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Concept
Devanagari
Summary
Devanāgarī or Devanagari (ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡəri ; देवनागरी, , Sanskrit pronunciation: deːʋɐˈnaːɡɐriː), also called Nāgarī (), is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient Brāhmī script, used in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is one of the official scripts of the Republic of India and Nepal. It was developed and in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanāgarī script, composed of 48 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 34 consonants, is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages.
The orthography of this script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of letter case. It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line, known as a शिरोरेखा , that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanāgarī script appears different from other Indic scripts, such as Bengali-Assamese or Gurmukhi, but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis.
Among the languages using it as a primary or secondary script are Marathi, Pāḷi, Sanskrit, Hindi, Boro, Nepali, Sherpa, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Chhattisgarhi, Haryanvi, Magahi, Nagpuri, Rajasthani, Khandeshi, Bhili, Dogri, Kashmiri, Maithili, Konkani, Sindhi, Nepal Bhasa, Mundari, Angika, Bajjika and Santali. The Devanāgarī script is closely related to the Nandināgarī script commonly found in numerous ancient manuscripts of South India, and it is distantly related to a number of southeast Asian scripts.
is a compound of (देव) and (नागरी). means "heavenly", "divine", or "deity". comes from (नगर), a Sanskrit word meaning "town" or "city". Hence, can be translated as "of the city of the gods".
The use of the name emerged from the older term . According to Fischer, Nāgarī emerged in the northwest Indian subcontinent around 633 CE, was fully developed by the 11th century CE, and was one of the major scripts used for Sanskrit literature.
Official source
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