Devanagari ( /ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡəriː/; ; देवनागरी Devanāgarī — a compound of "deva" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari (Nāgarī, नागरी, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, does not have distinct letter cases, and is recognizable (along with most other North Indic scripts, with few exceptions like Gujarati and Oriya) by a horizontal line that runs along the top of full letters. Devanāgarī is the main script used to write Standard Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. Since the 19th century, it has been the most commonly used script for Sanskrit. Devanāgarī is also employed for Bhojpuri, Gujari, Pahari, (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Konkani, Magahi, Maithili, Marwari, Bhili, Newari, Santhali, Tharu, and sometimes Sindhi, Dogri, Sherpa and by Kashmiri-speaking Hindus. It was formerly used to write Gujarati. Because of its use to write the Hindi language, Devanagari is one of the most used and adopted writing systems in the world.