Design Nomenclature / Type

Devanagari

The abugida used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit. Letters hang from a headline (shirorekha) rather than sitting on a baseline; vowels attach as marks above, below or around the consonant; and consonant clusters fuse into conjuncts, so glyph count and substitution logic far exceed anything Latin needs.

The word हिन्दी ruled horizontally. An unbroken stroke runs across the top of the letters, which hang beneath it; vowel marks stack above that stroke and a conjunct drops below the letters. A rule marking where a Latin baseline would fall cuts through the middle of the word, touching nothing structural.

In practice

The clearest demonstration that "baseline" is a Latin assumption. Aligning Devanagari to a Latin baseline grid aligns the wrong edge, and vertical metrics tuned on Latin will clip the mark stacks.

Not to be confused with

How this term connects

BaselineCJKLigatureOpenTypeUnicameralDevanagari
Related Confused with