Vattezhuthu : Discovered
Archaeologists recently discovered a Vattezhuthu and eight Tamil inscriptions from the 1,00-year-old Thalikiswarar temple in Tirupur district, Tamil Nadu.
- Vattezhuthu popularly known as Vattezhuthu, was a syllabic alphabet of south India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Sri Lanka used for writing the Tamil and Malayalam languages.
- The name Vatteluttu is thought to mean either ’rounded script’, ‘northern script’, or ‘chiseled script’.
- It first appeared in stone inscriptions in southern India dating from the 4th century AD.
- It probably developed from the Tamil-Brahmi script; a variant of the Brahmi script used to write Old Tamil between from about the 3rd century BC until the 1st century AD.
- Vatteluttu was used to write Tamil and Malayalam in Tamil Nadu until the 9th century.
- In Kerala, Vatteluttu continued to be used until the 15th century. It changed over time to become theMalayalam script, with some letters borrowed from the Grantha script.
- Vatteluttu also developed into the Koleluttu script, which was used, especially by Christians and Muslims, in Kerala until the 19th century.
