Akkhara Muni
Akkhara Muni is an experimental script for Pali, the ecclesiastical
language of Buddhism, devised by Ian James. Pali is normally written in
the Sinhala, Khmer, Burmese, Devanagari, Lao or Thai scripts, or with the
Latin alphabet using diacritics. This script uses a highly modified
modern Latin font, with shapes based on those of ancient Brahmi and
Pallava, which were the ancestors of the Indic scripts just mentioned.
It aims at a unified, linear effect, without complicated vowel placement
or diacritics. The name means “Letters of the Sage”.
Letters
Most letters are easily recognizable from their counterparts in other
Indic scripts. As with almost all Indic scripts, consonants have an inherent
short /a/ if no vowel letter is written. A ‘no vowels’ mark may be used to
cancel this effect, as is required with clusters and finals (there is a mark
for each case). Vowels follow their consonants in all cases, in a linear,
single-channel manner; this is unlike most Indic scripts, whose vowels end
up all over the place.
Consonants
It may be noted the aspirated and un-aspirated retroflex laterals are
not encoded; they are considered to be merely allophones of the retroflex
plosives when between vowels.
Style
It is probably because our familiar Latin fonts are ultimately derived
from Greek forms, and especially the capitals, that a suggestion of Greek
monumental printing inevitably emerges here. Because of this, there is a
slight Gandharan flavour to the script. (Gandhara was a region northwest
of India, where an early Buddhism met Greek aesthetics.)
Sample text
Transliteration
Translation
“Mind precedes all mental states; mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
If a person speaks or acts with an impure mind,
Suffering follows him like the wheel follows the foot of the ox.”
[text from the Dhammapada]
Contact regarding the author’s various script systems can be made
via email: ianrjames at hotmail dot com.
Alphabets by Ian James
Akkhara Muni,
Amethyst,
Bostani,
Elektrum,
Fontok,
Maui,
New Akha,
New Maori,
New Mong,
SIGIL,
Sigil Panel Script,
Tengwar for Scottish Gaelic,
Xylphika