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THE TAMIL ALPHABET
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carefully distinguished from that of m, 6(Vatteluttu 29) which received an inner dot. Here the right hand tail of u was joined in later times with the inner dot, which was quite natural in cursive writing on palm leaves with an iron stylus, as Nacchinarkiniyar has rightly observed மகரம் உட்பெறு புள்ளியை வளைத்து எழுதி
i. In the Brahmi, Asoka or Mauryan alphabet u and 6 were written as b and 8. There was a letter in the Asoka script which in form approached the Vatteluttu w, but that was ph. and not m. It will thus be seen that there is not the least resemblance between the Vatteluttu and the Asoka þ and m, nor can we perceive any appreciable similarity in the other letters of both alphabets except in the case of k, p, r, l, t, and ch, which may after all be only accidental, both being borrowed from the same Semitic source, as will be seen from the comparative table of the ancient alphabets given below :
English
k pri
Asoka
Vatteluttu
Phoenician
1 ? ? n sya
Hebrew
Arabic
Tamil
