Tirhuta script

The Tirhuta or Maithili script is the primary historical script for the Maithili language, as well as one of the historical scripts for
Sanskrit. It is believed to be originated in the 10th century CE. It is very similar to Bengali–Assamese script, with most consonants
being effectively identical in appearance. For the most part, writing in Maithili has switched to the Devanagari script, which is used
to write neighboring Central Indic languages to the west and north such as Hindi and Nepali, and the number of people with a
working knowledge of Tirhuta has dropped considerably in recent years.

12th Century Stone inscription from Simroungarh showing early Tirhuta writing
 Tirhuta

Mithilakshar

𑒞𑒱𑒩𑒯𑒳𑒞𑒰‎‎
History and current status

Before 14th CE, Tirhuta was exclusively used to write Sanskrit, later Maithili was
written in this script. Despite the near universal switch from Tirhuta to the Script type Abugida
Devanagari script for writing Maithili, some traditional pundits still use the script
Time period c. 13th century–
for sending one another ceremonial letters (pātā) related to some important
present day[1]
function such as marriage. Metal type for this script was first produced in the
1920s, and digital fonts in the 1990s.[1] Direction left-to-right 

Languages Maithili, Sanskrit

The 2003 inclusion of Maithili in the VIIIth Schedule of the Indian Constitution,
having accorded official recognition to it as a language independent of Hindi, Related scripts
there is a possibility that this might lead to efforts to re-implement Tirhuta on a
Parent Proto-Sinaitic script
wider basis, in accord with similar trends in India reinforcing separate identities. systems
Phoenician alphabet
However, currently, only Maithili in the Devanagari script is officially recognized.
Aramaic alphabet
Brāhmī
Characters Gupta
Siddhaṃ[2]
Gaudi[3]
Consonant letters Tirhuta

Most of the consonant letters are effectively identical to Bengali–Assamese. Sister systems Bengali–Assamese,
The Unicode submission, for example, only bothered to create new graphic Odia
designs for 7 of the 33 letters: ⟨jh, ṭ, ḍh, ṇ, l, ś, h⟩.
ISO 15924

ISO 15924 Tirh, 326 , ​Tirhuta

Consonants Unicode

Sign Transcription Unicode alias Tirhuta

Image Text IAST IPA Unicode U+11480–U+114DF (https://w

range
ww.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U
𑒏‎ ka /kə/ 11480.pdf)

Final Accepted Script Proposal
𑒐‎ kha /kʱə/ (https://www.unicode.org/L2/
L2011/11175r-tirhuta.pdf)
𑒑‎ ga /gə/

