abugidasystem

An abugida is a type of writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units. Each consonant has an inherent vowel, and other vowels are indicated by modifying the base consonant symbol, often through diacritics. This contrasts with alphabets, where vowels and consonants are separate letters, and syllabaries, where each consonant-vowel combination is a unique symbol. Abugidas are sometimes referred to as alphasyllabaries or syllabic alphabets because they share characteristics of both.

The most prominent examples of abugidas are found in South and Southeast Asia, including the Devanagari script used for Hindi and Sanskrit, and the scripts used for languages such as Thai, Lao, Burmese, and Tamil. These scripts have a long history, with their origins traceable to the Brahmi script of ancient India. The systematic nature of the abugida allows for efficient writing of languages with complex syllable structures.

When a vowel other than the inherent one is required, a diacritical mark is added to the consonant character. These diacritics can appear above, below, before, or after the base symbol. In some cases, a special diacritic called a virama can be used to suppress the inherent vowel, creating a pure consonant sound. This system greatly reduces the number of distinct symbols needed compared to a full syllabary.