| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
Clip fonts or split fonts[ citation needed ] are non-Unicode fonts that assign glyphs of Brahmic scripts, such as Devanagari, at code positions intended for glyphs of the Latin script or to produce glyphs not found in Unicode by using its Private Use Area (PUA).
Brahmic scripts have an inherent vowel without attached diacritics. Vowels (excluding the inherent vowel) that immediately follow a consonant are written as a diacritic. For example, a Devanagari consonant in ‘base form’ in Unicode is ‘घ’ /ɡʱə/ where the inherent vowel is ‘अ’ /ə/. If the vowel ‘आ’ /aː/ were to follow this Devanagari consonant, then the ‘ा’ diacritic is attached resulting in ‘घा’. Consonants that are a part of conjunct clusters may assume a conjunct form such as ‘घ् ‘ in Devanagari. [1]
Devanagari consonants that are a part of conjunct clusters (except for the final consonant in a conjunct cluster, which is in its ‘base form’) are followed by the halant and zero-with joiner characters. For example, ‘घ्य’ /ɡʱjə/ is formed by ‘घ’, followed by the halant diacritic,
In clip fonts the ‘base form’ of a character is the conjunct form such as ‘घ् ’ in Devanagari and diacritics are added to indicate that the consonant is immediately followed by a vowel (including the inherent vowel). For example, a Devanagari consonant in ‘base form’ in a clip font is ‘घ् ’ /ɡʱ/. If the inherent vowel ‘अ’/ə/ were to follow this Devanagari consonant, then the ‘ा’ diacritic would be attached to it resulting in ‘घ’. Vowels that are not the inherent ‘अ’ /ə/ such as ‘आ’ /aː/ that follow this Devanagari consonant, then the ‘ा’ diacritic attaches twice, resulting in ‘घा’ with a Latin script representation of ‘Gaa’. [2] [3]
Devanagari consonants that are a part of conjunct clusters are written consecutively in their ‘base forms’ (unless it is the last consonant in a conjunct cluster, which is in its ‘inherent vowel form’). For example, ‘घ्य’ /ɡʱjə/ is formed by ‘घ् ’, followed by ‘य् ’, and followed by the ‘ा’ diacritic with a Latin script representation of ‘Gya’. [2] [3]
| Consonant–Vowel Pairs | ‘base form’ | ‘inherent vowel form’ | ‘inherent vowel form’ + ‘vowel diacritic’ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brahmic script representation of Unicode | घ | घ | घ + ा = घा |
| Unicode Code Points [1] | U+0918 | U+0918 | U+0918 U+093E |
| Brahmic script representation | घ् | घ् + ा = घ | घ् + ा + ा = घा |
| Latin script representation | G | G + a = Ga | G + a + a = Gaa |
Consonant–Vowel Pairs | ‘base form of घ’ | ‘conjunct form of घ’ | ‘घ’ + ‘inherent vowel form of य’ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brahmic script representation of Unicode | घ | घ् | घ् + य = घ्य |
| Unicode Code Points [1] | U+0918 | U+0918 U+094D U+200D | U+0918 U+094D U+200D U+092F |
| Brahmic script representation | घ् | घ् | घ् + य् + ा = घ्य |
| Latin script representation | G | G | G + y + a = Gya |
A computer assumes that text written with a clip font is in the Latin script. Thus, when the font is changed to another Latin script font that is not a clip font, the Latin script characters on the keys that were used to type the text are displayed instead of text in the original Brahmic script. [2] [3] As a result, the clip font has to be available wherever text in Brahmic script is desired. Thus, clip fonts may not be uniformly compatible across computers and the Internet. This weakness is used as a kind of encryption.[ citation needed ]
Clip fonts arose as a result of the perceived complexity of keyboard layout switching in common operating system setups, as well as defective internationalization capabilities in older software. English computer keyboards are common in India. Clip font users can easily write Hindi and other Indic languages using those keyboards. In India, people switch quickly among multiple languages and scripts.
At least 40 commercial clip fonts are available. [4] [5] With ASCII, they are used by custom keyboard drivers for Indic scripts, intended to limit keystrokes. Such helper software often broke following operating system updates.
One of the popular clip fonts for Devanagari is Kiran fonts KF-Kiran, [6] because it does not require special software and can be used in older software. [3] Many users successfully ported this True Type font to operating systems such as Mac OS, Linux, some flavours of Unix and Android.
