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(Redirected from Thaana alphabet)
'Thaana', 'Taana' or 'Tﾄ］a' (written in Tﾄ］a script) is the writing system for the Divehi language spoken in the Maldives. It is an abugida, with vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. It is a largely phonemic script: With a few minor exceptions, spelling can be predicted from pronunciation, and pronunciation from spelling. It is also easily mapped from the romanization system used for Dhivehi.
'H.C.P. Bell', the first serious researcher of Maldivian documents, used the spelling 'Tﾄ］a' while studying Maldivian epigraphy, for the initial 'T' is an unaspirated sound. In the standard transliteration of Indic languages, which include Divehi, the 'Th' would be used for an aspirated sound (see attached Standard Indic table). The confusing 'Th' spelling was adopted in the mid 1970s.
'Wilhelm Geiger', a German linguist who undertook the first research on Divehi linguistics in the early 20th century used the spelling 'Tﾃ｡na' to refer to this script. His 'Maldivian Linguistic Studies' was published in 1919.
The Tﾄ］a script first appeared in a Maldivian document towards the beginning of the eighteenth century in a crude initial form known as 'Gabulhi Thaana'. This early script slowly developed, its characters slanting 45 degrees, becoming more graceful. As time went by it gradually replaced the older alphabet Dhives Akuru.
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a ''sukun'' (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is ''nﾅｫnu'' which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalization of a following stop.
The vowel or diacritical signs are called ''fili'' in Divehi; there are five ''fili'' for short vowels (a,i,u,e,o), where the first two look identical to the Arabic vowel signs (''fatha'' and ''kasra'') and the third one (damma) looks somewhat similar. Long vowels (ﾄ, ﾄ, ﾄｫ, ﾅ and ﾅｫ) are denoted by doubled ''fili'' (except ﾅ, which is a modification of the short ''obofili'').
The letter ''alifu'' has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes:
It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong; when it carries a ''sukun'', it indicates gemination (lengthening) of the following consonant; and if ''alifu''+''sukun'' occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by ''nﾅｫnu''+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.
The origins of Tﾄ］a are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See Hindu-Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet — unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numerals).
The most intriguing fact about the Tﾄ］a alphabet is its order (hﾄ, shaviyani, nﾅｫnu, rﾄ, bﾄ, etc.). Its order doesn窶冲 follow the ancient order of the other Indic Scripts (like Sinhala or Tamil) or the order of the Arabic alphabet. In fact the order of the Tﾄ］a alphabet doesn窶冲 follow any logic at all. This fact points to a likely esoteric origin of Tﾄ］a, namely to a script that was scrambled on purpose in order to keep it secret from average islanders.
At their origin the Tﾄ］a characters, which are based on Arabic numerals and other symbols, were used in fandita (local magic or sorcery) to write magical spells. Many of these arcane incantations included Arabic quotations, which were written from right to left. Maldivian learned men, who were all well versed in sorcery, eventually saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script. Hence, with the passing of time, Tﾄ］a came out of the shadows and was gradually adopted for everyday use.
This Maldivian script almost disappeared for a brief period in recent history.
Towards the mid 1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, Telex machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, however the local Tﾄ］a script was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines could only be written in the Latin script.
Following this, a rough Latin transliteration for Divehi was officially approved by the Maldive government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the demise of the Tﾄ］a script.
This official Latin script ('Dhivehi Letin') made indiscriminate use of "h"s for non-aspirated sounds, inconsistent with the clear phonetic rules of Indic languages. It also used certain combinations of letters and apostrophes for some Arabic sounds which effectively ignored the Arabic transliterations accepted in Academic circles worldwide.
Short vowels were consistent, but unfortunately the long vowels "'oo'" and "'ee'" were introduced straight from the English language. These were reminiscent of now obsolete colonial-time transcriptions.
Clarence Maloney, the American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the crude inconsistencies of the "Dhivehi Letin" and wondered why the modern 'Standard Indic' transliteration had not been considered. Standard Indic is a consistent script system that is well adapted to writing practically all languages of South Asia.[1]
The Tﾄ］a script was reinstated by President Maumoon shortly after he took power in 1978. There was widespread relief in certain places, especially rural areas, where the introduction of Latin had been regarded with suspicion. However, the substandard Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.
For a sample text, see the article on Gaumii salaam, the Maldives' national anthem.
Thaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF).
Letter 'ﾞｱ' (Naviyani), the retroflex "n" sound common to all Indic languages (Sinhala, Bengali, Hindi, etc.), was abolished from official documents in 1950 by Muhammad Amin, the ruler of Maldives. The reason why this particular retroflex sound was abolished and not others like Lhaviyani, Daviyani or Taviyani is not known. Perhaps it was a mere whim of the charismatic Maldivian leader of those times.
Letter Naviyani's former position in the Thaana alphabet was between letters Daviyani and Zaviyani. It is still seen in reprints of traditional old books like the 'Bodu Tartheebu'. It is also used by Addu people when writing songs or poetry in their language variant.
