Saurashtra script
| Saurashtra ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ |
|
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Languages | Saurashtra |
|
Time period
|
20th century |
|
Parent systems
|
|
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Saur, 344 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Saurashtra |
| U+A880–U+A8DF | |
Saurashtra is a script used to write the Saurashtra language. Its usage has declined and Tamil script and Latin are now used more commonly.
The Saurashtra Language is written in its own script. Because this is a minority language not taught in schools, people learn to write in Sourashtra Script through Voluntary Organisations like Sourashtra Vidya Peetam, Madurai. Sourashtra is the popular spelling and it refers to both the Sourashtra language and a person who speaks Sourashtram. Saurashtra is an area in Gujarat State in India, from where the present Sourashtras in Tamil Nadu are traditionally believed to have migrated some centuries back. Vrajlal Sapovadia describes the Saurashtra language and language as a hybrid of Gujarati, Marathi & Tamil.
The language has had its own script for centuries, the earliest one available from 1880. Dr. H.N. Randle has written an article 'An Indo-Aryan Language of South India—Saurashtra Bhasha' in the Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies (BSOAS) 11 Part 1 p. 104-121 and Part II p. 310-327 (1943–46)Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies. This language is not taught in schools and hence had been confined to being merely a spoken language. But many great works like Bhagavath Gita and Tirukkural were translated into Sourashtram. It is now a literary language. Sahitya Akademi has recognized this language by conferring Bhasha Samman awards to Sourashtra Scholars.
Most Saurashtrians are bilingual in their mother tongue and Tamil and are more comfortable using their second language for all practical written communication though of late, some of them started writing in Sourashtram using Sourashtra script. There is an ongoing debate within the Saurashtra community regarding the use of the script for the Sourashtra language right from 1920 when a resolution was passed to adopt Devanagari Script for Sourashtra Language. Though some of the books were printed in Devanagari script, it failed to register the growth of the language.
But in practice because of lack of printing facilities, books are continued to be printed in Tamil Script with diacritic marks with superscript number for the consonants ka, ca, Ta, ta and pa and adding a colon to na, ma, ra, and la for aspirated forms, which are peculiar to the Sourashtra language. For writing Sourashtram using Devanagari Script, we require seven additional symbols to denote the short vowels 'e' and 'o' and four symbols for aspirated forms viz. nha, mha, rha and lha. We also require one more symbol to mark the sound of 'half yakara' which is peculiar to the Sourashtra language. The books printed in Devanagari Script were discarded because they did not represent the sounds properly.
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Wikipedia