4 ms·
At the same time that Europe was conquering America, the Mughals were conquering India. But the Arabic script did not supplant Devanagari in India. Had the Isla
by jmopp 4y ago
At the same time that Europe was conquering America, the Mughals were conquering India. But the Arabic script did not supplant Devanagari in India. Had the Islamic empires adopted the printing press as strongly as the Europeans did, one could very well imagine proto-Urdu texts flooding India, literacy in the Arabic script being a requirement for social advancement, and Devanagari being relegated to religious use.
- fractalb 4y agoI think Mughals were more Persian than Arabic
- nickserv 4y agoPersian is written using a variant of the Arabic script, as is Urdu.
- enviclash 4y agoInteresting theme for a novel.
- nickserv 4y agoThe Arabic script is harder to print using movable types compared to the latin script. It's an important reason for the lack of adoption of the printing press in languages using the Arabic script (historically speaking of course).