★ Bell , H.C.P. The Maldive islands. Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy. Reprint 1940 edn. Male' 1986.
★ H.C.P. Bell, The Maldive Islands, An account of the physical features, History, Inhabitants, Productions and Trade. Colombo 1883, ISBN 81 206 1222 1
★ Bell , H.C.P. Excerpta Maldiviana. Reprint 1922-1935 edn. New Delhi 1998.
★ Divehi Bahuge Qawaaaid. Vols 1 to 5. Ministry of Education. Male' 1978.
★ Divehﾄｫnge Tarika. Divehﾄｫnge Bas. Divehibahﾄ（ Tﾄ〉ikhah Khidumaykurﾄ Qaumﾄｫ Majlis. Male窶 2000.
★ Gair, James W. & Cain, Bruce D. (1996), "Divehi Writing" in Peter T. Daniels & William Bright, ed., ''The World's Writing Systems'', New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 564-568. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
★ Geiger, Wilhelm. Maldivian Linguistic Studies. Reprint 1919 edn. Novelty Press. Male窶 1986.
★ Thaana (Maldivian) script
★ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thaana.htm
★ A brief description of Thaana is available at this website
'Thaana', 'Taana' or 'Tﾄ］a' (written in Tﾄ］a script) is the writing system for the Divehi language spoken in the Maldives. It is an abugida, with vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. It is a largely phonemic script: With a few minor exceptions, spelling can be predicted from pronunciation, and pronunciation from spelling. It is also easily mapped from the romanization system used for Dhivehi.
'H.C.P. Bell', the first serious researcher of Maldivian documents, used the spelling 'Tﾄ］a' while studying Maldivian epigraphy, for the initial 'T' is an unaspirated sound. In the standard transliteration of Indic languages, which include Divehi, the 'Th' would be used for an aspirated sound (see attached Standard Indic table). The confusing 'Th' spelling was adopted in the mid 1970s.
'Wilhelm Geiger', a German linguist who undertook the first research on Divehi linguistics in the early 20th century used the spelling 'Tﾃ｡na' to refer to this script. His 'Maldivian Linguistic Studies' was published in 1919.
The Tﾄ］a script first appeared in a Maldivian document towards the beginning of the eighteenth century in a crude initial form known as 'Gabulhi Thaana'. This early script slowly developed, its characters slanting 45 degrees, becoming more graceful. As time went by it gradually replaced the older alphabet Dhives Akuru.
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a ''sukun'' (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is ''nﾅｫnu'' which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalization of a following stop.
The vowel or diacritical signs are called ''fili'' in Divehi; there are five ''fili'' for short vowels (a,i,u,e,o), where the first two look identical to the Arabic vowel signs (''fatha'' and ''kasra'') and the third one (damma) looks somewhat similar. Long vowels (ﾄ, ﾄ, ﾄｫ, ﾅ and ﾅｫ) are denoted by doubled ''fili'' (except ﾅ, which is a modification of the short ''obofili'').
Tﾄ］a (or Thaana). The contemporary official Maldivian script
Standard Indic. This table is provided as a reference for the position of the letters in the Thaana table.
The letter ''alifu'' has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes:
It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong; when it carries a ''sukun'', it indicates gemination (lengthening) of the following consonant; and if ''alifu''+''sukun'' occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by ''nﾅｫnu''+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.
| Contents |
| Origin |
| The enigma of letter Naviyani's disappearance |
| References |
| External links |
Origin
The origins of Tﾄ］a are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See Hindu-Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet — unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numerals).
The most intriguing fact about the Tﾄ］a alphabet is its order (hﾄ, shaviyani, nﾅｫnu, rﾄ, bﾄ, etc.). Its order doesn窶冲 follow the ancient order of the other Indic Scripts (like Sinhala or Tamil) or the order of the Arabic alphabet. In fact the order of the Tﾄ］a alphabet doesn窶冲 follow any logic at all. This fact points to a likely esoteric origin of Tﾄ］a, namely to a script that was scrambled on purpose in order to keep it secret from average islanders.
At their origin the Tﾄ］a characters, which are based on Arabic numerals and other symbols, were used in fandita (local magic or sorcery) to write magical spells. Many of these arcane incantations included Arabic quotations, which were written from right to left. Maldivian learned men, who were all well versed in sorcery, eventually saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script. Hence, with the passing of time, Tﾄ］a came out of the shadows and was gradually adopted for everyday use.
This Maldivian script almost disappeared for a brief period in recent history.
Towards the mid 1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, Telex machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, however the local Tﾄ］a script was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines could only be written in the Latin script.
Following this, a rough Latin transliteration for Divehi was officially approved by the Maldive government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the demise of the Tﾄ］a script.
This official Latin script ('Dhivehi Letin') made indiscriminate use of "h"s for non-aspirated sounds, inconsistent with the clear phonetic rules of Indic languages. It also used certain combinations of letters and apostrophes for some Arabic sounds which effectively ignored the Arabic transliterations accepted in Academic circles worldwide.
