Script of the Gods

Might be interesting to point out some variations of letters and sounds in e.g. Hindi, Marathi and Konkani. The letter which looks like a lying 8 (or the infinite symbol) exists just in Konkani and Marathi, doesn't it?

The Siddham script is quite interesting. This was a version of the Brahmi script (Devanagari is derived from the Brahmi script which was first used on the Ashokan pillars 2300 years ago) used in the Gupta period (correct me for any flaws, that just comes out of memory) and was transmitted through Buddhism to East Asia. There it is still used today (in Japan and South Korea at least as far as I know) and kept its old form, because it was cut off from the developments in India. The Buddhist monastery Mihwang-sa in South Korea has an impressive example on the ceiling of the main temple, but one can see it as well on banners which were produced just recently.

Not long ago I learnt the Devanagari script because I saw a picture of someone holding up a sign in Hindi and wanted to know what it meant. As it was a photograph I couldn’t copy and paste the sentences. So, I started painstakingly slow to look up the letters one by one and putting the words together. Then it occurred to me that learning the script first might be quicker, so I watched some videos and then practiced with the Green owl app. It’s really a beautiful script and quite different to those that I learnt before.

Resurrection of this post by its own father after three good old years:D

Devanagari script and their pronunciation are quite difficult especially the retroflex consonants you mentioned and Consonant ligatures(Clusters of two or more consonants).

"<em>So, I started painstakingly slow to look up the letters one by one and putting the words together. Then it occurred to me that learning the script first might be quicker, so I watched some videos and then practiced with the Green owl app.</em>"

Miriam, did it work?

I always advise the opposite:)

Namely I always tell that "learning an alphabet" is essentially a way to put an artificial obstacle for your brain, and to learn it effortlessly you should not learn it, you should use it. E.g. "decifer" some texts written in the alphabet. That is, exactly do the "painstakingly slow thing". It works for me. After half a hour I usually rememebr most letters. But of course I'll forget them, unless I read and or write some words once in a while.

It works for my langauge partner who complained that she's not very good at remembering alphabets, until she had to look up some Berber words in a Tifinagh Berber dictionary: soon she remembered Tifinagh characters. Right now, I think, she has forgotten them, because she only used the alphabet for one evening. But she knows that she always can repeat the experience.

But I never tried apps. Maybe Green owl is just as good.

It does indeed Alex. The ळ is a hybrid between the L and the retroflex R, and notoriously hard. Even I can barely manage it. Apart from Konkani and Marathi, it exists in Tamil and Malayalam as well. For all I know, it may also be in Telugu and Kannada too. I understand that the retroflex consonants aren't native to Sanskrit, but have been borrowed from the southern Dravidian languages.