India is a country where you can find more than a hundred languages around you. From languages with scripts to those without, you can see a huge variety within the types of Indian languages. Have you noticed how some scripts (basic alphabets of a language) have curvy elements while the others are more straight? For example, Hindi, Marathi, etc. have a straighter script, while languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam have curvier letters.Ever wondered why?
Writing tools
Back in the day, the northern areas of the current Indian borders used bark or clothes to write, while the southern areas often used leaves, especially palm leaves. The scripts of each language were created according to the physical factors connected to each area of origin.
Scripts that are written on harder materials often have straighter lines in their alphabet, while those written on more delicate materials like leaves have curvier alphabets to ensure that the leaf does not tear. This soon became a stylistic norm between the scripts, and how they evolved depended on the durability of the materials being used.
Mostly, a metal stylus was used to inscribe the letters onto a leaf or bark. This required styles that ensured the hard metal did not puncture the material being written on as well.
It is not just the ‘Southern’ states which have adopted this linguistic style; even scripts which are used in the Eastern side of India, like Odia, have adopted curvier scripts, possibly due to the same reason.
Global styles
It was not just these languages that were often recorded on leaves; languages like Old Uighur, Burmese, Khmer, Sinhalese, Lao and even Pali texts often used palm leaves. Language script styles are a much deeper and wider subject than one might think, with not just historic influences but also physiological impacts playing a role in moulding the linguistic style of languages from around the world.
