Script Family Tree¶
Run the Script Family Tree MicroSim Fullscreen
About This MicroSim¶
Bangla, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Sinhala letters look nothing alike at first glance. This MicroSim shows that most of them are cousins. The tree has two roots.
- Brahmi, in use by the 3rd century BCE, splits into a northern branch (through the Gupta script) and southern branches (through the Kadamba and Pallava scripts). Its living descendants on the tree are Gurmukhi, Devanagari, Gujarati, Bengali-Assamese, Odia, Tibetan, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Sinhala.
- Aramaic, the script of the Persian Empire's government, leads to Kharoshthi (no longer used) and, through Arabic, to the Perso-Arabic script used for Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi and more. Thaana, the script of the Maldives, took the shapes of its first letters from Arabic numerals, so it hangs from the Arabic branch with a dashed line.
Every modern script on the tree shows a real Unicode character for the syllable "ka." Click any script to see how it writes ka, ki, ku and a bare k, and which languages use it. Most scholars think Brahmi itself was inspired by an Aramaic-family script, but this is debated, so that link is hidden until you tick the checkbox.
The tree is simplified. Scholars draw some of the middle branches differently, and many scripts are left out.
How to Use¶
- Start with Bengali-Assamese selected. Read the panel: the same letter ক gets different vowel marks for ka, ki and ku.
- Use the Show ka menu to switch every script on the tree to ki. Notice that each script adds a vowel mark to the same base letter.
- Switch to k (no vowel). Most Brahmi-family scripts add a small "vowel-killer" mark. Which script shows "none," and why?
- Click Devanagari, then Gujarati. They share a parent. What is the most obvious difference?
- Click Tamil, Telugu and Sinhala. Follow the lines back to Brahmi. Telugu and Tamil are Dravidian languages, and Sinhala is Indo-Aryan, yet all three scripts are Brahmi's grandchildren.
- Click Perso-Arabic and Thaana. Which direction are they written? How are vowels handled?
- Tick Show debated link to see where many scholars think Brahmi's idea of writing came from.
Learning Objective¶
Students will be able to explain that many South Asian scripts share Brahmi as a common ancestor, and explain how an abugida writes a consonant with an inherent vowel that vowel marks can change or remove.
Bloom level: Understand (explain, compare).
Iframe Embed Code¶
<iframe src="https://aaryavvatts-lab.github.io/south-asian-culture-textbook/sims/ch06-script-family-tree/main.html" height="782px" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Lesson Plan¶
Grade level: 9-12 (world history, world languages, ethnic studies, or a South Asian student club meeting)
Duration: 20 minutes
Activity:
- (3 min) Ask students who can read or write any South Asian script to write their name or the name of their language on the board. Ask the class: are these scripts related?
- (6 min) Students explore the tree and fill in a three-column table: script, its parent on the tree, one language that uses it.
- (6 min) Students switch the menu from ka to ki to ku to k. In pairs, they write one sentence explaining what stays the same and what changes. Introduce the word abugida.
- (5 min) Discussion: Hindi and Urdu sound very close in everyday speech but sit on different roots of the tree. Tamil and Telugu are not Indo-Aryan languages but use Brahmi-family scripts. What does that tell us about the difference between a language and a script?
Assessment questions:
- Name three modern scripts that descend from Brahmi and one that does not.
- In Devanagari, क is read "ka" and कि is read "ki." Explain what the extra mark does.
- Why does the tree show Telugu (a Dravidian language) on the same root as Devanagari (used for Indo-Aryan languages)?
- Thaana writes every vowel with a mark. Why do some linguists say it is not a true abugida?
- Why is the link from Aramaic to Brahmi shown as "debated"?