Devanagari (pronounced
/?de?v?'n??g?ri?/;
????????,
Devanagari), also called
Nagari (
Nagari)(the name of its
parent writing system), is an
abugida alphabet of
India and
Nepal. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct
letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanagari is the main script used to write
Hindi,
Marathi, and
Nepali. Since the 19th century, it has been the most commonly used script for
Sanskrit. Devanagari is also employed for
Gujari,
Bhili,
Bhojpuri,
Konkani,
Magahi,
Maithili,
Marwari,
Newari,
Pahari (
Garhwali and
Kumaoni),
Santhali,
Tharu, and sometimes
Sindhi,
Punjabi, and
Kashmiri. It was formerly used to write
Gujarati.
Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of Nepal, India, Tibet, and South-East Asia. It is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Eastern variants of Gupta called Nagari are first attested from the 8th century; from c. 1200 these gradually replaced Siddham, which survived as a vehicle for Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, and Sharada, which remained in parallel use in Kashmir.
The use of the name Devanagari is relatively recent, and the older term Nagari is still common. The rapid spread of the term Devanagari may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish sacred Sanskrit texts in colonial times. This has led to such a close connection between Devanagari and Sanskrit that Devanagari is now widely thought to be the Sanskrit script; however, before the colonial period there was no standard script for Sanskrit, which was written in whichever script was familiar to the local populace.
As a Brahmic abugida, the fundamental principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant, which carries an inherent vowel a [?].[1] For example, the letter ? is read ka, the two letters ?? are kana, the three ??? are kanaya, etc. Other vowels, or the absence of vowels, require modification of these consonants or their own letters
