[article] Devanagari Script

Devanagari is an alphabet used to write i.e. Hindi or Sanskrit.

About Devanagari

• It's a letter based alphabet
• It is read from left to right
• Letters can sometimes be written in a different order, than they are read in (i.e. i always comes before the consonant but is pronounced afterwards)
• Every consonant inherits the vowel a
• There are two types of vowels - detached vowels and vowel marks
  • Vowel marks can appear before, after, below and above the consonent
  • Detached vowels are used at the beginning of a word or after another vowel

there are also other pronunciation helpers (similar to the ones on japanese kana)

letters can be joined together, align with the line at the top

Most things that you need to consider are similar to latin fonts. Devanagari has ligatures, however many more than in latin (depending on the language that is used up to several thousand) It has lots of diatrical marks, similar to those in latin alphabets, they can be added to letters

There also have been some attempts to have similar lines as ascender and cap height etc. in devangari, but there is no generally accepted solution, see this article

However some additional features also need to be considered: Most importantly the top line, all letters of one word align through this line (देवनागरी)

More Resources:
Example of an UFO Devanagari font
Common Problems with Devanagari Fonts
A Guide to designing Devanagari Fonts
Anatomy of Devanagari