Paper short abstract:

South Asia is not only rich in languages, but also in scripts. While most scripts have been continuously in use for centuries or even millennia, others were introduced only in the 20th century. This paper will discuss how scripts intentionally and unintentionally function(ed) as agents of demarcating and preserving languages.

Paper long abstract:

South Asia is not only rich in languages, but also in scripts. While most scripts have been continuously in use for centuries or even millennia, others were introduced only in the 20th century. But scripts have not only been recently introduced with the purpose to demarcate, preserve or strengthen a language and its speech community.

The most prominent and successful example for this kind of endeavour is Punjabi and the introduction of the Gurmukhi script in the 16th century. The Sikh religion is today inseparable from both language and script, although Punjabi can be written also in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script and Nagari.

Furthermore, in the 20th century new scripts seemed to have been introduced to strengthen the shared identity of speech communities which lack a long literary tradition, e.g. the Ol Chiki for Santali. This paper will offer an overview on this unexplored topic and will try to offer first thoughts on the role scripts - invented, revived, modified or borrowed from other languages - can play in preserving languages in South Asia.