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The transliteration used in this article follows the popular [[IAST]] conventions. The [[ITRANS]] [http://www.aczoom.com/itrans/#itransencoding] is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanāgarī into [[ASCII]] that is widely used on [[Usenet]]. In ITRANS, the word ''Devanāgarī'' is written as "devanaagarii".
== सिद्धान्त ==
Devanāgarī has 12 ''svara'' (pure sounds, or [[vowel]]s) and 34 ''vyanjana'' (ornamented sounds, [[consonant]]s). An ''[[akshara]]'' is formed by the combination of zero or one ''vyanjana'' and one or more ''svar'', and represents a phonetic unit of the ''[[shabda]]'' (utterance). The ''akshara'' is written by applying standard diacritical modifiers to the ''vyanjana'' corresponding to the ''svara''. An ''akshara'' is usually more basic and predictable than the [[syllable]] in English. For example, the English 'cat' (considered to have just one syllable) is written as two ''aksharas'', the 'k-a' and the 'ta'.
The ''svara'' and ''vyanjana'' are ordered and grouped logically for studying or reciting. Thus the pure sounds, 'a', 'i', 'u' and their lengthened versions ('aa', 'ii', 'uu') are followed by the combined ('e', 'ai', 'o', 'au'), nasal ('.m') and aspirated ('.h') forms. The ''vyanjana'' themselves are grouped into 6 groups (rows) of 5 (columns). The first five rows progress as velar, palatal, retroflex, dental and labial, corresponding to utilizing or touching the tongue to progressively outer parts of the mouth when making the sound. Additional ''vyanjana'' are technically sonorants, sibilants or widely used conjunct forms. For each row or group, the columns logically progress to softer sounds, paired with aspirated forms, ending in the nasal form for that group.
Devanāgarī is written from left to right. In Sanskrit, words were written together without spaces, so that the top bar is unbroken, although there were some exceptions to this rule. The break of the top line primarily marks [[breath group]]s. In modern languages, word breaks are used.
The Devanāgarī writing system can be called an [[abugida]], as each consonant has an inherent vowel (a), that can be changed with the different vowel signs. Most consonants can be joined to one or two other consonants so that the inherent vowel is suppressed. The resulting conjunct form is called a [[Ligature (typography)|ligature]]. Many ligatures appear simply as two individual consonants joined together, and so are a form of ligature. Some ligatures are more elaborately formed and not as easily recognized as containing the individual consonants.
When reading Sanskrit written in Devanāgarī, the pronunciation is completely unambiguous. Similarly, any word in Sanskrit is considered to be written only in one manner (discounting modern typesetting variations in depicting conjunct forms). However, for modern languages, certain conventions have been made (e.g. truncating the vowel form of the last consonant while speaking, even as it continues to be written in full form). There are also some modern conventions for writing English words in Devanagari.
Certain Sanskrit texts and ''mantras'' are typically written with additional diacritical marks above and below the ''akshara'' to denote pitch and tempo, to ensure completely accurate reproduction of the sound.
== देवनागरीया चिं ==
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