Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s3.24

c25.s3.24

Apart from the fact that there is no evidence for such a 'primary national script' before the time of Asoka, it seems most unlikely that a script could have been devised without reference to the language it records. There is no such instance in the history of the writing systems of the world before the invention of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for modern linguistic research.