Thaana
Encyclopedia
Thaana, Taana or Tāna is the modern writing system of the Divehi language spoken in the Maldives
. Taana has characteristics of both an abugida
(diacritic, vowel-killer strokes
) and a true alphabet
(all vowels are written), with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. Its orthography is largely phonemic
.
The Tāna script first appeared in a Maldivian document towards the beginning of the 18th century in a crude initial form known as Gabulhi Thaana which was written scripta continua. This early script slowly developed, its characters slanting 45 degrees, becoming more graceful and spaces were added between words. As time went by it gradually replaced the older Dhives Akuru
alphabet
. The oldest written sample of the Thaana script is found in the island of Kanditheemu
in Northern Miladhunmadulu Atoll. It is inscribed on the door posts of the main Hukuru Miskiy (Friday mosque) of the island and dates back to 1008 AH
(AD 1599) and 1020 AH (AD 1611) when the roof of the building were built and the renewed during the reigns of Ibrahim Kalaafaan (Sultan Ibrahim III) and Hussain Faamuladeyri Kilege (Sultan Hussain II) respectively.
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a sukun (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is nūnu which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalization of a following stop.
The vowel
or diacritical signs are called fili in Divehi; there are five fili for short vowels (a,i,u,e,o), where the first two look identical to the Arabic vowel signs
(fatha and kasra) and the third one (damma) looks somewhat similar. Long vowels (ā, ē, ī, ō and ū) are denoted by doubled fili (except ō, which is a modification of the short obofili).
The letter alifu has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes:
It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong
; when it carries a sukun, it indicates gemination
(lengthening) of the following consonant; and if alifu+sukun occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by nūnu+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.
.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet
— unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numeral
s).
The order of the Tāna alphabet (hā, shaviyani, nūnu, rā, bā, etc.) doesn’t follow the order of other Indic scripts or of the Arabic script. There is no apparent logic to the order; this has been interpreted as suggesting that the script was scrambled to keep it secret from average islanders. The script was originally used primarily to write magical (fadinta) incantations. These included Arabic quotations, written from right to left. Maldivian learned men, who were all well versed in sorcery, saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script, and Tāna was gradually adopted for everyday use.
Tāna nearly disappeared for a brief period in recent history.
Towards the mid 1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, Telex
machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, however Tāna was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines
could only be written in the Latin script.
Following this, a rough Latin transliteration
for Divehi was officially approved by the Maldive government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the demise of the Tāna script.
This official Latin script (Dhivehi Letin) made indiscriminate use of "h"s for non-aspirated sounds, inconsistent with the clear phonetic rules of Indic languages. It also used certain combinations of letters and apostrophes for some Arabic sounds which effectively ignored the Arabic transliterations accepted in Academic circles worldwide.
The long vowels "oo" and "ee" were introduced from English, reminiscent of colonial transcriptions.
Clarence Maloney, the American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the crude inconsistencies of the "Dhivehi Letin" and wondered why modern Standard Indic transliteration had not been considered.
The Tāna script was reinstated by President Maumoon shortly after he took power in 1978. However, the substandard Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.
ޱ represents the retroflex "n" ([ɳ]) common to many Indic languages. However this letter was abolished from Maldivian official documents around 1953.
The letter's former position in the Maldivian alphabet was the sixteenth, between Gaafu and Seenu, instead of Nyaviyani (ޏ). Former position of Nyaviyani (ޏ) was 22nd. It is still seen in reprints of old books like the Bodu Tartheebu, and it is used by the people of Addu Atoll
and Fuvahmulah when writing songs or poetry in their dialects as still the word is present in their spoken language.
Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
The Unicode block for Thaana is U+0780–U+07BF:
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
. Taana has characteristics of both an abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
(diacritic, vowel-killer strokes
Virama
Virama is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...
) and a true alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
(all vowels are written), with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. Its orthography is largely phonemic
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
.