𑒒‎ gha /gʱə/

𑒓‎ ṅa /ŋə/

𑒔‎ ca /t͡ʃə/

𑒕‎ cha /t͡ʃʱə/

𑒖‎ ja /d͡ʒə/

𑒗‎ jha /d͡ʒʱə/

𑒘‎ ña /ɲə/

𑒙‎ ṭa /ʈə/

𑒚‎ ṭha /ʈʱə/

𑒛‎ ḍa /ɖə/
𑒜‎ ḍha /ɖʱə/

𑒝‎ ṇa /ɳə/

𑒞‎ ta /t̪ə/

𑒟‎ tha /t̪ʱə/

𑒠‎ da /d̪ə/

𑒡‎ dha /d̪ʱə/

𑒢‎ na /nə/

𑒣‎ pa /pə/

𑒤‎ pha /pʱə/

𑒥‎ ba /bə/

𑒦‎ bha /bʱə/

𑒧‎ ma /mə/

𑒨‎ ya /jə/

𑒩‎ ra /rə/

la /lə/
𑒪‎
 𑒫‎ va /ʋə/

𑒬‎ śa /ʃə/

𑒭‎ ṣa /ʂə/

𑒮‎ sa /sə/

𑒯‎ ha /ɦə/

Vowels
Vowels
Independent Dependent Transcription

Image Text Image Text IAST IPA

𑒁‎ a /а/

𑒂‎  𑒰‎ ā /аː/

𑒃‎  𑒱‎ і /і/

𑒄‎  𑒲‎ ī /іː/

𑒅‎  𑒳‎ u /u/

𑒆‎  𑒴‎ ū /uː/

𑒇‎  𑒵‎ ṛ /r̩/

𑒈‎  𑒶‎ ṝ /r̩ː/

𑒉‎  𑒷‎ ḷ /l̩/

𑒊‎  𑒸‎ ḹ /l̩ː/

𑒋‎  𑒹‎ ē /еː/

 𑒺‎ e /е/

𑒌‎  𑒻‎ аі /аі/
 𑒍‎  𑒼‎ ō /оː/

 𑒽‎ о /о/

𑒎‎  𑒾‎ аu /аu/

Other signs

Other dependent signs

Image Text Name Notes

 𑒿‎ candrabindu marks the nasalization of a vowel

 𑓀‎ anusvara marks nasalization

 𑓁‎ visarga marks the sound [h], which is an allophone of [r] and [s] in pausa (at the end of an utterance)

 𑓂‎ virama used to suppress the inherent vowel

 𑓃‎ nukta used to create new consonant signs

𑓄‎ avagraha used to indicate prodelision of an [a]

𑓅‎ gvang used to mark nasalization

𑓇‎ Om Om sign

Numerals
Tirhuta script uses its own signs for the positional decimal numeral system.

Digits

Image

Text 𑓐‎ 𑓑‎ 𑓒‎ 𑓓‎ 𑓔‎ 𑓕‎ 𑓖‎ 𑓗‎ 𑓘‎ 𑓙‎
Digit 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Image gallery

The first two images shown below are samples illustrating the history of Tirhuta. The first is the sacred sign of Ganesha, called
āñjī, used for millennia by students before beginning Tirhuta studies. Displayed further below are images of tables comparing the
Tirhuta and Devanagari scripts.


Unicode

Tirhuta script was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for Tirhuta is U+11480–U+114DF:

 Tirhuta[1][2]

Official Unicode Consortium code chart (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U11480.pdf) (PDF)

  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+1148x 𑒀‎ 𑒁‎ 𑒂‎ 𑒃‎ 𑒄‎ 𑒅‎ 𑒆‎ 𑒇‎ 𑒈‎ 𑒉‎ 𑒊‎ 𑒋‎ 𑒌‎ 𑒍‎ 𑒎‎ 𑒏‎
U+1149x 𑒐‎ 𑒑‎ 𑒒‎ 𑒓‎ 𑒔‎ 𑒕‎ 𑒖‎ 𑒗‎ 𑒘‎ 𑒙‎ 𑒚‎ 𑒛‎ 𑒜‎ 𑒝‎ 𑒞‎ 𑒟‎
U+114Ax 𑒠‎ 𑒡‎ 𑒢‎ 𑒣‎ 𑒤‎ 𑒥‎ 𑒦‎ 𑒧‎ 𑒨‎ 𑒩‎ 𑒪‎ 𑒫‎ 𑒬‎ 𑒭‎ 𑒮‎ 𑒯‎
U+114Bx 𑒰‎ 𑒱‎ 𑒲‎ 𑒳‎ 𑒴‎ 𑒵‎ 𑒶‎ 𑒷‎ 𑒸‎ 𑒹‎ 𑒺‎ 𑒻‎ 𑒼‎ 𑒽‎ 𑒾‎ 𑒿‎
U+114Cx 𑓀‎ 𑓁‎ 𑓂‎ 𑓃‎ 𑓄‎ 𑓅‎ 𑓆‎ 𑓇‎
U+114Dx 𑓐‎ 𑓑‎ 𑓒‎ 𑓓‎ 𑓔‎ 𑓕‎ 𑓖‎ 𑓗‎ 𑓘‎ 𑓙‎
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 14.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

1. Pandey, Anshuman (5 May 2011). "N4035: Proposal to Encode the Tirhuta Script in ISO/IEC 10646" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11175r-
tirhuta.pdf) (PDF). Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161213054204/http://www.u
nicode.org/L2/L2011/11175r-tirhuta.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 13 December 2016.

2. Daniels, Peter T. (January 2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages".

3. Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy. p. 41.

External links

Tirhuta at Omniglot (https://omniglot.com/writing/tirhuta.htm)

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Last edited 9 days ago by Glennznl

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