Aramaic scripts

[Raymond Mercier]

There are omissions in Michael Everson's chart in http://www.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2311.pdf   The chart was based on Semitic languages, although purporting to be about scripts. After all Greek and Latin also derive from the same family of scripts, as we all learn from page 1 of Greek grammars.   There are less obvious omissions:   1. Kharoshthi, a RtoL script much used in North West India, and regarded by everyone as a derivative from a form of the Aramaic script used in that region. It is found on coins, Ashokan edicts, various inscriptions and manuscripts. It was used to write mainly prakrits, although some sanskrit text is known. See, for example, A.H. Dani, Indian Palaeography, Oxford 1963.   2. Pahlavi, widely used to write Middle Persian. This involved a troublesome mixture of Persian reading of Aramaic words, a subject requiring more elaboration than is needed here.     Raymond Mercier