The Tāna script first appeared in a Maldivian document towards the beginning of the 18th century in a crude initial form known as Gabulhi Thaana which was written scripta continua. This early script slowly developed, its characters slanting 45 degrees, becoming more graceful and spaces were added between words. As time went by it gradually replaced the older Dhives Akuru
Dhives Akuru
Divehi Akuru or Dhives Akuru is a script formerly used to write the Divehi language. This script was christened "Dives Akuru" by H. C. P...
alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
. The oldest written sample of the Thaana script is found in the island of Kanditheemu
Kanditheemu (Shaviyani Atoll)
Kanditheemu is one of the inhabited islands of Shaviyani Atoll administrative and geographically part of the Miladhummadulhu Atoll in the Maldives...
in Northern Miladhunmadulu Atoll. It is inscribed on the door posts of the main Hukuru Miskiy (Friday mosque) of the island and dates back to 1008 AH
Islamic calendar
The Hijri calendar , also known as the Muslim calendar or Islamic calendar , is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries , and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic...
(AD 1599) and 1020 AH (AD 1611) when the roof of the building were built and the renewed during the reigns of Ibrahim Kalaafaan (Sultan Ibrahim III) and Hussain Faamuladeyri Kilege (Sultan Hussain II) respectively.
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a sukun (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is nūnu which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalization of a following stop.
The vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
or diacritical signs are called fili in Divehi; there are five fili for short vowels (a,i,u,e,o), where the first two look identical to the Arabic vowel signs
Harakat
The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including ijam ⟨⟩ , and tashkil ⟨⟩...
(fatha and kasra) and the third one (damma) looks somewhat similar. Long vowels (ā, ē, ī, ō and ū) are denoted by doubled fili (except ō, which is a modification of the short obofili).
It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
; when it carries a sukun, it indicates gemination
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
(lengthening) of the following consonant; and if alifu+sukun occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by nūnu+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.
Origin
The origins of Tāna are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See Hindu-Arabic numeralsHindu-Arabic numeral system
The Hindu–Arabic numeral system or Hindu numeral system is a positional decimal numeral system developed between the 1st and 5th centuries by Indian mathematicians, adopted by Persian and Arab mathematicians , and spread to the western world...
.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet
Middle Bronze Age alphabets
Proto-Sinaitic is a Middle Bronze Age script attested in a very small collection of inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula. Due to the extreme scarcity of Proto-Sinaitic signs, very little is known with certainty about the nature of the script...
— unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numeral
Brahmi numeral
The Brahmi numerals are an indigenous Indian numeral system attested from the 3rd century BCE . They are the direct graphic ancestors of the modern Indic and Hindu-Arabic numerals. However, they were conceptually distinct from these later systems, as they were not used as a positional system with a...
s).
The order of the Tāna alphabet (hā, shaviyani, nūnu, rā, bā, etc.) doesn’t follow the order of other Indic scripts or of the Arabic script. There is no apparent logic to the order; this has been interpreted as suggesting that the script was scrambled to keep it secret from average islanders. The script was originally used primarily to write magical (fadinta) incantations. These included Arabic quotations, written from right to left. Maldivian learned men, who were all well versed in sorcery, saw the advantages of writing in this simplified hidden script, and Tāna was gradually adopted for everyday use.
Tāna nearly disappeared for a brief period in recent history.
Towards the mid 1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, Telex
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, however Tāna was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
could only be written in the Latin script.
Following this, a rough Latin transliteration
Malé Latin
Dhivehi Latin or Maldivian Latin, known colloquially as Malé Latin or Nasiri Latin, is a Latin Dhivehi alphabet briefly mandated in the Maldives from 1976, but the country reverted to the native Tāna and Arabic alphabets in 1978...
for Divehi was officially approved by the Maldive government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the demise of the Tāna script.
This official Latin script (Dhivehi Letin) made indiscriminate use of "h"s for non-aspirated sounds, inconsistent with the clear phonetic rules of Indic languages. It also used certain combinations of letters and apostrophes for some Arabic sounds which effectively ignored the Arabic transliterations accepted in Academic circles worldwide.
The long vowels "oo" and "ee" were introduced from English, reminiscent of colonial transcriptions.
