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Vatteluttu |
| Vatteluttu | |
| Type | Abugida |
|---|---|
| Spoken languages | Tamil Sanskrit Saurashtra Old Javanese |
| Time period | c. 700–present |
| Parent systems | Proto-Canaanite alphabet → Phoenician alphabet → Aramaic alphabet → Brāhmī → Tamili → Vatteluttu |
| Child systems | Saurashtra |
| Sister systems | Malayalam, Grantha |
| Unicode range | U+0B80–U+0BFF |
| ISO 15924 | Taml |
 Relation of Pallava script or Vattelutu to other modern scripts |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | |
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This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text. |
Vatteluttu (Tamil: வட்டெழுத்து vaṭṭeḻuttu) (means rounded letters) or Pallava scriptcitation needed is an abugida writing system originating from the Tamil people of Southern India and Sri Lanka. The syllabic alphabet is attested from 6th century ACE to 14th century ACE in present day Tamil Nadu and Kerala states in India.[1] It was later supplanted by modern Tamil script and Malayalam script. The generic term of Vatteluttu was mentioned by scholars of Southeast Asian studies such as George Coedes and D.G.E. Hall. The Pallavas were a Tamil dynasty who reigned in the early centuries of the Common Era (c. 275 to 500 CE). Vatteluttu, or the Pallava script forms the basis for several writing systems of Southeast Asia and beyond: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.1
It is currently used to write Tamil language of South India and Sri Lanka. It was also an ancient writing system used for writing the Tamil language after the second century CE replacing an older Tamil-Brahmi script based on the brahmi writing system. This rounded form of writing was also used in Kerala to write in Tamil as well as in proto-Malayalam and Malayalam language. Currently Malayalam uses the Malayalam script.
Inscriptional records in the Tamil language date from 300 BCE to 1800 CE and have undergone varying changes through history.2 The Grantha Tamil was an alphabet in which extra letters were created specifically for Sanskrit words. It was also a modified form of Tamil script to write Sanskrit granthas, or books. In Tamil many of the alphabets or letters which are found in Sanskrit are missing.
 Vatteluttu inscription dated to 1100 CE left by Tamil soldiers in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka |
 Koneswaram inscription in Sri Lanka, Pandyan era |
 Ancient Khmer script from Cambodia, derived from the Pallava script |
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 Another example of ancient Khmer script |
 The Tugu inscription found in northern Jakarta, Java 480 CE |
 Laguna Copperplate Inscription (circa 900 AD), a thin copperplate measuring less than 8x12 inches in the Philippines |
 Modern Burmese script |
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