Kutchi language gets script

The Kutchi dialect, passed down the generations by lakhs of people through the spoken word, has now got a pictorial script, thanks to a city-based graphologist.

Claiming that she has last month got a copyright for the script from the Copyright Office, New Delhi, Dr Rajul Shah said, "With this, I have become the first person in the country to hold a copyright for developing an entire script".

"From the ancient time till now, India has 26 recognised scripts of writing. What I have developed is the 27th script," Shah said.

Despite the fact that Kutchi, as a dialect, it has a distinct characteristic from Gujarati language, Kutchi people have to depend on Gujarati script as their history and literature has been recorded in that language.

"As a Kutchi, I used to feel that something is missing as our language did not have written script. I decided to develop a written script to see how the words we spoke could be written down," the graphologist said.

Hailing from Ahmedabad, Shah traveled length and breadth of Kutch and studied spoken language in great depths to form its script.