names of parts of devanaagarii letters

[Guest guest]

Dear list:

 

Can anyone help me with the following: what are the names of the three

parts of the devanaagarii letter, the horizontal topstroke, the vertical

right-hand sidestroke, and the distinctive element of the letter? I think

the vertical bar is called the daNDa? Also, what are the names of the two

styles of script, the one with the continuous topstroke joining all the

letters, and the other style in which each letter has its own topstroke,

separate and unjoined to the other topstrokes? I have seen the latter

style, with unjoined topstrokes, in many old manuscripts, more often, in

fact (I think) than the style with continuous topstroke that seems to be

used in writing contemporary Hindi, and also by all the Sanskritists I

have met. I learned from Michael Coulson's _Teach Yourself Sanskrit_ to

write devanaagari with broken topstroke, but that seems to set me apart.

 

P. Ernest

[Guest guest]

phillip.ernest wrote:

 

> Can anyone help me with the following: what are the names of the

three

> parts of the devanaagarii letter, the horizontal topstroke, the

vertical

> right-hand sidestroke, and the distinctive element of the letter?

I think

> the vertical bar is called the daNDa?

 

I think the horizontal line is sometimes called the shiro-rekhaa or

muu.Daa.

 

Originally there were no topstrokes in Brahmi. It arose from the use

of serif-like strokes.

 

I think the old convention was to have separate topstrokes (as you

observe). Continuous topstroke is a shortcut convention used for

faster writing, now nearly universal for devanagari.

 

You are doing it the old-fashioned way, but that is fine.

 

 

Yashwant

 

>I have seen the latter

> style, with unjoined topstrokes, in many old manuscripts, more

often, in

> fact (I think) than the style with continuous topstroke that seems

to be

> used in writing contemporary Hindi, and also by all the

Sanskritists I

> have met. I learned from Michael Coulson's _Teach Yourself

Sanskrit_ to

> write devanaagari with broken topstroke, but that seems to set me

apart.