In Indic scripts and scripts derived from them a consonant character carries with it an inherent vowel. The character on the top line on the slide is transcribed ‘ka’, not just ‘k’.

If you want to follow the ‘k’ sound with a different vowel, you append a vowel sign to the consonant character. This vowel sign overrides the inherent vowel with a different sound.

In Indic scripts vowel signs are all combining characters. Unlike the Arabic and Hebrew short vowels, however, some of these combining characters may also take up additional space on a line (see the example ‘kii’ on the slide). They are referred to as spacing combining characters.