TAMIL SCRIPT: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 10 October 2021

TAMIL SCRIPT

• The earliest inscription in the Tamil language is engraved in rock shelters and caves, mostly in Tamil Nadu, especially in the area near Madurai. They are in a script known as Tamil-Brahmi, an adoption of Brahmi for writing the Tamil Language.
• Three Southern scripts emerged in the early medieval period-Grantha, Tamil, and Vatteluttu. The first of these was used for writing Sankskrit, the second and third for writing Tamil.
• These three scripts may have emerged out of Southern Varieties of Brahmi; or they may have emerged from some other earlier southern scripts.
• The Tamil scripts first appeared in the Pallava territory in the 7th century CE.
• Something similar to the modern Telegue and Kannada script took shape in the 14th-15th centuries, while the Malayalam script developed out of Grantha at about the same time.