Clarence Maloney, the American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the crude inconsistencies of the "Dhivehi Letin" and wondered why modern Standard Indic transliteration had not been considered.
The Tāna script was reinstated by President Maumoon shortly after he took power in 1978. However, the substandard Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.
Character set
Thaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF). For a sample text, see the article on Gaumii salaam, the Maldives' national anthem.| Grapheme | Name | Nasiri Romanization | IPA value |
|---|---|---|---|
| haa | h | [h] | |
| shaviyani Sha viyani Letter Shaviyani is the second letter of the Thaana abugaida- the writing system used in Dhivehi language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island. - Phonological significance :... |
perhaps between sh & r perhaps ng |
retroflex [ʃ]/[ɽ] [ŋ] |
|
| noonu | n | [n̪] | |
| raa | r | [ɾ] | |
| baa | b | [b] | |
| lha viyani | lh | [ɭ] | |
| kaafu | k | [k] | |
| alifu | varies | see article | |
| vaavu | v | [ʋ] | |
| meemu | m | [m] | |
| faafu | f | [f] | |
| dhaalu | dh | [d̪] | |
| thaa | th | [t̪] | |
| laamu | l | [l] | |
| gaafu | g | [ɡ] | |
| gnaviyani | gn | [ɲ] | |
| seenu | s | [s̺] | |
| daviyani | d | [ɖ] | |
| zaviyani | z | [z̺] | |
| taviyani | t | [ʈ] | |
| yaa | y | [j] | |
| paviyani | p | [p] | |
| javiyani | j | [dʒ] | |
| chaviyani | ch | [tʃ] | |
| ttaa | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters |
||
| hhaa | |||
| khaa | |||
| thaalu | |||
| zaa | English-to-Dhivehi transliteration [ʒ] |
||
| sheenu | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters |
||
| saadhu | |||
| daadhu | |||
| to | |||
| zo | |||
| aïnu | |||
| ghaïnu | |||
| qaafu | |||
| waavu | |||
| aba fili | a | [ə] | |
| aabaa fili | aa | [əː] | |
| ibi fili | i | [i] | |
| eebee fili | ee | [iː] | |
| ubu fili | u | [u] | |
| ooboo fili | oo | [uː] | |
| ebe fili | e | [e] | |
| eybey fili | ey | [eː] | |
| obo fili | o | [ɔ] | |
| oaboa fili | oa | [ɔː] | |
| sukun | varies | see article | |
| na viyani Naviyani Letter Naviyani used to be the 19th letter of the Divehi alphabet. This letter's former position in the alphabet was between letters Daviyani and Zaviyani.... |
[ɳ] | ||
Transliteration of the name
H. C. P. Bell, the first serious researcher of Maldivian documents, used the spelling Tāna, as the initial consonant is unaspirated. The spelling Thana was adopted in the mid 1970s, when the government of the Maldives embarked on a short period of Romanization. This spelling is confusing, as it implies the name is aspirated.Disappearance of the letter naviyani
NaviyaniNaviyani
Letter Naviyani used to be the 19th letter of the Divehi alphabet. This letter's former position in the alphabet was between letters Daviyani and Zaviyani....
ޱ represents the retroflex "n" ([ɳ]) common to many Indic languages. However this letter was abolished from Maldivian official documents around 1953.
The letter's former position in the Maldivian alphabet was the sixteenth, between Gaafu and Seenu, instead of Nyaviyani (ޏ). Former position of Nyaviyani (ޏ) was 22nd. It is still seen in reprints of old books like the Bodu Tartheebu, and it is used by the people of Addu Atoll
Addu Atoll
Addu City is a city in Maldives consisting of the inhabited islands of the southernmost atoll of the archipelago....
and Fuvahmulah when writing songs or poetry in their dialects as still the word is present in their spoken language.
Unicode
Thaana was added to the UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
The Unicode block for Thaana is U+0780–U+07BF:
External links
- http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thaana.htm
- A brief description of Thaana is available at this website
- The Unicode 5.0 Standard: 8.4 Thaana
- Unicode Character Code Charts: Thaana