![]() ![]() ![]() There was also formerly in existence a category of fully voweled scripts, again particularly well represented in the northwest, which might be termed ‘semi-learned’ in view of their intermediate typological position between these commercial shorthands on the one hand and the learned northern scripts of the Nagari type on the other. Like most shorthands, they are accordingly easier to write quickly than to read accurately, hence the proverbial misreading of graphic 〈bb 'jmrgy bṛbh bhj djy〉, i.e., bābā ajmēr gayā baṛī bahī bhēj dījiyē ‘the “master has gone to Ajmer, send the big ledger,’ as bābā āj mar gayā baṛī bahū bhēj dījiyē ‘the master died today, send the chief wife!’ ( Grierson, 1899: 3). Best exemplified for the northwest ( Leitner, 1883), these characteristically dispense with most modifying vowel signs, although vowel letters are sometimes erratically inserted as matres lectionis. This is chiefly exemplified by the commercial shorthands ( Figure 4), generically labeled ‘Mahajani’ (Hindi mahājanī ‘mercantile’), which are now increasingly obsolete, but which were formerly used for many centuries as business and revenue scripts in a great variety of regional forms. Before turning to the description of Nagari, the most important modern Indian script, and the one that most fully exemplifies the implications of the Sanskritization of Indian writing, attention may be drawn to a less commonly noticed development in the opposite direction of simplification. ![]()
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