Devanagari (/ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡəri/DAY-və-NAH-gər-ee; देवनागरी, IAST: Devanāgarī, Sanskrit pronunciation: [deːʋɐˈnaːɡɐɽiː]), also called Nagari (Nāgarī, नागरी),[5] is a left-to-right abugida (alphasyllabary), based on the ancient Brāhmī script, used in the Indian subcontinent. It was developed in ancient India from the 1st to the 4th century CE and was in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanagari script, composed of 47 primary characters including 14 vowels and 33 consonants, is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages. Script Features and Description, SIL International (2013), United States</ref> The ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters.
^Isaac Taylor (1883), History of the Alphabet: Aryan Alphabets, Part 2, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, p. 333, ISBN978-0-7661-5847-4, ... In the Kutila this develops into a short horizontal bar, which, in the Devanagari, becomes a continuous horizontal line ... three cardinal inscriptions of this epoch, namely, the Kutila or Bareli inscription of 992, the Chalukya or Kistna inscription of 945, and a Kawi inscription of 919 ... the Kutila inscription is of great importance in Indian epigraphy, not only from its precise date, but from its offering a definite early form of the standard Indian alphabet, the Devanagari ...
^Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages. South Asia research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 39–41. ISBN978-0-19-509984-3.
^Daniels, P.T. (January 2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 143.
^Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, ISBN978-1615301492, page 83