Gujarati alphabet
| Gujarati |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | |
| Languages |
Gujarati Sanskrit Kutchi Avestan (Zorastrian migrants, particularly the Parsi community) |
|
Time period
|
c. 1592–present |
|
Parent systems
|
|
|
Sister systems
|
Ranjana Modi |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Gujr, 320 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Gujarati |
| U+0A80–U+0AFF | |
|
[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon.
|
|
The Gujarati script (ગુજરાતી લિપિ Gujǎrātī Lipi), which like all Nagari writing systems is an abugida, a type of alphabet, is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of Devanagari script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a small number of modifications in the remaining characters.
With a few additional characters, added for this purpose, the Gujarati script is also often used to write Sanskrit and Hindi.
Gujarati numerical digits are also different from their Devanagari counterparts.
Gujarati script is descended from Brahmi and is part of the Brahmic family.
The Gujarati script was adapted from the Devanagari script to write the Gujarati language. Gujarati language and script developed in three distinct phases — 10th to 15th century, 15th to 17th century and 17th to 19th century. The first phase is marked by use of Prakrit, Apabramsa and its variants such as Paisaci, Shauraseni, Magadhi and Maharashtri. In second phase, Old Gujarati script was in wide use. The earliest known document in the Old Gujarati script is a handwritten manuscript Adi Parva dating from 1591–92, and the script first appeared in print in a 1797 advertisement. The third phase is the use of script developed for ease and fast writing. The use of shirorekha (the topline as in Sanskrit) was abandoned. Until the 19th century it was used mainly for writing letters and keeping accounts, while the Devanagari script was used for literature and academic writings. It is also known as the śarāphī (banker's), vāṇiāśāī (merchant's) or mahājanī (trader's) script. This script became basis for modern script. Later the same script was adopted by writers of manuscripts. Jain community also promoted its use for copying religious texts by hired writers.
...
Wikipedia