India: Brahmi script. Ashoka's rock edict at Girnar, 3rd century BCE

Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be the earliest known examples of Brāhmī writing, though recent discoveries suggest that Brāhmī may be somewhat older. The script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the British East India Company. Like its contemporary in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kharoṣṭhī, Brāhmī was an abugida. Brāhmī was ancestral to most of the scripts of South Asia and Southeast Asia, several Central Asian scripts such as Tibetan and Khotanese, and possibly, in part, Korean Hangul.

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Scripts and Writing