Editing Brahmi script (section)

====Bühler's hypothesis====
According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived from a Phoenician prototype.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=59,68,71,75}}{{refn|group=note|Aramaic is written from right to left, as are several early examples of Brahmi.{{sfn|Salomon|1996}}{{page needed|date=March 2017}} For example, Brahmi and Aramaic ''g'' (𑀕 and 𐡂) and Brahmi and Aramaic ''t'' (𑀢 and 𐡕) are nearly identical, as are several other pairs. Bühler also perceived a pattern of derivation in which certain characters were turned upside down, as with ''pe'' 𐡐 and 𑀧 ''pa'', which he attributed to a stylistic preference against top-heavy characters.}} Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, and chronological justifications for a Phoenician prototype". Discoveries made since Bühler's proposal, such as of six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic, suggest Bühler's proposal about Phoenician as weak. It is more likely that Aramaic, which was virtually certainly the prototype for Kharoṣṭhī, also may have been the basis for Brahmi. However, it is unclear why the ancient Indians would have developed two very different scripts.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}}

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px;"
 |+ Comparison of North Semitic and Brahmi scripts{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}{{refn|group=note|Bühler notes that other authors derive [[File:Brahmi ch.svg|15px]] (cha) from qoph. "M.L." indicates that the letter was used as a ''[[mater lectionis]]'' in some phase of Phoenician or Aramaic. The ''matres lectionis'' functioned as occasional vowel markers to indicate medial and final vowels in the otherwise consonant-only script. Aleph 𐤀 and particularly ʿayin 𐤏 only developed this function in later phases of Phoenician and related scripts, though 𐤀 also sometimes functioned to mark an initial [[Prothesis (linguistics)|prosthetic (or prothetic)]] vowel from a very early period.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Andersen|first1=F. I.|last2=Freedman|first2=D. N.|title=Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Orthography|date=1992|publisher=Eisenbrauns|location=Winona Lake, [[Indiana|IN]] |pages=79–90|chapter=Aleph as a vowel in Old Aramaic}}</ref>}}
 |-style="text-align:center"
 ![[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] !! [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] !! Value !! style="background: #ffaa66;" | Brahmi !! style="background: #ffaa66;" |Value
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician aleph.svg|15px|Aleph]] || [[Image:Aleph.svg|15px]] || * || [[File:Brahmi a.svg|15px]] || a
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician beth.svg|15px|Beth]] || [[Image:Beth.svg|15px]] || b {{IPAblink|b}} || [[File:Brahmi b.svg|15px]] ||ba 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician gimel.svg|15px|Gimel]] || [[Image:Gimel.svg|15px]] || g {{IPAblink|ɡ}} || [[File:Brahmi g.svg|15px]] || ga
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician daleth.svg|15px|Daleth]]||[[File:daleth.svg|15px]] || d {{IPAblink|d}} || [[File:Brahmi dh.svg|15px]] || dha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician he.svg|15px|He]] || [[Image:he0.svg|15px|He]] || h {{IPAblink|h}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi h.svg|15px]] || ha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician waw.svg|15px|Waw]] || [[File:waw.svg|15px|Waw]] || w {{IPAblink|w}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi v.svg|15px]] || va 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician zayin.svg|15px|Zayin]] || [[Image:zayin.svg|15px|Zayin]] ||  z {{IPAblink|z}} || [[File:Brahmi j.svg|15px]] || ja
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician heth.svg|15px|Heth]] || [[Image:heth.svg|15px|Heth]] || ḥ {{IPAblink|ħ}}  || [[File:Brahmi gh.svg|15px]] || gha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician teth.svg|15px|Teth]] ||[[File:teth.svg|15px|Teth]] || ṭ {{IPAblink|tˤ}} || [[File:Brahmi th.svg|15px]] || tha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician yodh.svg|15px|Yodh]] || [[Image:yod.svg|15px|Yodh]] || y {{IPAblink|j}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi y.svg|15px]] || ya
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician kaph.svg|15px|Kaph]] || [[File:kaph.svg|15px|Kaph]] || k {{IPAblink|k}} || [[File:Brahmi k.svg|15px]] || ka
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician lamedh.svg|15px|Lamedh]] ||[[Image:lamed.svg|15px|Lamedh]]|| l {{IPAblink|l}} || [[File:Brahmi l.svg|15px]] || la 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician mem.svg|15px|Mem]] || [[Image:mem.svg|15px|Mem]] || m {{IPAblink|m}} || [[File:Brahmi m.svg|15px]] || ma 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician nun.svg|15px|Nun]] ||[[Image:nun.svg|15px|Nun]] || n {{IPAblink|n}} || [[File:Brahmi n.svg|15px]] || na
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician samekh.svg|15px|Samekh]] ||[[Image:samekh.svg|15px|Samekh]] || s {{IPAblink|s}} || [[File:Brahmi ss.svg|15px]] || ṣa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician ayin.svg|15px|Ayin]] ||[[Image:ayin.svg|15px|Ayin]] || ʿ {{IPAblink|ʕ}},  M.L. || [[File:Brahmi e.svg|15px]] || e
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician pe.svg|15px|Pe]] ||[[File:pe0.svg|15px|Pe]] || p {{IPAblink|p}} || [[File:Brahmi p.svg|15px]] || pa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician sade.svg|15px|Sadek]] ||[[Image:sade_1.svg|15px|Sadek]] || ṣ {{IPAblink|sˤ}} || [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] || ca
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician qoph.svg|15px|Qoph]] ||[[Image:qoph.svg|15px|Qoph]] || q {{IPAblink|q}} || [[File:Brahmi kh.svg|15px]] || kha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician res.svg|15px|Res]] ||[[Image:resh.svg|15px|Res]] || r {{IPAblink|r}} || [[File:Brahmi r.svg|15px]] || ra
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician sin.svg|15px|Sin]] ||[[File:shin.svg|15px|Sin]] || š {{IPAblink|ʃ}} || [[File:Brahmi sh.svg|15px]] || śa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician taw.svg|15px|Taw]] ||[[File:taw.svg|15px|Taw]]|| t {{IPAblink|t}} || [[File:Brahmi t.svg|15px]] || ta
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |}
According to Bühler, Brahmi added symbols for certain sounds not found in Semitic languages, and either deleted or repurposed symbols for Aramaic sounds not found in Prakrit. For example, Aramaic lacks the [[retroflex consonant|phonetic retroflex feature]] that appears among Prakrit [[Dental consonant|dental]] stops, such as {{IAST|ḍ}}, and in Brahmi the symbols of the retroflex and non-retroflex consonants are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype. (See [[Tibetan alphabet#Consonants|Tibetan alphabet]] for a similar later development.) Aramaic did not have Brahmi's [[aspirated consonant]]s ({{IAST|kh}}, {{IAST|th}}, etc.), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's [[emphatic consonant]]s (''{{transliteration|sem|q, ṭ, ṣ}}''), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic ''q'' for Brahmi ''kh,'' Aramaic ''ṭ'' (Θ) for Brahmi ''th'' ({{IPA|ʘ}}), etc. And just where Aramaic did not have a corresponding emphatic stop, ''p'', Brahmi seems to have doubled up for the corresponding aspirate: Brahmi ''p'' and ''ph'' are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source in Aramaic ''p''. Bühler saw a systematic derivational principle for the other aspirates ''ch'', ''jh'', ''ph'', ''bh'', and ''dh'', which involved adding a curve or upward hook to the right side of the character (which has been speculated to derive from ''h'', [[File:Brahmi h.svg|15px]]), while ''d'' and ''ṭ'' (not to be confused with the Semitic emphatic {{transliteration|sem|ṭ}}) were derived by back formation from ''dh'' and ''ṭh''.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=76–77}}

