A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c10.20

c10.20

Though the script of these inscriptions is Brāhmī of the Southern variety, the language employed in many of them is Tamil in its formative stages. The writing was alphabetic, and already included signs for peculiarly Dravidian sounds like *r*, *l*, *ḷ* and *ṉ*. Other notable features are that vocalic consonants were represented by two symbols, first the sign of the consonant and then the complete vowel sign. These developments (and others not detailed here) must have resulted from a process of trial and error extending perhaps over several generations.