Short vowels were consistent, but unfortunately the long vowels "'oo'" and "'ee'" were introduced straight from the English language. These were reminiscent of now obsolete colonial-time transcriptions.
Clarence Maloney, the American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the crude inconsistencies of the "Dhivehi Letin" and wondered why the modern 'Standard Indic' transliteration had not been considered. Standard Indic is a consistent script system that is well adapted to writing practically all languages of South Asia.[1]
The Tﾄ］a script was reinstated by President Maumoon shortly after he took power in 1978. There was widespread relief in certain places, especially rural areas, where the introduction of Latin had been regarded with suspicion. However, the substandard Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.
For a sample text, see the article on Gaumii salaam, the Maldives' national anthem.
Thaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF).
| Grapheme | HTML Unicode | Name | Nasiri Romanization | IPA value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | ހ | HAA | h | |
| | ށ | SHAVIYANI | rh | |
| | ނ | NOONU | n | |
| | ރ | RAA | r | |
| | ބ | BAA | b | |
| | ޅ | LHAVIYANI | lh | |
| | ކ | KAAFU | k | |
| | އ | ALIFU | varies | see article |
| | ވ | VAAVU | v | |
| | މ | MEEMU | m | |
| | ފ | FAAFU | f | |
| | ދ | DHAALU | dh | |
| | ތ | THAA | th | |
| | ލ | LAAMU | l | |
| | ގ | GAAFU | g | |
| | ޏ | GNAVIYANI | gn | |
| | ސ | SEENU | s | |
| | ޑ | DAVIYANI | d | |
| | ޒ | ZAVIYANI | z | |
| | ޓ | TAVIYANI | t | |
| | ޔ | YAA | y | |
| | ޕ | PAVIYANI | p | |
| | ޖ | JAVIYANI | j | |
| | ޗ | CHAVIYANI | ch | |
| | ޘ | TTAA | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters | |
| | ޙ | HHAA | ||
| | ޚ | KHAA | ||
| | ޛ | THAALU | ||
| | ޜ | ZAA | English-to-Dhivehi transliteration | |
| | ޝ | SHEENU | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters | |
| | ޞ | SAADHU | ||
| | ޟ | DAADHU | ||
| | ޠ | TO | ||
| | ޡ | ZO | ||
| | ޢ | AINU | ||
| | ޣ | GHAINU | ||
| | ޤ | QAAFU | ||
| | ޥ | WAAVU | ||
| | ަ | ABAFILI | a | |
| | ާ | AABAAFILI | aa | |
| | ި | IBIFILI | i | |
| | ީ | EEBEEFILI | ee | |
| | ު | UBUFILI | u | |
| | ޫ | OOBOOFILI | oo | |
| | ެ | EBEFILI | e | |
| | ޭ | EYBEYFILI | ey | |
| | ޮ | OBOFILI | o | |
| | ޯ | OABOAFILI | oa | |
| | ް | SUKUN | varies | see article |
| | ޱ | NAVIYANI | ||
The enigma of letter Naviyani's disappearance
Letter 'ﾞｱ' (Naviyani), the retroflex "n" sound common to all Indic languages (Sinhala, Bengali, Hindi, etc.), was abolished from official documents in 1950 by Muhammad Amin, the ruler of Maldives. The reason why this particular retroflex sound was abolished and not others like Lhaviyani, Daviyani or Taviyani is not known. Perhaps it was a mere whim of the charismatic Maldivian leader of those times.
Letter Naviyani's former position in the Thaana alphabet was between letters Daviyani and Zaviyani. It is still seen in reprints of traditional old books like the 'Bodu Tartheebu'. It is also used by Addu people when writing songs or poetry in their language variant.
References
★ Bell , H.C.P. The Maldive islands. Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy. Reprint 1940 edn. Male' 1986.
★ H.C.P. Bell, The Maldive Islands, An account of the physical features, History, Inhabitants, Productions and Trade. Colombo 1883, ISBN 81 206 1222 1
★ Bell , H.C.P. Excerpta Maldiviana. Reprint 1922-1935 edn. New Delhi 1998.
★ Divehi Bahuge Qawaaaid. Vols 1 to 5. Ministry of Education. Male' 1978.
★ Divehﾄｫnge Tarika. Divehﾄｫnge Bas. Divehibahﾄ（ Tﾄ〉ikhah Khidumaykurﾄ Qaumﾄｫ Majlis. Male窶 2000.
★ Gair, James W. & Cain, Bruce D. (1996), "Divehi Writing" in Peter T. Daniels & William Bright, ed., ''The World's Writing Systems'', New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 564-568. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
★ Geiger, Wilhelm. Maldivian Linguistic Studies. Reprint 1919 edn. Novelty Press. Male窶 1986.
★ Thaana (Maldivian) script
External links
★ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thaana.htm
★ A brief description of Thaana is available at this website
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