with their form. All these afford unimistakable evidence for the mixed character of the modern Grantha-Tamil alphabet. Long ஊ and ஔ were originally written with a vertical stroke added to உ and ஒ thus உ, ஒ which in the course of a few centuries assumed the shape of a ள. The short or the long ஒ was formerly distinguished by means of a dot over it. As late as A.D. 1740, no distinction was made between the short and long vowel-consonantal signs of எ and ஒ, ெ, ொ. Beschi seems to have been the first to make this reform by rounding the upper end of the loop for the long sound. The sign for ஐ in கை is a double loop or curl as in the Grantha but joined together in later Tamil; and the two loops were originally placed sometimes one above the other and sometimes side by side. The letter ஆய்தம் is written with three dots like the English symbol for 'therefore' and it is neither a vowel nor a consonant
The Vatteluttu or the Tamil archaic alphabet is so called on account of its round or circular form like the modern Telugu alphabet, while its modern development has assumed the angular or, as some would say, square shape. This angularity was due to the facility in writing on palm leaves with an iron stylus, or in cutting on stones or copper plates with a chisel. Further, the left-hand vertical line or stroke which goes to form an angle with the top horizontal stroke in letters like க, ச, த, ந and ர is a later meaningless addition not found in the Tamil
