It is a variant of the Devanagari script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a number of modifications to some characters.

The first phase is marked by use of Prakrit, Apabramsa and its variants such as Paisaci, Shauraseni, Magadhi and Maharashtri.

The full stop replaced the traditional vertical bar, and the colon, mostly obsolete in its Sanskritic capacity (see below), follows the European usage.

This is a relatively recent development first seen in the c. 12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, and which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script.

Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with /j/ + dot below.

Tomé Pires reported a presence of a thousand Gujaratis in Malacca (Malaysia) prior to 1512.

[8] Vowels (svara), in their conventional order, are historically grouped into "short" (hrasva) and "long" (dīrgha) classes, based on the "light" (laghu) and "heavy" (guru) syllables they create in traditional verse.

[9] Finally, a practice of using inverted mātras to represent English [æ] and [ɔ]'s has gained ground.

Consonants (vyañjana) are grouped in accordance with the traditional, linguistically based Sanskrit scheme of arrangement, which considers the usage and position of the tongue during their pronunciation.

The government of these clusters ranges from widely to narrowly applicable rules, with special exceptions within.

They are permitted under Gujarati phonology, but are written unclustered (પદત padata "position", કૂદકો kūdko "leap"), with patterns such as a-elision at work instead.

Being "primarily a system of transliteration from the Indian scripts, [and] based in turn upon Sanskrit" (cf.

IAST), these are its salient features: subscript dots for retroflex consonants; macrons for etymologically, contrastively long vowels; h denoting aspirated stops.

Finally, there are three Wikipedia-specific additions: f is used interchangeably with ph, representing the widespread realization of /pʰ/ as [f]; â and ô for novel characters ઍ [æ] and ઑ [ɔ]; ǎ for [ə]'s where elision is uncertain.