Writing and Printing
Khojki script
Khojkī (𑈉𑈲𑈐𑈈𑈮), is an abugida Indic script. It is a Northern Brahmic script, a part of its Laṇḍā family of writing systems, and was used to write the Sindhi, Kutchi and Gujarati languages from the 15th to 20th century. The landā or ‘clipped’ alphabets were primarily employed as commercial and mercantile scripts by various Hindu communities of Sindh and Punjab. The Khojkī script was employed primarily to record Shia Ismaili religious and devotional Islamic literature; most notably in the form of poetry called gināns (a term derived from the Sanskrit jnāna meaning contemplative knowledge). It is one of the two Landā scripts used for liturgy, the other being the Gurmukhī alphabet, which is associated with Sikhism. The Khojkī script was one of the earliest forms of written Sindhi. It was formerly and almost exclusively by the Khoja Ismaili community. As a scholarly article from 2022 has demonstrated, referring to the script as "Khojki" is a relatively new phenomenon, coined by the Russian scholar Vladimir Ivanow. This neologism began to replace the original terms used by Khoja Ismailis such as Sindhī and Khojā Sindhī. This did not necessarily mean the Sindhi language but rather the script utilized by the Khojas. To avoid confusion, the British administrative bureaucracy added the term Khojā, referring to the script as Khojā Sindhī. The Khoja Ismailis sometimes did the same to distinguish the script from the language, as well as from other scripts used in Sindh. The Khojas continued using the traditional term Sindhī alongside the neologism Khojkī. However, many scholars writing in English and other Western languages dropped the traditional term Sindhī was adopted the invented term Khojkī.
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Abdurauf Fitrat.
Medieval runes.
See also
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