Кайти әрпі: Үндістан тарихындағы құжаттар тілі

Historical script used in Awadh and Bihar regions of India

Kaithi , also called Kayathi or Kayasthi , is a historical Brahmic script that was used widely in parts of Northern and Eastern India, primarily in the present day states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In particular, it was used for writing legal, administrative and private records. It was used for a variety of Indo Aryan languages, including Angika, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Hindustani, Magahi, and Nagpuri.

Kaithi script derives its name from the word Kayastha, a social group of India that is historically related to writing and traditionally consists of administrators and accountants. The Kayastha community was closely associated with the princely courts and British colonial governments of North India and were employed by them to write and maintain records of revenue transactions, legal documents and title deeds; general correspondence and proceedings of the royal courts and related bodies. Among the three scripts widely used in the 'Hindi Belt', Kaithi was widely perceived to be neutral, as it was used by both Hindus and Muslims alike for day to day correspondence, financial and administrative activities, while Devanagari was used by Hindus and Persian script by Muslims for religious literature and education. This made Kaithi increasingly unfavorable to the more conservative and religiously inclined members of society who insisted on Devanagari based and Persian based transcription of Hindi dialects. As a result of their influence and due to the wide availability of Devanagari type as opposed to the incredibly large variability of Kaithi, Devanagari was promoted, particularly in the Northwest Provinces, which covers present day Uttar Pradesh. In the late 19th century, John Nesfield in Oudh, George Campbell of Inverneill in Bihar and a committee in Bengal all advocated for the use of Kaithi script in education. Many legal documents were written in Kaithi, and from 1950 to 1954 it was the official legal script of Bihar district courts. However, it was opposed by Brahmin elites and phased out. Present day Bihar courts struggle to read old Kaithi documents.

On the basis of local variants Kaithi can be divided into three classes viz. Bhojpuri, Magahi and Trihuti.