Conjunct consonants are a type of letters, used for example in Brahmi or Brahmi derived modern scripts such as Balinese, Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Tibetan, Dzongkha etc to write consonant clusters such as /pr/ or /rv/. Although most of the time, letters are formed by using a simple consonant with the inherent value vowel "a" (as with "k"
, pronounced "ka" in Brahmi), or by combining a consonant with an vowel in the form of a diacritic (as with "ki"
in Brahmi), the usage of conjunct consonant permits the creation of more sophisticated sounds (as with "kya"
, formed with the consonants k
and y
assembled vertically). Conjuncts are often used with loan words. Native words typically use the basic consonant and native speakers know to suppress the vowel.
In modern Devanagari the components of a conjunct are written left to right when possible (when the first consonant has a vertical stem that can be removed at the right), whereas in Brahmi characters are joined vertically downwards.