So last month, I made a post about the alphabet family tree, and now I have made a more specific research, which is the scripts in Southeast Asia! But before anything, I know there are a lot of scripts in Southeast Asia, and so it would take a very long time if I were to write everything. So I'm only taking the parent scripts here. The scripts like Thai and Lao are the children of Khmer Script. Then the scripts like Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Lontara, Batak, and Baybayin are the children of Kawi.
The scripts in Southeast Asia were descended from Pallava. So I also show that here. Then for the aspirated consonants, I'm not showing those. Because not all off them has the same set of aspirated consonants. The sound of the consonants may vary too between the scripts. These scripts in Southeast Asia are Abugida Scripts. That means all of the consonants has an inherent vowel. The inherent vowels may vary too between scripts.
For example, in Kawi, every consonant has the same inherent vowel, which is "a". But for Khmer, there are two inherent vowels, which are "a" and "o". And for Mon, there are also two inherent vowels, which are "a" and "e". The "e" is breathy and in lower pitch.
To change the inherent vowel, you can put diacritics before, over, below, or after the consonants. But before that, below is the consonants table. Omniglot.com and Wikipedia helped me a lot!
Moving on to the inherent vowels, I only show the short vowels and monophthongs. Because again, the diphthongs set are different across scripts. Here's the table:
Now let's discuss about the findings! Start from the consonant 'k', Kawi and Mon are still similar to Pallava, but Khmer is quite different. It looks like 'g' instead of 'k'. But Khmer is the only one that keeps the squiggly lines Pallava has above the letter.
Then the letter 'g', Kawi and Mon are also similar to Pallava. But Khmer, since the 'k' already looks like the 'g', here they just added a dash at the bottom left of the letter. This change of shape on 'k' and 'g' are descended to the Thai script we can see today.
The letter 'ng', Kawi keeps some of the bump, while Mon remove all of the bumps. But overall they still shaped like Pallava. While for Khmer, the letter is very different compared to Pallava, the only resemblance I can see on Khmer is the bump on the bottom of the letter.
Moving to 'c', Kawi remove the bumps at the bottom of the letter, and so does Mon. In Khmer, I honestly do not see any resemblance at all.
On the letter 'j', Kawi is the only script that keep the original shape of the letter. Mon and Khmer looks different compared to the Pallava.
Next to 'ny', surprisingly, now Mon is the most different one. While Kawi and Khmer looks a lot like the Pallava.
On the letter 't', Kawi still looks like the Pallava letter, and we can see the resemblance again between Mon and Pallava. Khmer somehow still looks like the Pallava. It's like the letter 'k', but with the small circle on the left part of the letter.
Then on the letter 'd'. Mon is back to the most different one. I think this could be from Pallava 'dh' instead of 'd'. While Kawi and Khmer still have the shape like in Pallava, but with Khmer elongated the tail to the bottom.
On the letter 'n'. No one seems to still looks like the original Pallava. Kawi a little bit maybe, but Khmer and Mon look like snake.
The letter 'p'. Finally every script looks like the original Pallava!
The letter 'b' also, but with Khmer looks a little bit different. There's a small circle on the bottom left of the Khmer letter. The most interesting thing to me is, on Pallava, the bumps are on the side of the letter, but somehow Kawi, Khmer, and Mon, they are all rotated the letter so the bumps is on top of the letter! What happened? Why does the change uniform across Southeast Asia?
Next to the letter 'm', everyone is the same again! 😊
And to the letter 'y', everyone is still the same!
Moving to the letter 'r'. Kawi and Khmer still somehow look like the original Pallava, but with Kawi elongated the tip there, while Khmer added a small circle below. Mon is the most different one. I think Mon modified the letter a little bit into the shape of a circle, so it becomes harmonious with the rest of Mon letters. Mon letters are circle based.
Then the letter 'l', everyone is the same again!
The letter 'w' (or 'v' in Pallava), here is a little bit interesting. As you can see from the image, Kawi and Mon are focused on the circle below, and removes the tip. While Khmer, they shrink the circle below even more and made it a straight line instead.
Next to the letter 's', here is also a quite interesting. Kawi and Mon flipped the tail on the left of the letter vertically. While Khmer, they didn't flip it, but instead enlarged the tail even more into a fully mountain shape, so it looks like the letter 'l'. To differentiate it from the letter 'l', Khmer added a little squiggly line above the new bump.
Finally the letter 'h', everyone is the same again! 😆
After that, moving to vowels. Let's assume that 'a' is the inherent vowel and skip it.
Then the vowel 'i'. Every script is the same, they inherited the small circle above the letter, but with a little modification on Khmer to half circle. But here is the interesting part. Pallava doesn't have the vowel schwa, but Khmer and Kawi does have the vowel schwa! So where did they get it? From this vowel! The vowel 'i'! Remember earlier when I said Khmer has two different inherent vowels? For the consonant with inherent vowel 'o', if they has this diacritic, they will have the usual 'i' sound. But the consonant with the inherent vowel 'a' will sound like a schwa! Then, what about Kawi? Kawi doesn't have different inherent vowels. So Kawi made a new diacritic from this diacritic 'i'. It's still the same circle, but with a cross in it.
Moving on the the vowel 'u', everyone is the same, the diacritic is on the bottom. But a little note here, I believe in Khmer, the shape came from the long vowel 'u' instead of this short version. Hence the small circle above the line.
Next the vowel 'e', everyone is quite the same, they added a small loop at the bottom of the letter, but Khmer is more focused on the line instead of the loop. And so the loop is much smaller compared to Mon and Kawi.
Finally the final '-h' sound, everyone is the same! 😀 This is not technically a vowel, but I also included this here because every script keeps this diacritic.
To conclude this, I think Kawi is the most similar to Pallava, followed by Mon, then finally Khmer. Because Kawi is the most similar, it does not tend to a particular shape. I'd say Kawi doesn't have innovation at all. While you can see in Mon, the shapes tend towards circle. They also make one or two innovation. Khmer tend towards straight lines and has the most innovation. I'd also say that every script had simplified the Pallava letters. I'd say Kawi and Mon is almost the same in terms of simplifying, while Khmer is the least. Because they still keep the squiggly lines above the letters that are visible on Pallava letters. The main vowels don't change a lot, but every script had added diacritics to suit their language even more.
I love how every region has adjusted the script to match their language and culture, but you can still see the resemblances between every one of them. It's like seeing a different font type of the same letters! 🤗
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