Takri script

The Takri script (sometimes called Tankri) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is closely related to, and derived from, the Sharada script employed by Kashmiri. It is also related to the Gurmukhī script used to write Punjabi. Until the late 1940s, Takri was the official script for writing the Dogri language in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Takri has historically been used by a number of Pahari,Nepali(Khas Kura) and Dardic languages and dialects in the Western Himalayas, such as Gaddi or Gaddki (the language of the Gaddi ethnic group), Kashtwari (the dialect centered around the Kashtwar or Kishtwar region of Jammu and Kashmir) and Chamiyali (the language of the Chamba region of Himachal Pradesh).

[edit] Proposed Unicode Support

There is a project to encode the Takri script in the Unicode standard. Anshuman Pandey has submitted a proposal for Takri to the Unicode Technical Committee^[1]. Takri is tentatively allocated in the Supplmental Multilingual Plane (SMP) at the code block U+11680 to U+116DF.

[edit] Revival Movements

Since Takri fell into disuse, there have been sporadic attempts to revive the script in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh states. Kashtwari and Kulluvi are two languages for which recent efforts have been made.

[edit] References

1. ^ Pandey, Anshuman. 2007. Proposal to Encode the Takri Script in ISO/IEC 10646

[edit] External Resources

• The Takri alphabet, http://ancientscripts.com/takri.html
• Examples of Takri usage on Kashmir state stamps, http://www.kashmirstamps.ca/DogriGloss.html
• Comparative examples of Takri and related scripts (Spanish language website), http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/takri.html
• A discussion of the Gaddi, with a reference to Takri, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5625318
• Future Unicode additions, http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1368570&lastnode_id=0
• Ancient script of the Himalayas fights for survival, http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=275913&sid=FTP