Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t3.9

c7.s2.t3.9

*2.2.3.2.3 South Semitic.* An apparent relationship between Brāhmī and the ancient South Semitic scripts was noted by several early scholars⁶³ who noted similarities between certain Brāhmī letters and the corresponding characters of the Himyaritic inscriptions of South Arabia. A South Semitic prototype for Brāhmī was first proposed by François Lenormant in 1875,⁶⁴ and at greater length by W. Deecke in 1877.⁶⁵ A more plausible argument for a South Semitic (Sabaean) derivation was presented by Isaac Taylor⁶⁶ with a comparative chart (320) of the alphabets concerned.