Brahmi I have been learning the script called Brahmi. It is an elegant and functional script that is a parent of both Nagari and Grandhi but lacking the stylishness of either. The Grandhi and Nagari are the child systems that begat most of the scripts in modern India and South Asia. The brahmi script is first attested at 6th century B.C in both Srilanka and Tamizhnadu, and later in Bhattiprolu, and other Ashokan edicts. However we can still discern the in influence in quite a few letters when compared to the modern Indic languages.

What attracted me in the first place aside from its antiquity is the regularity of the script. The diacritical marks for vowels are limited to just two variants corresponding to horizontal and vertical orientation of the letter being marked. Some thing that most of the current Indic languages seem to have trouble with. A second important aspect is that it is the oldest script that has the characteristic phonetic presentation we have come to expect in all Indic languages.

If we consider the precise recording of sound as the goal of a writing system, it is easy to see that a script can be considered more advanced as it regularizes its usage, and abstracts common functions while preserving legibility. In fact this is what distinguishes abugidas like Indic scripts from the common alphabets like English and logographies like Chinese. The alphabets abstract out the phonemes into graphemes while abugidas abstract out the common vowels into diacritical marks.

Brahmi represented a significant improvement when compared to the scripts in existence during the time of its use - 6 B.C to 2 A.D approximately. The systems that it was in existence during that time - including Egyptian, Phoenician and Aramaic were just listing of letters with out any specific arrangement. None of them were true abugidas. (Abugidas represent the last stage of evolution of script where the vowel diacritic marks are abstracted out of the letters themselves). Thus Brahmi represents the epitome of orthography at that time.

However it seems like the progress came to a halt soon after the invention of Brahmi. The writing systems did not advance beyond what was achieved during this time. It is easily discernible when you compare the current Indic language scripts to Brahmi.There is not a single innovation in phonetic presentation or in writing in any of the modern Indic derived scripts when compared to this venerable old script. The additions and changes have all most all been related to just superficial style with nothing contributing towards either abstraction or towards phonetic presentation.

It is interesting to speculate what direction the scripting systems would have taken if the path of Brahmi and other abugidas were followed. We can discern a start in the way the letters are presented in the Indic systems.

for e.g the variations of a single letter Ka when pronounced using different strength and when adding nasal sound are arranged together

Ka, Kha, Ga, Gha, Nga

This may have been abstracted out as another kind of marks similar to the diacritical marks used for vowels. An interesting thought is to let the marks range from _ through \ , | , / etc so that there is a continuous gradation of sounds rather than a fixed list. In fact a related technique is used when we repeat the diacritical marks to give emphasis to vowels for e.g to represent a long running screeeeeeam.

That said, I think there is at least one nice effect for the innovation to have stopped at Brahmi - at least for south east asia. The Brahmi letters can easily represent almost all letters currently in vogue in all Indic scripts.

India always had the problem of having a multiplicity of languages and scripts. English and Nagari scripts are not really good enough to serve as a common communication medium. The former is not particularly suitable for Indian languages and the latter is not acceptable to a large majority of south indian people on account of the advantage it confers to the Hindi native population. It is here that Brahmi can play a role. Being the progenitor of most Indian scripts, it holds a very unique position that cannot be questioned by any other script system. It also avoids the problem of selective advantage to a section of the country because it is ancient enough that it bears almost equal similarity to all other Indic scripts. It is clean and regular and simple to learn. Thus Brahmi could at-least serve the position occupied by English currently where words or short sentences are useful say like in the directions in a road or the name of a place. It would get us quite a distance in achieving a common frame of reference.

Labels: brahmi writing systems indic

  ¶ 1:20 AM 1 Comments

  Srilanka Should have updated the blog as soon as I came back from Srilanka, but it got postponed due to various reasons. Any way, the trekking (2 weeks) was quite nice. I was struck by the way the people seemed to be more polite, and generally more clean and well mannered than my home country. Even the inner roads seemed to be clean and well maintained even with all the rains they have. So kerala roads have no excuse now :).

