Talk:Grantha script

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Accuracy Dispute[edit]

I hope someone who really knows about this has looks on this article.

According to my limited exposure to this topic, Grantha refers to those letters in the Tamil alphabet which are not needed to write the Tamil language, but only for transcribing other languages. See also Tamil alphabet.


Hello, as the article says clearly, Grantha is a script used in south India to write sanskrit. So, modern Tamil script has borrowed some characters from Grantha since it gives more range and flexibility in sounds.

I get some Google hits for "Grantha script", but to give a comparison, "Brahmi script" gets 3000 Google hits, whereas "Grantha script" only 200.


Brahmi is much more thoroughly studied and was involved on a wider area, hence more references. Grantha was confined to Tamil world, and the modern Tamils being ashamed of their linguistic heritage don't take much interest in Grantha. Hence less hits.

Pjacobi 11:58, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the present tamil script itself is derived from Grantha script. Kartheeque 06:40, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is the confusing point, the use of "Grantha" for two rather different things. Compare http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn17/tab_to_unicode.pdf where Tamil letters are classifued vowel, consonant and grantha. --Pjacobi 08:06, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Grantha does have two meanings, but they're allied. Grantha originally meant the script used for writing Sanskrit, which was later superseded by Devanagari. In fact, some Sanskrit texts, notably almanacs, are still written in Grantha. Tamil, as you might know, has far fewer letters than Devanagari or Grantha, and in order to transliterate Sanskrit words in Tamil, some Grantha letters were borrowed as-is into Tamil. These are ஶ, ஷ, ஸ, ஹ and ஜ, and are commonly known as "Grantha letters". Ambarish | Talk 18:12, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

More appropriate title[edit]

Shouldn't this page should be moved to Grantha script or Grantha (script)? We could then have a disambig page at Grantha which points to:

  • this article,
  • an article Grantha (manuscript) on 'grantha' in the sense of a manuscript (with some details on the material that was used in ancient Tamil manuscripts, how they were made, what was done to worn-out manuscripts, etc.),
  • (possibly) also a pointer to the Guru Granth Saheb. - Vadakkan 15:19, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Please do that. Btw, your recent edits to this article are worth appreciation. -- Sundar 06:19, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Devanagari always used to write Sanskrit?[edit]

Devanagari is certainly not the near-universal Sanskrit script in modern times, as implied by the article. Sanskrit can be written phonemically in most Indic scripts except Tamil. Also, there should be some mention of how Malayalam evolved from Manipravalam and how Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan devised the modern Malayalam script from a combination of Grantha and Vattezhuththu. --Grammatical error 06:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Dravidian civilizations[edit]

Wiki Raja 10:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

non-conformance to ISO 15919[edit]

Grantha_script#Text_Samples says it uses ISO 15919, but according to ISO 15919 page, the long e (the usual one) should be written as ē in ISO 15919, and the transliteration here doesn't follow this convention.--Imz (talk) 19:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see that the situation is not that simple: probably the way it is now (e) is better because, as it is written in the article, in the descendants of Grantha a special sign for long /e:/ was introduced, so the Grantha sign which served for both short /e/ and long /e:/ became the sign just for short /e/. And for consistency it is better to transcribe it even in ISO 15919 and even when it is used for /e:/ in Sanskrit as e.--Imz (talk) 20:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you know German you should have a look at de:Indischer_Schriftenkreis under the heading "Dravidische Sprachen" where I explained the facts. Even if you don't understand the language, you might understand the tables. --OldKnip (talk) 12:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Danke, ich werde das lesen.--Imz (talk) 15:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changed sample text undone[edit]

I'll undo the last change, because the text sample named "Medieval Grantha" is not a pure Grantha text, but a mixture of Grantha and Tamil script (and of Sanskrit and Tamil language!), called Manipravala, whereas the text of John 3:16 is taken from an old Grantha print in pure Sanskrit.--OldKnip (talk) 16:38, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Overt christian evangelism on wikipedia?[edit]

User:Tom Morris – Sir, since you are an admin and you have commented on a related topic on my talk page, I am tagging you here. Kindly advise on further action. Many thanks!

Regarding User:LeoFrank and his repeated reversion of my edits at Grantha_script is violative of this rule – " Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to insert fringe or undue weight content into articles, you may be blocked from editing. Articles on Wikipedia do not give fringe material equal weight to majority viewpoints; content in articles are given representation in proportion to their prominence. " Can you please take action or do you advise me to go to the Noticeboard? Please advise. Grantha script and the bible has nothing to do with each other. Grantha script is an ancient script used to write Sanskrit. Can you please help check such christian-fundamentalist-like anti-scientific attitude on Wikipedia? Many thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkv22 (talkcontribs) 13:42, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Mkv22: I would beware of WP:boomerang if you do. WP:AGF seems to apply here at least. Zchrykng (talk) 13:47, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Zchrykng: I am not the one who added or reverted to an edit that is fringe. bible and the Sanskrti Grantha script – where is the link? Please provide justification with the appropriate academic-quality citations. Come on, please.
@Mkv22: My comment had nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of the sources in question. It was directed toward your obvious POV pushing and failure to WP:AGF. Zchrykng (talk) 18:40, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]