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Gurmukhi () is an alphabetic abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts and was standardised during the 16th century by Guru Angad, the second guru of Sikhism. The Old Punjabi word ''Gurmukhī'' means "from the mouth of the Guru". The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib is written in this script, and it is the script most commonly used by Sikhs and Hindus for writing the Punjabi language. Modern Gurmukhi has thirty-eight consonants (''vianjan''), nine vowel symbols (''lāga mātrā''), two symbols for nasal sounds (''bindī'' and ''(unicode:ṭippī)''), and one symbol which duplicates the sound of any consonant (''addak''). In addition, four conjuncts are used: three subjoined forms of the consonants Rara, Haha and Vava, and one half-form of Yayya. Use of the conjunct forms of Vava and Yayya is increasingly scarce in modern contexts. Gurmukhi is primarily used in the Punjab, India, where it is the sole official script for all official and judicial purposes. The script is also widely used in the Indian states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and the national capital of Delhi, with Punjabi being one of the official languages in these states. Gurmukhi has been adapted to write other languages, such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli and other Hindustani language dialects, Sanskrit and Sindhi.〔(sindhilanguage.com )〕 ==Origins== Notable features: * This is an abugida in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to, are used to change the inherent vowel. * When they appear at the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters. * When certain consonants occur together, special conjunct symbols are used which combine the essential parts of each letter. * Punjabi is a tonal language with three tones. These are indicated in writing using the voiced aspirates consonants (gh, dh, bh, etc.) and the intervocal h. There are two major theories on how the ''Proto-Gurmukhi script'' emerged in the 15th century. G.B. Singh (1950), while quoting Abu Raihan Al-Biruni's ''Ta'rikh al-Hind'' (1030 CE), says that the script evolved from Ardhanagari. Al-Biruni writes that the Ardhanagari script was used in Bathinda and western parts of the Punjab in the 10th century. For some time, Bathinda remained the capital of the kingdom of Bhatti Rajputs of the Pal clan, who ruled North India before the Muslims occupied the country. Because of its connection with the Bhattis, the Ardhanagari script was also called Bhatachhari. According to Al-Biruni, Ardhanagari was a mixture of Nagari, used in Ujjain and Malwa, and ''Siddha Matrika'' or the last stage of Siddham script, a variant of the Sharada script used in Kashmir. This theory is confusing as Gurmukhi characters have a very close resemblance with "Siddh Matrika" inscriptions found at some sacred wells in Punjab as G.B Singh notes, one being the hathur inscription dating to just before the brith of Guru Nanak. Siddh Matrika seems to have been the prevalent script for devotional writings in Punjab right up to the founding of Sikh faith, after which its successor Gurmukhi appears. Pritam Singh (1992) has also traced the origins of Gurmukhi to the ''Siddha Matrika''. "Siddha Matrika" along with its sister script Takri has its origins in the ancient Sharada script of Kashmir. Tarlochan Singh Bedi (1999) writes that the Gurmukhi script developed in the 10-14th centuries from the ''Devasesha'' stage of the Sharada script the intermediate phase being Siddha Matrika, before the final evolution into Gurmukhi. His argument is that from the 10th century, regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States (partly Himachal Pradesh) and Kashmir. The regional Sharada script evolves from this stage till the 14th century, when it starts to appear in the form of Gurmukhi. Indian epigraphists call this stage Devasesha, while Bedi prefers the name ''Pritham Gurmukhi'' or Proto-Gurmukhi. The 10 Sikh Gurus adopted the ''Proto-Gurmukhi script'' to write the Guru Granth Sahib, the religious scriptures of the Sikhs. Other contemporary scripts used in the Punjab were Takri and the (unicode:Laṇḍā) alphabets. Also ''Takri'' script that developed through the ''Devasesha'' stage of the Sharada script, and is found mainly in the Hill States, such as Chamba, where it is called ''Chambyali'' and in Jammu, where it is known as ''Dogri''. The local ''Takri'' variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century. After 1948, when Himachal Pradesh was established as an administrative unit, the local ''Takri'' variants were replaced by Devanagari. Meanwhile, the mercantile scripts of Punjab known as the (unicode:Laṇḍā) were normally not used for literary purposes. ''Landa'' means alphabet "without tail", implying that the script did not have vowel symbols. In Punjab, there were at least ten different scripts classified as (unicode:Laṇḍā), Mahajani being the most popular. The (unicode:Laṇḍā) alphabets were used for household and trade purposes. Compared to the (unicode:Laṇḍā), Sikh Gurus favoured the use of ''Proto-Gurmukhi'', because of the difficulties involved in pronouncing words without vowel signs. The usage of Gurmukhi letters in Guru Granth Sahib meant that the script developed its own orthographical rules. In the following epochs, Gurmukhi became the prime script applied for literary writings of the Sikhs. Later in the 20th century, the script was given the authority as the official script of the Eastern Punjabi language. Meanwhile, in Western Punjab a form of the ''Urdu script'', known as Shahmukhi is still in use. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gurmukhī alphabet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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