The first 11 letters are all vowels. All the vowels come in two versions in the script: full vowel and vowel sign. The vowel sign is much simpler than the full vowel. It is used when a vowel follows a consonant. If a vowel follows another vowel, or if a words starts with a vowel, the full vowel is used. There is no pronunciation differences between full vowels and vowel signs.

Then follows the velar, the palatal, the retroflex, the dental, and the labial consonants. This division indicates where in the mouth the consonants are formed. Each consonant group contains seven to nine consonants. First comes the plosive consonants in four combinations of voiceless and voiced versions.Then follows a nasal consonant. Then follow the fricative consonants in voiceless and voiced versions. In the end we have the flapped, the uvular plosive, and the semi-vowels. In all there are 40 consonants.

The vowel signs are written next to the preceding consonant. Some vowel signs are written before, some after, some below, and some above the consonant. And one vowel sign is simply not written at all: the absence of a sign is the sign itself!

If two or more consonants are following each other, then the consonants are not written in full. Instead they "melt together" and form a new symbol. Some of these symbols are easy to recognize. However, some are very different from the full versions of the consonants.

The joining of the horizontal bar, characteristic of many of its symbols, makes Devanagari text appear suspended from an imaginary line called 'danda'.

A single vertical line called 'Purn viram' is used to indicate end of phrase or end of sentence. Also, there are no spaces between words.

In modern practice, interword space and European punctuation prevail. Likewise, although Devanagari has a native set of symbols for numerals, nowadays Arabic numbers are typically used.

The virama takes the form of a small diagonal stroke placed as a subscript on a syllable. Known natively as matra, diacritic (or satellite) vowels can appear before, after, above, below or surrounding a syllable. Very often, particular combinations of matra and syllable use special ligature forms. Also, the order of consonants and vowels may not necessarily correspond to the phonetic order. In word-initial position, vowels can appear in independent form. It is assumed that a vowel follows only the last consonant. Alternatively, some conjuncts consist of vertically stacked parts. Often, particular consonant clusters can appear as special forms, also known as 'conjuncts'. In part, Devanagari (Hindi fonts) owes its complexity to its rich set of conjuncts.