Editing Abugida (section)

===Indic (Brahmic)===
{{see also|Brahmic scripts}}

Indic scripts originated in [[India]] and spread to [[Southeast Asia]], [[Bangladesh]], [[Sri Lanka]], [[Nepal]], [[Bhutan]], [[Tibet]], [[Mongolia]], and [[Russia]]. All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of the [[Brahmi alphabet]]. Today they are used in most languages of [[South Asia]] (although replaced by [[Perso-Arabic]] in [[Urdu]], [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]] and some other languages of [[Pakistan]] and [[India]]), mainland [[Southeast Asia]] ([[Myanmar]], [[Thailand]], [[Laos]], [[Cambodia]], and [[Vietnam]]), [[Tibet]] ([[Tibetan script|Tibetan]]), [[Indonesia]]n archipelago ([[Javanese script|Javanese]], [[Balinese script|Balinese]], [[Sundanese script|Sundanese]], [[Batak script|Batak]], [[Lontara script|Lontara]], [[Rejang alphabet|Rejang]], [[Ulu scripts|Rencong]], [[Makasar script|Makasar]], etc.), [[Philippines]] ([[Baybayin script|Baybayin]], [[Buhid script|Buhid]], [[Hanunuo script|Hanunuo]], [[Kulitan script|Kulitan]], and [[Tagbanwa script|Aborlan Tagbanwa]]), [[Malaysia]] ([[Ulu scripts|Rencong]]).

The primary division is with North Indic scripts, used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Russia; and Southern Indic scripts, used in [[South India]], [[Sri Lanka]] and [[Southeast Asia]]. South Indic letter forms are more rounded than North Indic forms, though [[Odia script|Odia]], [[Golmol script|Golmol]] and [[Litumol script|Litumol]] of Nepal script are rounded. Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, with [[Gujarati script|Gujarati]] and Odia as exceptions; South Indic scripts do not.

Indic scripts indicate vowels through dependent vowel signs (diacritics) around the consonants, often including a sign that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel. If a consonant has no vowel sign, this indicates a default vowel. Vowel diacritics may appear above, below, to the left, to the right, or around the consonant.

The most widely used Indic script is [[Devanagari]], shared by [[Hindi]], [[Bihari languages|Bihari]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]], [[Konkani language|Konkani]], [[Nepali language|Nepali]], and often [[Sanskrit]]. A basic letter such as [[Devanagari ka|क]] in Hindi represents a syllable with the default vowel, in this case ''ka'' ({{IPA|[kə]}}). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this case ''k''. The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark ([[diacritic]]s), producing syllables such as कि ''ki,'' कु ''ku,'' के ''ke,'' को ''ko.''

[[Image:Rigveda MS2097.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A 19th-century manuscript in the [[Devanagari script]]]]
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ Diacritic placement in Brahmic abugidas
! position
! syllable
! pronunciation
! base form
! script
|-
| above || के || {{IPA|/keː/}} || rowspan=4 | क {{IPA|/k(a)/}} || rowspan=4 | [[Devanagari]]
|-
| below || कु || {{IPA|/ku/}}
|-
| left || कि || {{IPA|/ki/}}
|-
| right || को || {{IPA|/koː/}}
|-
| around || கௌ || {{IPA|/kau̯/}} || rowspan="2" | க {{IPA|/ka/}} || rowspan="2" | [[Tamil script|Tamil]]
|-
|within
|கி
|/ki/
|-
| surround || កៀ || {{IPA|/kie/}} || ក {{IPA|/kɑː/}} || [[Khmer alphabet|Khmer]]
|-
| within || ಕಿ || {{IPA|/ki/}} || ಕ {{IPA|/ka/}} || [[Kannada alphabet|Kannada]]
|-
| within || కి|| {{IPA|/ki/}} || క {{IPA|/ka/}} || [[Telugu alphabet|Telugu]]
|-
| below and extend<br>to the right || ꦏꦾ || {{IPA|/kja/}} || rowspan="2" | ꦏ {{IPA|/ka/}} || rowspan="2" | [[Javanese script|Javanese]]
|-
| below and extend<br>to the left || ꦏꦿꦸ || {{IPA|/kru/}}
|}

In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so a vowel marker like ि ''-i,'' falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced. For example, the game [[cricket]] in [[Hindi]] is क्रिकेट {{transliteration|hi|ISO|krikeṭ}}; the diacritic for {{IPA|/i/}} appears before the [[consonant cluster]] {{IPA|/kr/}}, not before the {{IPA|/r/}}. A more unusual example is seen in the [[Batak alphabet]]: Here the syllable ''bim'' is written ''ba-ma-i-(virama)''. That is, the vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable.

In many abugidas, there is also a diacritic to suppress the inherent vowel, yielding the bare consonant. In Devanagari, प् is ''p,'' and फ् is ''ph''. This is called the ''[[virāma]]'' or ''halantam'' in Sanskrit. It may be used to form [[consonant cluster]]s, or to indicate that a consonant occurs at the end of a word. Thus in Sanskrit, a default vowel consonant such as फ does not take on a final consonant sound. Instead, it keeps its vowel. For writing two consonants without a vowel in between, instead of using diacritics on the first consonant to remove its vowel, another popular method of special [[conjunct]] forms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari, as in अप्फ ''appha.'' (Some fonts display this as प् followed by फ, rather than forming a conjunct. This expedient is used by [[ISCII]] and South Asian scripts of [[Unicode]].) Thus a closed syllable such as ''phaṣ'' requires two ''aksharas'' to write: फष् ''phaṣ''.

The [[Róng]] script used for the [[Lepcha language]] goes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a single ''akshara'' can represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example, the syllable [sok] would be written as something like s̥̽, here with an underring representing {{IPA|/o/}} and an overcross representing the diacritic for final {{IPA|/k/}}. Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as {{IPA|/ŋ/}} or {{IPA|/r/}}, if they can indicate any at all.