India's awesome hybrid alphabet thing - History of Writing Systems #10 (Alphasyllabary)

Not a syllabary. Not quite an alphabet. Totally Indian. Watch Ashoka discuss his land's exotic script and tell you his plans for this unique alphasyllabary. This episode traces the invention of the Indic alphasyllabary, the parent of so many scripts throughout India and Southeast Asia, from Tibet to the Philippines. Once you learn the structure behind Indian letters, try to read a completely different script in Ethiopia, the abugida, that actually works the same way!