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Shirorekha

Definition

The horizontal headline stroke at the top of most Devanagari consonant characters, joining adjacent letters; its individual variation in height, pressure, continuity, and terminal treatment is the primary individualising feature in Hindi/Marathi/Nepali handwriting examination.

Related terms

Abjad
A script system representing only consonants, with vowels supplied by context; Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu are abjads. Most individualising forensic features lie...
Abugida (Alphasyllabary)
A script system in which consonant characters carry inherent vowels modified by diacritical marks; Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, and Thai are abugidas.
Alphabet
A script system in which individual characters represent individual phonemes; Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Korean Hangul are alphabets.
Class Characteristics
Features deliberately or systematically imparted to a group of items by design or manufacture, such as the calibre of a bullet, the...
Cross-Script Disguise
An attempt by a writer to imitate a script system in which they are not fluent, typically to mislead investigators about linguistic...
Logograph
A script system representing morphemes or syllables with complex characters; Chinese Hanzi and Japanese Kanji are logographic, with character stroke order as...
Nuqat
The diacritical dots in Arabic script that distinguish letter pairs (b/t/th, n/y, etc.); in fluent adult writing, multi-dot groups are often merged...
OSAC (NIST)
Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science under the US National Institute of Standards and Technology; the successor body to SWGDOC,...
Stroke Order
The canonical sequence of strokes within a CJK character, specified by national pedagogical standards (GB/T 15834 in China, Joyo Kanji conventions in...

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