An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c25.s4.25

v1.c25.s4.25

Among scholars advocating a foreign origin one group favours a Greek origin and the other a Semitic. Prinsep, Müller, Sénart and de Rochette derive Brāhmī from the Greek alphabet, whereas Wilson and Halevy suggest a Hellenistic influence on the Brāhmī script. But the Brāhmī script seems to have been invented at least one or two centuries earlier than the earliest Indo-Greek cultural contacts. Moreover, whereas the Greek alphabet shows an improvement on the Semitic in the introduction of vowels, the Indian scripts suffer from 'an unsatisfactory solution of vocalization'.