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Brahmic family

The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas used in India and Indochina.

The most prominent member is Devanagari, which is used to write several languages in India. Burmese[?], Cambodian and Thai are also written in Brahmic scripts, though with considerable modification to suit their phonology. The term "Nagari" is sometimes used for those Brahmic scripts that are used to write Indic languages, or as short for "Devanagari".

Characteristics include:

  • The inherent vowel is short 'a' (in Bengali, it is short 'o', which comes from Sanskrit short 'a'). Other vowels are written by adding to the character.
  • 'u' is written below, short 'i' is written to the left if distinct from long 'i'.
  • Consonants can be combined. Special marks are added to denote the combination of 'r' with another consonant.
  • Nasalization is written with a dot above the letter.



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