10:05, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Your removal of sourced content was broader than this and I don't agree with your unsubstantiated reasoning at all. The lead was written after the discussions at Talk:Brahmi script#The new lead and its new citations and Talk:Brahmi script#Additional sources of Fowler&fowler. LearnIndology (talk) 10:45, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

that's not true. Please show me what I removed that was 'broader than this'. There is a record of the edits. I only removed the unnecessary mention of all the other non Brahmic scripts, and removed repetition to make it more concise. Instead of just saying you disagree, say what exactly you disagree with. Throwing baseless accusations of 'unsubstantiated reasoning' won't work here. Metta79 (talk) 11:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello Metta79,

I am writing to you because I find your conduct objectionable. Allow me to elaborate.

In your other comment, where the reply option is disabled for some reason, you wrote, "there is a whole army of Indian nationalist editors" as part of your comment. Do you know these editors personally? How did you conclude what you are accusing them of? Are you running out of proper arguments that you have to resort to such unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks?

Also, why is the reply button disabled?

You also agree with TuxCrafting who claims "the Semitic origin of the Brahmi script is the scholarly consensus." Who are these so called scholars who find the Phoenician/Aramaic (PA) so similar to Brahmi (B)? They see similarities in similar sounds a, ga, and dha, which I agree with, yet, fail to see the dissimilar sounds, such as:

PA va looks like B ta

PA śa looks like B ja

PA e looks like B th

I could go on and on and prove that similar looking symbols have completely different sounds in PA and B. These two scripts are very different, but I suppose the alleged "scholarly consensus" only exists on those individuals who suffer from confirmation bias, and see only those similarities that confirm what they already made up their mind about and ignore the dissimilarities that negate their prejudiced notions.

Please understand that a dispute exists, and there is no scholarly consensus on this.

The article goes on to characterize a computer scientist Subhash Kak as a "non-specialists." If we look at the examples above, the lines between scholars and non-specialists become blurred.

I hope Wikipedia will do a better job at maintaining neutrality than be a vehicle for a chosen few.

Thank you for reading. 216.226.188.112 (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

• Sorry, I didn't see this discussion and coincidentally just made the same edit as Metta79. I don't know about the other removed material, but I think it's clearly not very helpful to the reader to start the article with an exhaustive list of scripts that aren't related to Brahmic. Kind of like defining red as "the colour that isn't orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo or violet". I don't see an explicit consensus on this sentence in the two discussions LearnIndology links above, and AjaxSmack rightly tagged it as {{overly detailed inline}} last week. – Joe (talk) 11:58, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I concur with User:Joe Roe. That info does not belong in the intro and not in one sentence like that. It is very difficult to read for the non-initiate. Something like the current revision is fine or something like "dozens of modern scripts used in most of the major languages across South Asia" if more emphasis is needed. No exhaustive lists, though, please. —  AjaxSmack  12:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Removal of studies not yet mentioned in tertiary literature

lots of fringe studies not cited in the tertiary literature need to be removed by 'scholars' such as kak and others. They are undue weight fringe theories promoted by nationalists. Metta79 (talk) 15:39, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD and WP:ONUS, you need to systematically explain here what you had been attempting to do. This is an old article to which dozens of editors have contributed. We simply cannot make changes with little or no explanation in edit summaries. Please do not place the burden of proof on me. It is you who made the changes. On your lies the WP:ONUS for demonstrating that your changes have due weight in the scholarly literature. Two sentences written without capitalization or attention to grammar have little meaning. Please make a bulleted list, each about no more than a few sentences at a time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:01, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

PS Please read talk page guidelines. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:04, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

PS2 Again, please do not talk to me in emblazoned edit summaries in the article. This is the place to make your case. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:12, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

And for heaven's sakes, please don't make fighting Hindu nationalism an excuse to be thrown about lightly. I'm the last person on WP who can be accused of promoting Hindu nationalism. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:14, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I really fail to see how it is not promoting Kak and Frawley when we're mentioning their opinions (since they're amateurs, their assessement is nothing but a mere opinion). Unless of course there is a reliable secondary source that considers their views worthy of mention in this context. Salomon's handbook was written in 1998, so naturally he couldn't include them (from a present perspective, I speculate that he probably would mention Kak and Frawley as notable ideology-driven proponents). We need a contemporary source of the same calibre as Salomon (1998) that actually mention Kak, Frawley etc. –Austronesier (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

