Hosalipi

Hosalipi is an abugida designed by Atharva Sreekar primarily as an alternative way to write Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken in South India. It was created initially for fun, but after making some modifications, Atharva realized that this script could be written faster than the standard Kannada script. Many of its letters are inspired by other Brahmic abugidas such as Devanagari, Kannada, Tamil, and the original Brahmi script. Atharva often uses Hosalipi for jotting things down and writing notes. The name Hosalipi mean 'New Script' in Kannada.

Notable features

Type of writing system: abugida
Writing direction: left to right in horizontal lines by default
Used to write: Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), can also be used to transliterate Tamil, Sanskrit and many other Indian languages.
The diacritics are uniform across all letters, addressing inconsistencies found in the traditional Kannada script.

Enhancements over the Kannada Script

Conjunct Consonants: Hosalipi includes letters for sounds like “ksha” and “jña,” which are not present in the original Kannada script. In Kannada, these sounds are written as combinations of two letters, which can be slower to write.
Aspirated Consonants (Mahāprāna): Converting a consonant into its aspirated form is simplified with the use of a mark/diacritic, rather than introducing an entirely new letter as in the traditional Kannada script.
Sajātiya Ottakṣhara: This refers to the doubling or stressing of the same consonant sound, which is very common in Kannada. In the traditional Kannada script, this would require writing a "miniature version" of the same letter again. In Hosalipi, this is simplified to just an additional stroke, making the process quicker.

Hosalipi alphabet

Hosalipi script

Download a Hosalipi script chart (Excel format)
Download a font for Hosalipi

Sample text

Sample text in the Hosalipi alphabet in English

Transliteration (Kannada script)

ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾನವರೂ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರರಾಗಿಯೇ ಜನಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಹಾಗೂ ಘನತೆ ಮತ್ತು ಹಕ್ಕು ಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಸಮಾನರಾಗಿದ್ದರೆ. ವಿವೇಕ ಮತ್ತು ಅಂತಃಕರಣ ಗಳನ್ನು ಪಡೆದವರಾದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅವರು ಪರಸ್ಪರ ಸಹೋದರ ಭಾವದಿಂದ ವರ್ತಿಸಬೇಕು.

Transliteration (Latin alphabet)

Ellā mānavarū svatantrarāgiyē janisiddāre. Hāgū ghanate mattu hakku gaḷalli samānarāgiddāre. Vivēka mattu antaḥkaraṇagaḷannu paḍedavarāddarinda avaru paraspara sahōdara bhāvadinda vartisabēku.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

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