Scripts
Devanagari
day-vuh-NAH-guh-ree
Also Known As Nagari
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Origin from 100
Devanagari is an abugida, a writing system in which each consonant letter carries an inherent vowel by default and other vowels are marked by modifying the consonant with an attached diacritic, descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India. It is used to write Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and several other South Asian languages, and is recognizable for the horizontal line, the shirorekha, that runs along the top of most letters and connects them within a word. Its consonant clusters are frequently written as conjunct ligatures rather than as separate letters in sequence, a feature that makes Devanagari typesetting and digital text rendering considerably more complex than a simple alphabet.
Facts
Directionality In Use Since (Year)Approximate date Devanagari began differentiating from its Brahmi-derived precursor scripts; the script reached its familiar modern form considerably later, around the eleventh century. Cross-Tradition Connections
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