An abugida, or alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. 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. The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels. Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of South and Southeast Asia, Semitic Ethiopic scripts, and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics.
Gurmukhī is a Sikh script modified, standardized and used by the second Sikh Guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). Gurmukhi is used in the state of Punjab as the official script of the Punjabi language, a language that is also written in Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi script.
Malayalam script is a Brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language, which is the principal language of Kerala, India, spoken by 35 million people in the world. Malayalam script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Kerala. Like many other Indic scripts, it is an alphasyllabary (abugida), a writing system that is partially “alphabetic” and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 15 vowel letters, 36 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. The Malayalam script is a Vatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from the Grantha alphabet to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords. The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula. The Malayalam language itself was historically written in several different scripts.
Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language of the historical Sindh region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, spoken by the Sindhi people. It is the official language of the Pakistani province of Sindh. In India, Sindhi is one of the scheduled languages officially recognized by the central government, though Sindhi is not an official language of any of the states in India.
The Balinese script, natively known as Aksara Bali and Hanacaraka, is an alphabet 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 Tamil script is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and elsewhere to write the Tamil language, as well as to write the liturgical language Sanskrit, using consonants and diacritics not represented in the Tamil alphabet. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, Irula, and Paniya are also written in the Tamil script.
Buhid is a Brahmic suyat script of the Philippines, closely related to Baybayin and Hanunó'o, and is used today by the Mangyans, found mainly on island of Mindoro, to write their language, Buhid.
ISO 15919 "Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters" is one of a series of international standards for romanization by the International Organization for Standardization. It was published in 2001 and uses diacritics to map the much larger set of consonants and vowels in Brahmic scripts to the Latin script.
Khojki, or Khojiki, is a script used formerly and almost exclusively by the Khoja community of parts of South Asia such as Sindh. The name "Khojki" is derived from the Persian word khoje, which means "master", or "lord". It was employed primarily to record Isma'ili religious literature as well as literature for a few secret Twelver sects. It is one of the two Landa scripts used for liturgy, the other being the Gurmukhī alphabet, which is associated with Sikhism.
The Laṇḍā scripts, meaning "without a tail", is a Punjabi word used to refer to writing systems used in Punjab and nearby parts of North India. It is distinct from the Lahnda language, which used to be called Western Punjabi.
Mahajani is a Laṇḍā mercantile script that was historically used in northern India for writing accounts and financial records in Marwari, Hindi and Punjabi. It is a Brahmic script and is written left-to-right. Mahajani refers to the Hindi word for 'bankers', also known as 'sarrafi' or 'kothival' (merchant).
The Pollard script, also known as Pollard Miao or Miao, is an abugida loosely based on the Latin alphabet and invented by Methodist missionary Sam Pollard. Pollard invented the script for use with A-Hmao, one of several Miao languages. The script underwent a series of revisions until 1936, when a translation of the New Testament was published using it. The introduction of Christian materials in the script that Pollard invented caused a great impact among the Miao. Part of the reason was that they had a legend about how their ancestors had possessed a script but lost it. According to the legend, the script would be brought back some day. When the script was introduced, many Miao came from far away to see and learn it.
The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was in widespread use between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of India, for writing Sanskrit and Kashmiri. The Gurmukhī script was developed from Śāradā. Originally more widespread, its use became later restricted to Kashmir, and it is now rarely used except by the Kashmiri Pandit community for ceremonial purposes.
There are three writing systems for Saraiki, but very few of the language's speakers, even those who are literate in other languages, are able to read or write Saraiki in any writing system.
Khudawadi is a Unicode block containing characters of the Khudabadi script used by some Sindhis in India for writing the Sindhi language.
Multani is a Unicode block containing characters used for writing the Multani alphabet, a Brahmic script used in the Multan region of Punjab and in northern Sindh in Pakistan. The script is now obsolete, but was historically used to write the Saraiki language.
The Pau Cin Hau scripts are two scripts, a logographic script and an alphabetic script created by Pau Cin Hau, a Tedim religious leader from Chin State, Burma. The logographic script consists of 1050 characters, which is a traditionally significant number based on the number of characters appearing in a religious text. The alphabetic script is a simplified script of 57 characters, which is divided into 21 consonants, 7 vowels, 9 final consonants, and 20 tone, length, and glottal marks. The original script was produced in 1902, but it is thought to have undergone at least two revisions, of which the first revision produced the logographic script.
