Standard or regulation
The Unicode Standard, Version 15.0, Chapter 12: South and Central Asia
Unicode Consortium, 2022
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- Chapter 12 of the Unicode Standard, which covers the Brahmic scripts of South and Central Asia, including the Devanagari script used for Hindi. It explains the inherent vowel, dependent vowel signs and the virama.
- How much weight it carries
- The official character-encoding standard, maintained by the Unicode Consortium. It describes how the script is written and encoded, not how children are taught it, so it supports the definitions on this page and nothing about classroom practice.
Facts taken from this source
- Unicode says the Brahmic scripts are abugidas in which most symbols stand for a consonant plus an inherent vowel, usually the sound a.
“They are all abugidas in which most symbols stand for a consonant plus an inherent vowel (usually the sound /a/).” (Chapter 12, introduction to the Brahmic scripts)
- Unicode says that in Hindi the word hal names the character that suppresses the inherent vowel, and halant names the consonant whose vowel is suppressed.
“In Hindi, for example, the word hal refers to the character itself, and halant refers to the consonant that has its inherent vowel suppressed” (Chapter 12, Devanagari, virama (halant))
- Unicode says the dependent vowels, written on a consonant, are the common way to show vowels other than the inherent one, and that they are called matras in Sanskrit.
“The dependent vowels serve as the common manner of writing noninherent vowels and are generally referred to as vowel signs ... or as matras in Sanskrit.” (Chapter 12, Devanagari, dependent vowel signs (matras))