ABSTRACT
This derivative of Brāhmī, which is used for writing the Oriya (also known as Odrī) language (belonging to the Eastern group of New Indo-Aryan languages) makes its first appearance in the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries. The order of letters follows the Devanāgarī model, but in place of the horizontal stroke above each letter, typical of most other Brāhmī derivatives, Oriya uses a curved line. This practice seems to have arisen in the days when Oriya was written on palm-leaves, whose surface was less likely to be damaged by curved strokes.
