Central Asian Brahmi palaeography: the relationships among the Tocharian, Khotanese, and old Turkic Gupta scripts
Date
1981
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Abstract
It has been assumed that Tocharian and Khotanese Brahmi
writing were not related and that both systems arose through Indian missionary activity. But since the Central Asians had been Buddhist for at least 500 years, it is here maintained that the introduction and transmission of the Brahmi were strictly indigenous developments. It is suggested that two cultural events happening in India influenced the Khotanese to relinquish Kharosthi script and the Gandhari Prakrit
..
as the media of administration and religion: the supercedence of the Kharo??ihI by the Brahmi, and the evolution of a hybrid form of Sanskrit as the lingua franca of Buddhism.
In order to prove and illustrate the relationships among
the Central Asian Brahmi scripts, use is made not only of character morphology but also of orthographic principles. An examination of
the Turkic Brahmi reveals it to have been the intermediary between
the Khotanese Formal and the Tocharian Slanting Gupta.. The dual function of the diaeresis in Tocharian as vowel and virama marking
is shown to be the result of immitation of the Turks. Similarly,
the parallel dual function of the Tocharian 'doublets' as vowel and virama indicators is also demonstrated as having had a Turkic (and Khotanese) origin.
Description
Bibliography: p. 154-159.
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Citation
Hitch, D. (1981). Central Asian Brahmi palaeography: the relationships among the Tocharian, Khotanese, and old Turkic Gupta scripts (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/16185