Indic Conjunct Break

Indic Conjunct Break is a character attribute that determines where a conjunct, a visual cluster of two or more consonant letters in Indic scripts, may be broken across line boundaries. It assigns each character a numeric value, typically ranging from 0 to 9, that indicates its role in forming a conjunct, such as whether it acts as a consonant, a vowel sign, or a virama (a killer stroke that removes the inherent vowel). These values help text layout engines decide if a break is allowed, prohibited, or mandatory between characters, ensuring that ligatures and clusters remain intact or split at permissible points according to script rules. For instance, a virama followed by a consonant usually disallows a break, while a break after a standalone vowel is often allowed. This property is essential for correct line wrapping in languages like Devanagari, Bengali, or Tamil, where improper breaks would produce misleading or unreadable text.