The Origin of the Proto‑Indian and the Brahmi Scripts
By Amelja Hertz
Summary
Writing systems seldom spring into existence fully formed; rather, they evolve by drawing on older scripts. This opening article stresses that because writing develops from earlier systems, historians must begin by studying the borrowing of signs and their transformation rather than assuming any script was spontaneously invented. The author notes that determining the primitive forms of the Proto‑Indian and Brahmi scripts is especially difficult and demonstrates that borrowing has occurred repeatedly throughout history. To illustrate the point, he describes how King Njoya of the Bamun people in Cameroon learned to read and then, around 1900, designed a script for his language using pictographic, syllabic and alphabetic signs. Njoya borrowed letters from Arabic but assigned them different values, showing that a script can be adapted without implying ethnic or linguistic kinship. Another example is the Cherokee syllabary devised in the 1820s by Sequoyah, who drew inspiration from Latin characters but gave the symbols new phonetic values. These cases illustrate three important cautions: borrowing of scripts does not prove racial affinity, individual signs can change meaning when adopted by another language, and many signs have a long pre‑history whose origin may be far from where they are eventually used. The article argues that complex societies develop writing when bureaucracy, trade and administration make the record of transactions essential. It briefly surveys hypotheses about the origin of the Brahmi alphabet and suggests that it borrowed elements from Semitic scripts brought to India through trade routes rather than emerging independently. Borrowing is shown to be a conscious and creative process, not mere imitation. Because of these realities, tracing the origin of Proto‑Indian and Brahmi signs requires disentangling layers of borrowing and recognising that signs may be re‑interpreted over centuries. The author urges scholars to base their conclusions on evidence rather than on romantic speculation.
Conclusion
The article concludes that the origin of the Brahmi and related scripts cannot be explained by any single invention. It insists that researchers should focus on evidence of borrowing and adaptation, because scripts often arise through creative re‑use of existing signs. The examples show that similar characters do not imply common ethnicity or language, so arguments based solely on script likeness are unreliable. A careful, comparative approach is the only way to reconstruct the early history of Indian writing.