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Warang Citi (also written Varang Kshiti or Barang Kshiti; , IPA: /wɐrɐŋ ʧɪt̪ɪ/) is a writing system invented by Lako Bodra for the
Warang Citi uses its own set of numerals. The digits are used in modern writing, whereas signs for numbers above 9 are falling into disuse.
Ho language
Ho () is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily in India by about 1.04 million people (0.103% of India's population) per the 2001 census. Ho is a tribal language. It is spoken by the Ho, Munda, Kolha and ...
spoken in East India
East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha
and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magad ...
. It is used in primary and adult education and in various publications.
It has mainly gained acceptance among the easternmost group of speakers, and is more prevalent among those who have been educated in it. Many other speakers prefer oral transmission of knowledge, Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
, or Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, but Warang Citi holds prestige among many Ho speakers.
History
Community leader Bodra invented it as an alternative to the writing systems devised by Christian missionaries. He claims that the alphabet was invented in the 13th century by Deowan Turi, and that it was rediscovered in a shamanistic vision and modernized by Lako Bodra.
Characters
It is written fromleft to right
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable f ...
in horizontal lines.
Warang Citi is quite distinct from other writing systems of India, and it has features of an abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel no ...
and an alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
. As in Brahmic abugidas
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
, consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
letters have an inherent vowel, usually /a/ or /ɔ/
The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c'' a ...
but sometimes /ɛ/
The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is a Latinized variant of the Greek lower ...
. The inherent vowel is not pronounced at the end of the word. Unlike in Brahmic abugidas, and more like in an alphabet, the full vowel letters are always written after the consonant, letters usually don't form ligatures, and there is no virama
Virama ( ्) is a Sanskrit phonological concept to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter, commonly used as a generic term for a codepoint in Unicode, representing either
# halanta, hasanta or explicit vir� ...
character.
It follows capitalization rules as are done in English and follows English punctuation. There are few ligatures that combine to form new sounds, and there are conjunct consonants that are used as well by stacking in some cases.
The script begins with the letter Ong, which corresponds to Om in other Brahmic scripts. It has 32 letters in total with capital and small letters.
Warang Citi uses its own set of numerals. The digits are used in modern writing, whereas signs for numbers above 9 are falling into disuse.
Unicode
Warang Citi was added to theUnicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block for Warang Citi is U+118A0–U+118FF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:
References