Q1.
We have referred to the Prakrit language written in Brahmi script. What does this mean? Very simply, a language is what we speak, while script is what we write a language in. Can you think of examples of this in our everyday life?
Answer
Yes — India is full of them, and the everyday proof is that one script can carry many languages, and one language can be written in more than one script.
One script, many languages:
| Script | Languages written in it |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Konkani, Sanskrit, Maithili, Bodo |
| Roman (Latin) | English, French, German, Spanish — and Hindi typed on a phone as ‘kaise ho’ |
| Perso-Arabic | Urdu, Kashmiri, Persian, Arabic |
| Bangla | Bengali, Assamese, Manipuri |
One language, more than one script:
- Sanskrit is printed in Devanagari today, but has been written in Bangla, Grantha, Sharada, Telugu and other scripts.
- Konkani is written in Devanagari, Roman and Kannada scripts.
- Punjabi is written in Gurmukhi in India and in the Perso-Arabic script in Pakistan.
- Sindhi is written in both Devanagari and Perso-Arabic.
- Hindi messages are typed every day in the Roman script.
Everyday places you can see it: a railway station board that gives the same station name in the state language, Hindi and English; a currency note with the amount in many languages; a milestone; a shop sign in your town written in two scripts.
Why it matters here: This is why Aśhoka's choice was clever. He used Prakrit, the language people actually spoke in many parts of India, and wrote it in Brahmi, the script they could read — “Brahmi is the mother of all regional scripts of India.” Language reached the ear, script reached the eye. A ‘great communicator’ needs both.
Try this: Write your own name in two scripts you know. The sound does not change — only the shapes do. That is the whole difference between a language and a script.