Odia (Oriya)

Official script of Odisha, India, used by ~35 million people. Unlike Devanagari, letters are topped with curved arcs rather than a horizontal line. The rounded forms developed from palm-leaf writing tradition, where straight lines would tear the material. Odisha is home to the Rath Yatra chariot festival — one of Hinduism's largest — and preserves rich ancient Sanskrit manuscripts in this script.