Prachalit (Nepal Bhasa) Script

Adam Holloway, 2011.

1

Script Features

Type abugida	Diacritics yes
Family Indic	Contextual Forms yes
Direction LTR	Complex Positioning [unknown]
Baseline hanging	Reordering yes
Case no	Split Graphs [unknown]
White Space between words	Ligatures required
ISO 15924 Code [none]	OpenType Tag [none]
Status Current

1

• Script Description

  The Prachalit (meaning popular) script is used for writing
  the Newari language of Nepal. This language is also called Nepal-Bhasha, literally 'Nepal-Language', but it is not to be confused with Nepali. Similarly, the script is one of six subsumed under the name Nepal-Lipi, literally 'Nepal-Script', though it is not to be confused with Devanagari, which is the script used for writing Nepali.
  Prachalit was previously used along with the Ranjana, Bhujimol, Kutila, Golmol, and Litumol scripts for writing Newari, a Tibeto-Burman language unrelated to Nepali. Use of these scripts began to decline after the Gorkhali conquest of the Kathmandu valley in 1769, and they are now rarely used. Of the six, Prachalit and Ranjana are the most well-known, although even these are not commonly used and most young Newari speakers cannot read them.
  The Prachalit script is derived from Brahmi and is an abugida written from left to right. There are two main varieties of Prachalit writing; flat-headed and curve-headed. It is closely related to Devanagari, and many of the letter shapes are similar to their Devanagari equivalents. The script employs a set of digits from 0-9, many of which also look similar to the Devanagari numbers.
  There are thirty-six consonants, each representing a consonant+vowel syllable. The default vowel is [a/ə] but this can be changed by attaching one of ten vowel diacritics to the letter. Initial vowels, that is, those which are not preceded by a consonant to which they can attach, are written using independent vowel letters. Two diacritics representing nasalization of a vowel can also be attached to independent vowel letters, to consonant letters (in which case the inherent vowel is nasalized), or to consonant+vowel diacritic combinations. These diacritics are called anusvara and candrabindu. There is also a diacritic called visarga which represents a voiceless [h] after a vowel. These diacritics look similar but not identical to the symbols of the same names used by a number of other Brahmic scripts.
  This script is not currently recognized by  ISO 15924, but is included in ScriptSource for research purposes. If you have any information on this script, please add the information to the site. Your contributions can be a great help in refining and expanding the ISO 15924 standard.

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7

Writing systems that use this script

Name	Code	Is used to write language
Bengali written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Bengali [ben]
Hindi written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Hindi [hin]
Maithili written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Maithili [mai]
Nepali (macrolanguage) written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Nepali (macrolanguage) [nep]
Newari written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Newari [new]
Nepali (individual language) written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Nepali (individual language) [npi]
Sanskrit written with Prachalit (Nepali) script		Sanskrit [san]

6

Entries for this script

Entries can contain text, graphics, media, files and software. Click on the title to see full details.

Title	Subject Area
Kumari Prachalit Font	Fonts & Keyboards
Newari inscription written in the Prachalit script	Use & History
Prachalit Font	Fonts & Keyboards
Script Description	General Overview
Towards Encoding Nepal scripts in Unicode	Sources & References
Unicode Status	Symbols & Characters

0 0 6

Sources for this script

Sources are references to books, web pages, articles and other materials. Click on the source title to see full details.

Title	Type
Alphabet of the Nepalese Script	book
Nepal Lipi - Nepal Lipi	web page
Prachalit Lipi Lessons - The Newah	web page
Proposal for the Universal Character Set	academic paper
Proposal to Encode the Newar Script in ISO/IEC 10646	academic paper
Roadmapping the Scripts of Nepal	academic paper

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Needs related to this script

These are unmet needs for fonts, keyboards, other software and script information.
There are no needs currently listed for this script.