Abugida

An abugida is a segmental writing system in which consonant letters carry an inherent vowel, modified or suppressed by vowel marks or other signs.

Inherent vowel: A vowel understood as part of a consonant character unless a sign changes or removes it. It is the default vowel carried by consonant letters in an abugida.
Devanagari: A script used for Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other languages of South Asia. Its consonants carry an inherent vowel, altered by vowel signs or suppressed by virama.
Alphabet: A writing system whose letters represent consonants and vowels as separate segments. Unlike an abugida, an alphabet does not normally attach an inherent vowel to consonant letters.
Brahmi script: An ancient South Asian script from which many later scripts of South and Southeast Asia descend. Brahmi is an early source for numerous scripts that developed abugida structures.
Writing system: A conventional set of visual signs and rules used to represent language. An abugida is one structural type within the broader class of writing systems.
Diacritic: A mark added to a letter to alter its pronunciation or distinguish it from another letter. Vowel diacritics commonly modify the inherent vowel without replacing the consonant letter.
Geʽez script: An Ethiopic script used for languages including Geʽez and Amharic. Its consonant characters have distinct forms for different following vowels.
Abjad: A writing system that primarily represents consonants, often leaving vowels unwritten or optional. An abjad generally lacks the obligatory inherent vowel characteristic of an abugida.
Phoenician alphabet: An ancient consonantal alphabet that influenced several writing systems around the Mediterranean and beyond. Its history provides a contrast to the separate South Asian development of consonant-based vowel marking.
Grapheme: A minimal unit of a writing system that distinguishes written forms or meanings. Consonant letters and vowel marks function as graphemic units within an abugida.

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