Zanabazar's square script is a horizontal Mongolian square script ( mn, Хэвтээ Дөрвөлжин бичиг, ''Khevtee Dörvöljin bichig'' or mn, Хэвтээ Дөрвөлжин Үсэг, ''Khevtee Dörvöljin Üseg''), 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 n ...

developed by the monk and scholar

Zanabazar Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar, , , "High Saint Zanabazar"; 1635–1723 (born Eshidorji) was the sixteenth '' Jebtsundamba Khutuktu'' and the first ''Bogd Gegeen'' or supreme spiritual authority, of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) lineage of Tibetan Buddhism ...

to write Mongolian. It can also be used to write Tibetan and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. It was re-discovered in 1801 and the script's applications during the period of its use are not known. It was also largely based on the

Tibetan alphabet The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages ...

, read left to right, and employed vowel diacritics above and below the consonant letters.

Letters

Vowels

Consonants

Others

Unicode

"Zanabazar Square" has been included in the

Unicode Standard 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, whic ...

since the release of Unicode version 10.0 in June 2017. The Zanabazar Square block contains 72 characters. The Unicode block for Zanabazar Square is U+11A00–U+11A4F:

Reference

External links

BabelStone Fonts for Zanabazar
{{List of writing systems Brahmic scripts Mongolian writing systems Obsolete writing systems