Characteristics of the Bengali text Bengali alphabet

an example of handwritten bengali script. part of poem written nobel laureate rabindranath tagore in 1926 in hungary.

bengali text written , read horizontally, left right. consonant graphemes , full form of vowel graphemes fit imaginary rectangle of uniform size (uniform width , height). size of consonant conjunct, regardless of complexity, deliberately maintained same of single consonant grapheme, diacritic vowel forms can attached without distortion. in typical bengali text, orthographic words, words written, can seen being separated each other spacing. graphemes within word evenly spaced, spacing narrower spacing between words.

unlike in western scripts (latin, cyrillic, etc.) letter-forms stand on invisible baseline, bengali letter-forms instead hang visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra. presence , absence of matra can important. example, letter ত tô , numeral ৩ 3 distinguishable presence or absence of matra, case between consonant cluster ত্র trô , independent vowel এ e. letter-forms employ concepts of letter-width , letter-height (the vertical space between visible matra , invisible baseline).

according bengali linguist munier chowdhury, there 9 graphemes frequent in bengali texts, shown percentage of appearance in table on right.