I climbed the Sripada (Adam's peak) at midnight, hoping for a sunrise, but unfortunately it was quite foggy. Another interesting place was Sigiriya (Lions mountain).

I was also quite struck by the similarity of the script to Malayalam, With in two days I was able to read the sign boards in Sinhala quite comfortably. Perhaps I could pick up the language too one day.

One thing I should mention is the hospitality of the Tamil people, who was ready to accommodate and help us in many places. I should also mention our guide Roshan (A Sinhalite). He was an accountant earlier with certification from a British university, but had to give it up and turn a driver/guide due to the lack of opportunities. Quite a nice guy, I really hope that he is able to achieve his dreams.  ¶ 5:51 PM 0 Comments

  Moving to new site for blog and home. The old site (http://blufox.batcave.net) got deleted by the site administrator (possibly because of their policy of deleting sites with out updates to the front page). But any way, my current homepage is here and the blog is here.  ¶ 8:12 PM 0 Comments

  Back from trekking Back from a 20 day trekking in Calcutta (Sandakfoo), Nepal and Bhutan. (As usual no pictures :) ). We could actually see the Kanjan(Dzonga) and Everest from Sandakfoo peak. The nicest part was Thimphu and Paro. Thimphu looked like houses planted on
a chess board with every building looking exactly the same, and every one looking like they are coming out of schools in uniform. Paro was much saner in that respect.

Had a chance to visit the tigers nest.

Interesting experiences:

While we were going to DorjeeLing (Darjeeling) the curfew was on, One of the political parties fighting for separation of darjeeling and WestBengal called the bandh, and the toy train got stopped in between. We hired a taxi, and tried to get past the blocked roads to our camp organized by YHAI. Unfortunately we were stopped by the party people and the driver got beaten up. We still made it after it became dark (at 2 AM in the morning.) Other than that the trek was uneventful. Any way, It made me learn more about the history of nepal, WestBangal, Sikkim, and DorjeeLing and why the people of DorjeeLing wanted to separate from WB and accede to Sikkim.

btw: DorjeeLing means the land (Ling) or the Dragon, and Dzonga means a mountain or a fortress, So KanjanDzonga means a golden mountain.  ¶ 7:58 PM 0 Comments

  123-agreement between US and India I have a solution for the current political impasse over the nuclear agreement with
US.Here is the text of 123 agreement concluded between India and United States.

I have gone through the text, and one thing I can safely say is that it adds no
binding clause to India so long as we do not import nuclear material from them.

Since the urgency of the current situation is that the clock is ticking on time window for approving the deal, what we could do is

--Go ahead and approve the deal in parliament with the rider that, If a government wants to import Uranium from the US, then it should get 2/3 majority of the parliament of the day for this question (The total strength. Not just the attending members on that particular day.).

This would sufficiently address the concerns raised by both BJP and Left, while getting the government out of the imbroglio it has found itself in.  ¶ 9:07 PM 0 Comments

  Lanes and (Lack of) Lane discipline. Let me start by presenting my credentials,
I live in bangalore, which is some what notorious for its traffic, but during my life
as a techie, I have had a chance to visit quite a few cities in Europe and US, So I can
at least make a comparative judgment on those cities and the Indian ones.

One of my friends while riding (our bikes), remarked that with the supreme court
passing the judgment to impose hefty fines on erring motorists, the traffic problem in bangalore ought to reduce.

While I don't deny the ease of driving in western roads, I think that the present state of Lane discipline is suited for us than the well regulated flow of traffic present in those cities.

The difference is that compared the western roads, the vehicle density in our cities
is huge, While the simplistic solutions like lanes, and traffic lights provide an
acceptable solution when the number of agents (vehicles) is low (where it approximates a linear problem), when the number of interacting agents becomes very
large, these solutions break down.

When faced with a non-linear problem, one of the best approaches in our repertoire is
what is known as emergence, Essentially what we do is to let the individual agents compute the best values for themselves, which leads the system as a whole to a global
optimum.

