Other writing systems

Other scripts such as Gujarati, Bangla, Odia and major south Indian scripts, states
Salomon, "have been and often still are used in their proper territories for
writing Sanskrit".[266] These and many Indian scripts look different to the
untrained eye, but the differences between Indic scripts is "mostly superficial and
they share the same phonetic repertoire and systemic features", states Salomon.
[274] They all have essentially the same set of eleven to fourteen vowels and
thirty-three consonants as established by the Sanskrit language and attestable in
the Brahmi script. Further, a closer examination reveals that they all have the
similar basic graphic principles, the same varnamala (literally, "garland of
letters") alphabetic ordering following the same logical phonetic order, easing the
work of historic skilled scribes writing or reproducing Sanskrit works across the
Indian subcontinent.[275][note 31] The Sanskrit language written in some Indic
scripts exaggerate angles or round shapes, but this serves only to mask the
underlying similarities. Nagari script favours symmetry set with squared outlines
and right angles. In contrast, Sanskrit written in the Bangla script emphasizes the
acute angles while the neighbouring Odia script emphasizes rounded shapes and uses
cosmetically appealing "umbrella-like curves" above the script symbols.[277]

In the south, where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit
include the Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Grantha alphabets.