Bengali Alphabet

The Bengali alphabet evolved from the  Siddhamatrika 11580–115C9 script, making it a descendant of the  Brahmi 11000–1104D script. It actually resembles the  Devanagari 0915–0945 script, but they began to differentiate in the 11th century. The modern form of the Bengali alphabet first appeared in print in 1778, thanks to Charles Wilkins. In the 19th century, some outdated letters were modernized.

In general, this alphabet is used for writing the Bengali, Assamese, Sanskrit, and Meitei languages. Today, the Bengali alphabet is the sixth most widely used script in the world and is primarily met in Eastern India. Some refer to it as Eastern Nagari.

The Bengali alphabet is an abugida, like most Indian scripts. It means that each character represents a syllable consisting of a consonant and the inherent vowel . Consonants with other vowels or without vowels are indicated by adding diacritical marks. Bengali letters are written from left to right and are also marked with a horizontal line on top, similar to Devanagari.