Manichaean elements in the Turkic Brâhmî

Abstract

When a script suited to one language is used to write a second, there are often new linguistic features which require some orthographic innovation to be adequately rendered. New signs or devices may be invented outright, old characters and principles may be modified, or features may be borrowed from another already existing orthography. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries numerous manuscripts were brought to light in Chinese Turkestan (modern Xinjiang) in a script which has been labelled the Slanting Gupta. This is a form of Brâhmî writing which contains a number of unusual features which could not have been derived from Indian practice. It has been generally assumed that these features are all either new inventions or modifications of original Brâhmî elements. In contrast to this view, it will be argued here that some characters and principles in the Slanting Gupta were borrowed from the Manicheaean (Syriac Estrangelo) script.