The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=82–83}}{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}

Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless [[sibilant]]s, but because the alphabetical ordering was lost, the correspondences among them are not clear. Bühler was able to suggest Brahmi derivatives corresponding to all of the 22 North Semitic characters, though clearly, as Bühler himself recognized, some are more confident than others. He tended to place much weight on phonetic congruence as a guideline, for example connecting ''c'' [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] to [[tsade]] 𐤑 rather than [[kaph]] 𐤊, as preferred by many of his predecessors.

One of the key problems with a Phoenician derivation is the lack of evidence for historical contact with Phoenicians in the relevant period.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}} Bühler explained this by proposing that the initial borrowing of Brahmi characters dates back considerably earlier than the earliest known evidence, as far back as 800&nbsp;BCE, contemporary with the Phoenician glyph forms that he mainly compared. Bühler cited a near-modern practice of writing Brahmic scripts informally without vowel diacritics as a possible continuation of this earlier abjad-like stage in development.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=84–91}}

The weakest forms of the Semitic hypothesis are similar to Gnanadesikan's [[trans-cultural diffusion]] view of the development of Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī, in which the idea of alphabetic sound representation was learned from the Aramaic-speaking Persians, but much of the writing system was a novel development tailored to the phonology of Prakrit.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Amalia E. |last=Gnanadesikan |title=The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet |publisher=John Wiley and Sons Ltd. |year=2009 |pages=173–174}}</ref>

Further evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that the Prakrit/Sanskrit word for writing itself, ''lipi'' is similar to the Old Persian word ''dipi'', suggesting a probable borrowing.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum |volume=1: Inscriptions of Asoka|date=1925|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii|url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up|access-date=8 April 2015}}</ref><ref name="Scharfe 2002" /> A few of the Ashoka edicts from the region nearest the Persian empire use ''dipi'' as the Prakrit word for writing, which appears as ''lipi'' elsewhere, and this geographic distribution has long been taken, at least back to Bühler's time, as an indication that the standard ''lipi'' form is a later alteration that appeared as it diffused away from the Persian sphere of influence. Persian ''dipi'' itself is thought to be an [[Elamite language|Elamite]] loanword.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tavernier|first1=Jan|title=The Case of Elamite Tep-/Tip- and Akkadian Tuppu|journal=Iran|date=2007|volume=45|pages=57–69|url=https://archive.org/stream/Tavernier2007THECASEOFELAMITETEPTIPANDAKKADIANTUPPU/Tavernier%202007%20THE%20CASE%20OF%20ELAMITE%20TEP-TIP-%20AND%20AKKADIAN%20%E1%B9%ACUPPU_djvu.txt|access-date=8 April 2015|doi=10.1080/05786967.2007.11864718|s2cid=191052711}}</ref>
{{clear}}