Clip fonts are sometimes used for scripts that are not yet encoded in Unicode. The "correct" way to handle these is to temporarily encode these in Unicode's Private Use Area (PUA). Users in India find that only English language keyboards are available.
An abugida – sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabet – is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, similar to a diacritical mark. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of the script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel.
Devanagari is an Indic script used in the northern Indian subcontinent. Also simply called Nāgari, it is a left-to-right abugida, based on the ancient Brāhmi script. It is one of the official scripts of the Republic of India and Nepal. It was developed and in regular use by the 8th century CE and achieved its modern form by 1200 CE. The Devanāgari 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 Sinhala script, also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhala language as well as the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit. The Sinhalese Akṣara Mālāva, one of the Brahmic scripts, is a descendant of the Ancient Indian Brahmi script. It is also related to the Grantha script.
The Kannada script is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. Kannada script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Karnataka. Several minor languages, such as Tulu, Konkani, Kodava, Beary and Sanketi also use alphabets based on the Kannada script. The Kannada and Telugu scripts share very high mutual intellegibility with each other, and are often considered to be regional variants of single script. Other scripts similar to Kannada script are Sinhala script, and Old Peguan script (used in Burma).
Devanagari is an Indic script used for many Indo-Aryan languages of North India and Nepal, including Hindi, Marathi and Nepali, which was the script used to write Classical Sanskrit. There are several somewhat similar methods of transliteration from Devanagari to the Roman script, including the influential and lossless IAST notation. Romanised Devanagari is also called Romanagari.
The Balinese script, natively known as Aksarä Bali and Hanacaraka, is an abugida used in the island of Bali, Indonesia, commonly for writing the Austronesian Balinese language, Old Javanese, and the liturgical language Sanskrit. With some modifications, the script is also used to write the Sasak language, used in the neighboring island of Lombok. The script is a descendant of the Brahmi script, and so has many similarities with the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. The Balinese script, along with the Javanese script, is considered the most elaborate and ornate among Brahmic scripts of Southeast Asia.
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan, William Jones, Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress, in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for the reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars.
Virama is a Sanskrit phonological concept to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter, commonly used as a generic term for a codepoint in Unicode, representing either
The Lepcha script, or Róng script, is an abugida used by the Lepcha people to write the Lepcha language. Unusually for an abugida, syllable-final consonants are written as diacritics.
The Saurashtra script is an abugida script that is used by Saurashtrians of Tamil Nadu to write the Saurashtra language. The script is of Brahmic origin, although its exact derivation is not known; it was later reformed and standardized by T. M. Rama Rai. Its usage has declined, and the Tamil and Latin scripts are now used more commonly.
Modi is a script used to write the Marathi language, which is the primary language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, India. There are multiple theories concerning its origin. The Modi script was used alongside the Devanagari script to write Marathi until the 20th century when the Balbodh style of the Devanagari script was promoted as the standard writing system for Marathi.
Bharati braille, or Bharatiya Braille, is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. When India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use, in different parts of the country and for different languages. By 1951, a single national standard had been settled on, Bharati braille, which has since been adopted by Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. There are slight differences in the orthographies for Nepali in India and Nepal, and for Tamil in India and Sri Lanka. There are significant differences in Bengali Braille between India and Bangladesh, with several letters differing. Pakistan has not adopted Bharati braille, so the Urdu Braille of Pakistan is an entirely different alphabet than the Urdu Braille of India, with their commonalities largely due to their common inheritance from English or International Braille. Sinhala Braille largely conforms to other Bharati, but differs significantly toward the end of the alphabet, and is covered in its own article.
Similar braille conventions are used for three languages of India and Nepal that in print are written in Devanagari script: Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. These are part of a family of related braille alphabets known as Bharati Braille. There are apparently some differences between the Nepali braille alphabet of India and that of Nepal.
Gha is the fourth consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, gha is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter , which is probably derived from the Aramaic ("H/X") after having gone through the Gupta letter .
Ṅa is the fifth consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, It is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .
Jha is the ninth consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, jha is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .
Ña or Nya is the tenth consonant of Indic abugidas. It is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter .
Ṭa is a consonant of Indic abugidas. It is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As with the other retroflex consonants, ṭa is absent from most scripts not used for a language of India.
La is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, La is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .
A is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, A is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the "A" vowel inherently, and thus there is no modifier sign for "A" in Indic scripts.
