This website attempts to collate scholarly articles, opinion pieces and notes pertaining to languages that use the akshara writing system. While this may seem like an easily defined area of exploration, the reality is far more complex. Researchers of the akshara languages are routinely confronted with some of the most vexing questions facing current cognitive science research.   The contexts are often multilingual, literacy learning is rarely in only one script and learning environments are diverse.  We are in the midst of an unprecedented rise in collaborations across languages, writing systems and socio-cultural contexts. Practitioners are driven by the urgency to ensure all children learn to read with ease and enjoyment, and researchers are taking advantage of new technologies and analytic approaches. We aim to capture some of the exciting developments in the field as they evolve and go public.

Lingua Akshara is a coming together of professional contributions from multiple disciplines: education, psychology, linguistics, speech and language sciences, cognitive neuroscience, computer science and sociology, to name a few. Researchers, clinicians and educators working in the akshara languages will find something of value on this website. You will find Resources that can help shape your research agenda or re-think the way in which you teach or intervene in the field of language and literacy.

Lingua Akshara grew out of the first International Symposium on Language, Literacy and Cognitive Development (LLCd) held in December, 2011 in Bangalore, India.  The profiles of presenters and the proceedings are also archived here.

We look forward to your engagement with Lingua Akshara!

Watch this space for Updates

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• Teaching and learning of Sanskrit through Tamil - Giovanni Ciotti

• Specific Language Impairment in Kannada - Shivani Tiwari et al.
  

• Addresee markers in the Dravidian Languages - R. Amritavalli
  

• Learning to read languages of South Asia - Sonali Nag
  

• Spelling development in Thai children - Heather Winskel

• Can parafoveal-on-foveal effects be obtained when reading an unspaced alphasyllabic script? -
  Heather Winskel & Manuel Parea
  
  
• A study of Literacy Acquisition in Kannada and Marathi - Shailaja Menon, Ramchandar Krishnamurthy and team
  

• Copying helps novice learners build orthographic knowledge - Adeetee Bhide
  

• Reading tests to identify sub-lexical dyslexia in Kannada - Suresh Kiran, Rajashekhar Bellur and Gopee Krishnan

• The “handedness” of language: Directional symmetry breaking of sign usage in words - Ashraf, M. I. & Sinha, S.
  

 

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• On Literacy Learning: Some old and some new constructs - Sonali Nag                                                                     
  
• Aksharas, Alphasyllabaries, Abugidas, Alphabets and Orthographic Depth: Reflections on Rimzhim, Katz and Fowler (2014) – David Share and Peter Daniels
  

• Alphabetism in Reading Science - David Share
  

• Investigating the Asymmetrical Roles of Syllabic and Phonemic Awareness Role in Akshara Processing  - Pooja R. Nakamura et al. 

• Dyslexia and Hyperlexia in Bilinguals - R. Malatesha Joshi et al.
  

• A Template for the Analysis of Primary School Language Textbooks in Indian Languages (Pilot Version, 2014) - Shaher Banu Vagh and Sonali Nag
  

• The Song that Changed my Life : Stories on Multi-lingual Education from Chhattisgarh - Sheshagiri K.M
  

• Effect of synthetic phonics instruction on literacy skills in an ESL setting - Surendranath P. Nishanimut et al. 

                                                                                                                                                                               

• LLCd 2011 Book of Abstracts                                                          

• Picasa Link to LLCd Web Album
  

Some images of akshara inscriptions

Spreading across South and South East Asia are several aesthetically distinctive akshara scripts that have their roots in Brahmi, the ancient writing system of Central India. The scripts stand out both for their visual features as well as the ingenuity with which they represent sounds in the language.  While the uninitiated hardly manage to get past the bewildering set of dashes, loops and squiggles of these writing systems, to those in the know, the commonalities in the symbol architecture of each avatar is immediately familiar.