Indian Palaeography c11.38

c11.38

There has also been a controversy over the question of the particular branch of the Semitic alphabet from which Brāhmī is 'derived'. Opinions have varied from the South Semitic to North Semitic, or particularized to Phoenician or to Aramaic. As has been shown before, the similarity with the North Semitic letters is the closest. Within this broad division Diringer⁶ prefers the 'Aramaic alphabet as the prototype of the Brāhmī script', since Aramaic is known to have been used right up to the borders of India. But the choice need not be limited to Aramaic alone, as the Brāhmī letters are not literally 'derived' from the Semitic as is commonly understood, but are only based on them. The idea may have been brought from further afield. This supposition is supported by the fact that the two basic forms of *a* in Aśokan Brāhmī have their counterparts only in North Semitic, but not in Aramaic.