Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t3.17

c7.s2.t3.17

For these reasons, the South Semitic hypothesis, though not completely without merit, no longer enjoys much support,⁶⁸ and Bühler’s criticisms (OIBA 53–5) of Taylor’s South Semitic models and arguments in favor of North Semitic prototypes for the Brāhmī letters have been generally accepted. The undeniable similarities between some South Semitic letters and their Brāhmī correspondents are nowadays usually considered by the proponents of a Semitic origin to be due to parallel but independent developments from an ultimate common prototype, conditioned, in part at least, by their common monumental form which was conducive to the development of plain geometric forms such as the square *bet*/*ba*.⁶⁹