No one is defending Kak or Frawley, the least of all I. The WP:ONUS is on Metta79 to make a list of what it is they want to do—a systematic list of actionable proposals each about no more than a few sentences at a time. This is an old, old, article. We simply can't make en masse edits with edit summaries that are meaningless. WP:ONUS is Wikipedia policy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:17, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok let's start with removing Kak. It's fringe and misleading, and has no support outside of nationalists. It's not mentioned in any reliable tertiary source. Metta79 (talk) 17:24, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

How is it fringe? I see a couple of dozen references to them in scholarly publishers. I mean dozens. And I just looked. Please don't make your case with so little evidence. You will be wasting my time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:29, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

It is not about Kak the public figure. It is about Kak making a statement about the origin of the Brahmi script. Context matters. We have so far zero evidence from secondary sources that mention Kak in this context. It doesn't even have to be a source that is specialized in ancient epigraphy. Just present a reliable source mentioning that Kak's revisionist project also includes the promotion of the theory of an indigenous origin of the Brahmi script, and WP is back in company with reliable sources.

WP:ONUS is very much about not including everyting that has been said or written. The last removal of potentially fringe-promoting text[14] was accompanied by a very meaningful edit summary. This is a one-step edit, and reverting it is hardly procedural; Metta79 and I have made our points, so now it is your turn to explain why it is due to mention Kak or Frawley here. Text-integrity and all the collective hard work that went into producing this article is not sufficient for reverting one edit without a substantial reason.

I have to make correction of my earlier statement: Salomon's handbook was published in 1998, so technically, he could have mentioned In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India, but much of Kak's and Frawley's work that established their notoriety postdates 1998. –Austronesier (talk) 17:37, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

None of the citations are from 'introductory texts' on the specific subject. They are citations from non specialists. Metta79 (talk) 17:37, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

See here, here, here, here, and in Cardona and Jain's General Introduction to Indo-Aryan Languages, and I have barely begun looking, not to mention spent my childhood on Wikipedia opposing both Kak and Frawley.

We need a list of actionable proposals, each about no more than a couple of sentences of text, citing your reasons, including sources. WP:ONUS applies as much to removal of longstanding text as it does to addition. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:46, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Kak is mentioned for good or ill in Gregory L. Possehl's Indus Age: The Writing System, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996, " Brähmi scripts has been undertaken by Kak through a study of the sign frequencies in Brahmi and those in the Indus script , as provided by Mahadevan ( 1977a ) . These are " matched " and validated on morphological grounds ( Kak 1988a : 133 ) ..." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Chapple (1993), Joseph (2011) and the Encyclopedia of Hinduism only have passing mentions that are not sufficient to elevate Kak's work above the due-mention level. But Chrisomalis (2010), Possehl (1996) are good, and of course also Cardona & Jain. My suggestion is thus to restructure the contested text (which is entirely build on primary sources) based on these reliable secondary sources. Kak's arguments should not be expounded at the present length, maximally as much as in these secondary sources. Note also that Cardona & Jain's mention of the script is embedded in the wider context of Kak's conjecture that the IVC was Indo-Aryan-speaking. –Austronesier (talk) 18:11, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I am not suggesting keeping this or that. But in my quick scan of the literature, I notice that we have:

• Stephen Chrisomalis, Numerical Notation: A Comparative History, Cambridge University Press, 2010, page 191
• George Gheverghese Joseph, The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics, 3rd edition, Princeton University Press, 2011, page 322. Joseph is someone I have opposed. See, for example, my Indian_mathematics#Charges_of_Eurocentrism. In other words, whatever it is we want to do, requires arguments. We can't simply run a red pen through a longstanding article.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:15, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I am not even at this point much interested in this article. If you user:Austronesier and user:Patliputra along with Metta79 would revise this with care, documenting what you are doing on the talk page, I would be more than happy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:19, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: (Patliputra), I meant. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

If you can accomplish this, it would be a Great Leap Forward. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:34, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree. The Kak stuff has been here for 8 years (from what I can tell, it was added not driven by Hindutva ideology, but in a well-meant but indiscriminate expansion of the article), and whatever quibble it takes to improve the article, it will hopefully result in a better article based on the best sources. @Metta79: Alas, this does not include a hitherto uncited paper from 2023 (mainstream or not). –Austronesier (talk) 18:48, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Consfusion on /r/

I noticed that in the Consonants section of Early Brahmi, ra is listed as /r/ but marked as 'Voiced Retroflex Approximant'. Isn't the latter /ɻ/ not /r/? Username203 (talk) 03:51, 24 March 2024 (UTC)