Vatteluttu (, and , , ), also transliterated as Vattezhuthu, was an alphasyllabic or syllabic writing system of south India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Sri Lanka formerly employed for writing the Tamil language and Malayalam.
Vatteluttu belonged to the "southern group" of Brahmi script derivatives (Brahmi script, generally associated with Dravidian languages of south India).
Etymology
Three possible suggestions for the etymology of the term 'Vatteluttu' are commonly proposed.
The term is literally 'written form' in this context; and affixed here it means 'writing system' or 'script'.
The three suggestions are:
-
Vatte + eluttu; 'rounded script'
-
Vata + eluttu; 'northern script'
-
Vette + eluttu; 'chiseled script'
Alternate names
The Vatteluttu script was also known as "Tekken-Malayalam" (literally, "Southern Malayalam") or "Nana-mona".
The name "Nana-mona" is given to it because, at the time when script is taught, the words "namostu" etc. are begun, which are spelt "nana, mona, ittanna, tuva" (that is, "na, mo and tu"), and the writing system therefore came to be known as the "nana-mona" alphabet.
History
Early Vatteluttu
Vatteluttu script started developing from
Tamil-Brahmi (the late Tamil-Brahmi, 2nd–4th centuries AD
), from around the 4th or 5th century AD.
This early form is thus sometimes described as a "a transitional variety" of the
Tamil-Brahmi.
The Vatteluttu script of 5th–6th centuries AD is called "Early Vatteluttu" script.
Vatteluttu in the middle phase
By the 7th to 8th centuries, Vatteluttu had developed into a completely separate script from the Tamil-Brahmi Script (and was current all over the Tamil country).
Some of the inscriptions associated with Pallava rulers from Simhavarman III to Nandivarman (mid-6th to mid-8th century AD) are exclusively in Vatteluttu script.
It was also employed by the Pandya and Chera rulers (the later, from mid-9th century in
Kerala).
Its use is also attested in north-eastern rock inscriptions, such as those found near Trincomalee, dated to between c. the 5th and 8th centuries AD.
Replacement in the Tamil country
Vatteluttu was systematically replaced by the
Grantha script from the 7th century AD in the
Pallava dynasty court and territory (by simplifying the Grantha and adding symbols from Vatteluttu).
However, it continued to exist in the Ganga country, the Vanakapadi, and the North Kongu country, even though the Grantha-Tamil script was slowly gaining precedence.
The Tamil script supplanted the Vatteluttu in the northern Tamil country from the middle of the 8th century AD.
In what is now Kerala, Vatteluttu continued for a much longer period than in Tamil Nadu by incorporating characters from Pallava-Grantha Script to represent Sanskrit or Indo-Aryan loan words in early Malayalam.[Veluthat, Kesavan. "History and Historiography in Constituting a Region: The Case of Kerala." Studies in People’s History, vol. 5, no. 1, June 2018, pp. 13–31.] The script went on continuously evolving in Kerala during this period and from c. the 12th century onwards.
Vatteluttu, in its standard form, is attested in Kerala as late as the 14th century AD.
Legacy
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Vatteluttu gradually developed into a variant script known as "Kolezhuthu" in Kerala. This script was more commonly used in north Kerala. It continued in use among certain Kerala communities, especially Muslims and Christians, even after the 16th century and up to the 19th century AD.
-
Another script derived from Vatteluttu was the "Malayayma" or "Malayanma". This script was more commonly used in southern Kerala. The script is not, however, the one that is ancestral to the modern Malayalam script.
-
Some records of the state of Travancore are written in later forms of the Vatteluttu script as late as the 19th century AD.
Letters
script continuously went on evolving during its period of existence (in such a way that the date of a record may be fixed approximately by reference to the script alone).
-
Last quarter of the 8th century – the difference between two similar letters, such as for instance between 'p' and 'v'; and 'ṅ' and 'l' etc., was very markedly shown.
-
A few centuries later – difficult to distinguish between 'k' and 'c', 'ṅ' and 'l', 'p' and 'v' and so on.
-
17th-18 centuries – letters 'p', 'v', 'y', and 'n' and sometimes 'l' also, are alike.
|
|
| | k | க | ക |
| | ṅ | ங | ങ |
| | c | ச | ച |
| | ñ | ஞ | ഞ |
| | ṭ | ட | ട |
| | ṇ | ண | ണ |
| | t | த | ത |
| | n | ந | ന |
| | p | ப | പ |
| | m | ம | മ |
File:8th Century Grantha and Vatteluttu Scripts Velvikudi Grant in Sanskrit and Tamil, with labels.jpg|Velvikudi Grant (8th century AD, Tamil language)
File:Quilon Syrian copper plates (849 CE) plates 1 and 4.jpg|Quilon Plates (9th century AD, Old Malayalam)
File:Jewish copper plates of Cochin - (plate I, side I) (early 11th century AD).jpg| Jewish Plates (11th century AD, Old Malayalam)
Unicode
Vatteluttu script is not yet added to the unicode standard (but proposals have been made to add it).
See also
External links
