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Comment by msound | Hacker News Reader

The Tamils originally wrote on dried palm leaves with a sharp scribe. So, if you didn't want to tear the leaf, you had to avoid straight lines and dots. That's why there are so many curves in the script.

Also, one of the meanings of my first name "Mani" is literally "Bell".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_script Also: I'm Tamil.

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Palm leaves were commonly used to write in Sinhalese as well, and the alphabet, similarly, is very curvy[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_alphabet

It's fascinating (to me) to think that the medium influences the script - something I had never considered. I wonder if we can find medium-based influences on other scripts, say, Roman and Arabic.

My Archaeological/anthropological knowledge doesn't even extend to spelling those words correctly (thank you Chrome spell-checker), so I can't do more than wonder unless someone here... (nudge, nudge)

Roman block lettering avoids curves because it was often curved. That's why the U and V sounds were represented by the same letter, and only later diverged. Norse runes are similar, and lack curves entirely.

sorry - what is "it" in your comment? Do you mean the medium was often curved, like on the sides of bowls?

I believe they meant carved, as in into stone. "Roman block lettering avoids curves because it was often carved."

It doesn't really avoid curves, though, even when carved into stone. Look at the inscription on Trajan's Column [1], f'rinstance; yes, it's got the classic U written as V, but the C, D, O, S etc are all as curvy as you could possibly want.

The Romans wrote most ephemeral stuff on wax tablets which could be smoothed over for re-use; this is where the phrase "tabula rasa" comes from. Some examples survive and also show curves [2].

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/002_Conr...

[2] http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/newl...

This[1] is a fascinating book that delves into this subject in an interesting way. In addition to looking at each letter of the modern Latin alphabet and its history and evolution, the author extrapolates the evolution of each character into three possible future forms that are influenced by different writing implements. It's also quite beautiful in its layout, typography, and presentation of information. Unfortunately it looks like it may now be out of print.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Shapes-sounds-cowhouse-Timothy-Donald...

In Sri Lanka earliest writings (which were mostly religious) were preserved first in the mediums such as Palm leaves, and the alphabet clearly shows that influence. As the top comment points out, making sure that you do not damage the script was a pretty important concern, and rounded letters certainly helped. If one studies the evolution of Sinhalese (and Tamil) alphabet it can be clearly seen that things got curvier as the alphabet developed from earlier Brahmi scripts [1].

[1] http://www.akuru.org/developsinhla2.htm

> I wonder if we can find medium-based influences on other scripts, say, Roman and Arabic.

Two examples:

Serifs on Roman letters originated as a way to clean up the ends of the characters when carved in stone.

When I was a kid in California, you'd regularly see gang graffiti painted in square block lettering that imitated what it would look like carved in wood (e.g. a park bench).

I'd assume Egyptian hieroglyphics were influenced by chiseling in rock

>I wonder if we can find medium-based influences on other scripts, say, Roman and Arabic.

Interesting question. Cuneiform may be one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script

Excerpt from above page:

Cuneiform script (/kjuːˈniːᵻfɔːrm/ kew-nee-i-form or /ˈkjuːnᵻfɔːrm/ kew-ni-form), one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians.[1] It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped".[2]

I remember reading about it in Social Studies in school :) - along with the Indus Valley civilization and maybe one or two others.

Runes are the most obvious example I can think of. Runes have vertical lines and diagonal lines, but no horizontal lines. This is because the normal medium for runes were narrow wooden sticks, or staves, and horizontal lines would go with the grain and would therefore be hard to see, and while carving a horizontal line you could too easily get stuck in a groove and mis-carve. With the added difficulty of carving curved lines, you necessarily get runes’ distinctive angular style: ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ

Interesting! I always thought "Mani" mean't "Gems". At least in Sanskrit Mani is a Bead/Gem.

It means both :) . It can take on either meaning based on the context.

Well, the GP was talking about Tamil, not Sanskrit. Tamil is one of the few Indian languages which does not have (much of a) Sanskrit influence (not sure about the languages of the North-Eastern states). Also I've read that Tamil is an extremely old language, maybe as old as Sanskrit or so / more.

Bell in Hindi is घंटी (ghanti).

Malayalam, the language of Kerala, is similarly curvy. Same reason. I have several old palm leaf 'books' with Malayalam script.

And it is also a great palindrome!

Only in English because, in Malayalam 'ma' and 'am' would be different letters.

If you observe the 2 scripts in the pic in wikipedia, you would notice that in the original one, the "i's are not dotted" as it were. This seems to be a practice that has carried over from palm leaf writing to metal inscriptions.

Does it appear as if the inscription says Muhayidun rather than Muhayideen? Obviously the script has changed with time, but that seems more like a modern du than a dee.

Dammit, that's so inventive.

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