When we look at the state of our traffic now, this is exactly where we are, Each
agent computes the local optimum for himself, causing the road to be used more
efficiently than otherwise.

To expound my argument further, most of us have seen bikes, moving through the
vehicles filtering to the front when there is a red light. While it certainly
increases the amount of stress involved in driving, at the end of the red light,
you can see that the road is more packed than it could have been if the bikes
did not do that. (You can also observe this effect in low speeds).

It certainly increases the difficulty involved in driving, but that is because
the burden of computation is passed on to the individual agents (that is us).

In a not so glowing terms, the difference is perhaps that between a well planned city and a haphazard shanty town. In terms of the comfort of living, the well planned city
is much much ahead compared to the shanty town, But in terms of the capacity
(density of population), shanty town is very much ahead. While the city is mostly
static, these shanty towns are highly organic, with patches of building occurring
fast where it is possible, and getting shifted as fast when the use for building
in that particular spot has diminished (perhaps due to exhaustion of resources).
The pathways between dwellings go through the same kind of evolution, paths getting created and discarded very fast according to the needs to those around compared to the very static (and lesser used) flyovers of the city.

Coming back to the original point, While we should certainly think increasing the
driving comfort in our roads, With our current infrastructure, and the number of
vehicles on the road, I think it would be a disastrous idea to go for implementing
the order for heavy fines.

Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating that the traffic rules should be thrown out
overnight, What I am advocating is that let these rules be guidelines, that could be
overruled based on the condition of individual agents at ground. More importantly,
let the agent decide for himself whether to follow them or not in that particular instant.

i.e: The incentive for an agent to keep to the left side of the road is simply
that the left side of traffic moves in the direction that he wants to go ! :) and there would be enough pressure from the agents on the right side (both polite and otherwise) for any agent to keep with the mainstream.

At the very least, we should go for careful simulation of traffic before going
forward with things of this sort.  ¶ 1:43 AM 0 Comments

  Education My friend Muralee had this in his Home page,
--
Education in India favors the top 10 % in the class. In the process it breaks the confidence of the rest 90 %. Economy would have grown faster if teachers were trained to to focus on the middle 80 %
--

I think our problem is the reverse. We do not train or encourage the top 10% of a class. It is more oriented towards the 30 to 80% range. The curriculum is dumbed down to make it more inclusive in the process denying information to the ones who have already mastered what is taught.

I have had friends who had mastered the math texts up to 9th standard when they were in 6th standard. They still had to waste time on the drab lessons which they had already mastered. (And more over, teachers insisted them to write steps for even simple calculations making their life needlessly difficult )

And yes, none of us enjoyed the 10 th standard where after being given a taste of the true science and math in 9th, we were asked to do much much smaller portion for studies in 10th just to make sure that every body passes. The entire year was such a waste.

It happened again in the Engineering, with the mechanics and Mathematics being just a repetition of what was taught in 11th and 12th. It was done with the intent of helping only the average guy.

Looking at what is happening now in our state (Kerala), The teachers are forced to pass every one in lower classes (and in higher classes too) so that when they are in higher classes the effective knowledge of the entire class room is below what it should be for that class. This impacts what could be taught in that class effectively cutting off higher concepts from being elucidated. Effectively denying information to the kids who display a higher ability of learning.

I feel that we would have been in much better shape if we had encouraged our top
10% better. May be we should have some thing like the montessory system of education that lets each child mature according to his or her own pace rather than being shackled to the pace of the average.  ¶ 8:24 PM 0 Comments

  R6RS Finally a much awaited development from the scheme world.

The R6RS draft is here. Read about it here
The changes from R5RS are here
http://r6rs.org is the associated site.

I am looking forward to the early implementations, and in time my favorite
scheme distributions (DR.Scheme and TinyScheme)

It would have been nice to have an object system specified by default (like CLOS)
but I guess scheme really does not need one by default until network/regexp/system libs and interfaces are specified.  ¶ 1:46 PM