This week and the next, I have the good fortune of having Dr Prachi Deshpande here in the UK. I think she is one of the smartest historians of early modern India, with an interest in the histories of language and script use, and an expertise in the archaic Marathi script of Modi.
Together, we are looking at the bunches of Persian documents (mainly Adilshahi farmans) that I collected from Pune in December, peering at the margins, where summaries and signatures in Modi crop up. We are also looking through the the archive of a family of landlords from Dhar, who were kind enough to share their heritage with me. Although these documents are in Persian and/or Hindi/Rangri; the Nagri-script part of these documents demonstrate clear evidence of incursion of Modi as well as Gujarati letter forms.
Let’s see what else we can find!
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Nandini Chatterjee (February 16, 2018). The twists and turns of Modi (script). Lawforms. Retrieved January 14, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/qqv7