Anusvara (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
: ') is a symbol used in many
Indic scripts
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
to mark a type of
nasal sound
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
, typically transliterated . Depending on its location in the word and the language for which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary. In the context of ancient
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, ''anusvara'' is the name of the particular nasal sound itself, regardless of written representation.
Sanskrit
In
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
, the anusvāra (lit. "after-sound" or "subordinate sound") was an
allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
(derived) nasal sound.
The exact nature of the sound has been subject to debate. The material in the various
ancient phonetic treatises points towards different phonetic interpretations, and these discrepancies have historically been attributed to either differences in the description of the same pronunciation or to dialectal or diachronic variation. In a 2013 reappraisal of the evidence, Cardona concludes that these reflect real dialectal differences.
The environments in which the anusvara could arise, however, were well defined. In the earliest
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
, it was an allophone of /m/ at a
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
boundary, or of /n/ within morphemes, when it was preceded by a vowel and followed by a
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
(). In later Sanskrit its use expanded to other contexts, first before /r/ under certain conditions, then, in
Classical Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, before and . Later still, gave anusvara as an alternative pronunciation in word-final
sandhi
Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
, and later treatises also prescribed it at morpheme junctions and within morphemes. In the later written language, the diacritic used to represent anusvara was optionally used to indicate a
nasal stop
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
having the same
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
as a following
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
.
Devanagari script
In the
Devanagari script
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the a ...
, anusvara is represented with a
dot (''bindu'') above the letter (e.g.
मं). In the
International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...
(IAST), the corresponding symbol is ṃ (''m'' with an
underdot
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the ''interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ )
which may be combined with some letters of th ...
). Some transcriptions render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedic
shakha
A shakha (Sanskrit ', "branch" or "limb") is a Hindu theological school that specializes in learning certain Vedic texts, or else the traditional texts followed by such a school.V. S. Apte. A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 913, left column.Moni ...
s with variant transcription (ṁ).
In writing Sanskrit, the anusvara is often used as an alternative representation of the nasal stop with the same place of articulation as the following plosive. For example, 'limb (of the body)' may be written with either a conjunct, अङ्ग ''aṅga'', or with an anusvara, अंग ''aṃga''. A variant of the anusvara, the
anunāsika
Anusvara (Sanskrit: ') is a symbol used in many Indic scripts to mark a type of nasal sound, typically transliterated . Depending on its location in the word and the language for which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary. In the context ...
or 'candrabindu', was used more explicitly for nasalized vowels, as in अँश ''aṃśa'' for 'portion'.
[William Bright, "The Devanagari Script", in Daniels & Bright, ''The World's Writing Systems'', OUP, 1996.]
Hindi
In
Standard Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, the is traditionally defined as representing a nasal consonant
homorganic
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...
to a following
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
, in contrast to the (), which indicates
vowel nasalization
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
. In practice, however, the two are often used interchangeably.
The precise phonetic value of the phoneme, whether it is represented by or , is dependent on the phonological environment.
Word-finally it is realized as nasalization of the preceding vowel: ' , "a well". It results in vowel nasalization also medially between a short vowel and a non-
obstruent
An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...
(' "a youth", ' "a long-handled axe") and, in native words, between a long vowel and a voiceless plosive (' "tooth", ' "a snake", ' "tail").
It is pronounced as a homorganic nasal, with the preceding vowel becoming nasalized
allophonically, in the following cases: between a long vowel and a voiced plosive (' "copper", ' "silver"), between a long vowel and a voiceless plosive in loanwords (' "repressed", ' "a bank", ' "cashier"), and between a short vowel and an obstruent (' "to support", ' "a chest").
The last rule has two sets of exceptions where the only results in nasalization of the preceding short vowel. Words from the first set are morphologically derived from words with a long nasalized vowel (' , "to be divided" from ' , "to divide"; ' , "irrigation" from ' , "to irrigate"). In such cases, the vowel is sometimes denasalized (, instead of , ). The second set is composed of a few words like ''('' , "to arrive" and ' , "to laugh").
[ lists five more such words: ' "to sink", ' "to be stuck", ' "a necklace", ' "a sickle" and ' "laughter".]
Marathi
In
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
the anusvara is pronounced as a
nasal that is
homorganic
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...
to the following consonant (with the same
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
). For example, it is pronounced as the
dental nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
न् before
dental consonant
A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental c ...
s, as the
bilabial nasal
The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in ...
म् before
bilabial consonants
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingi ...
, etc.
Unlike in other Indic languages, in Marathi the same dot designating anusvara is also used to mark a retension of the inherent vowel (it is placed over a consonant after which the short central vowel is to be pronounced and not elided).
Nepali
In
Nepali, chandrabindu and anusvara have the same pronunciation similarly to Hindi. Therefore, there is a great deal of variation regarding which occurs in any given position. Many words containing anusvara thus have alternative spellings with
chandrabindu instead of anusvara and vice versa.
Other Indic script languages
Anusvara is used in other languages using
Indic scripts
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
as well, usually to represent suprasegmental phones (such as
phonation
The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...
type or nasalization) or other nasal sounds.
Bengali
![Bengali Letter Anusvara](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Bengali_Letter_Anusvara.svg)
In the
Bengali script
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
, the anusvara diacritic () is written as a circle above a slanted line (
ং), and represents . It is used in the name of the Bengali language
বাংলা . It has merged in pronunciation with the letter
ঙ ''uṅô'' in Bengali. Although the anusvara is a consonant in
Bengali phonology
The phonology of Bengali language, Bengali, like that of its neighbouring Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, is characterised by a wide variety of diphthongs and inherent vowel, inherent back vowels (both and ).
Phonemic inventory
Phoneme, Phonemic ...
, it is nevertheless treated in the written system as a diacritic in that it is always directly adjacent to the preceding consonant, even when consonants are spaced, apart in titles or banners:
বাং-লা-দে-শ ''baṅ-la-de-ś'', not
বা-ং-লা-দে-শ ''ba-ṅ-la-de-ś'' for
বাংলাদেশ ''
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
''. It is never pronounced with the inherent vowel ‘ô’, and it cannot take a vowel sign (instead, the consonant
ঙ ''uṅô'' is used pre-vocalically).
Burmese
In the
Burmese script
Burmese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia
* Burmese people
* Burmese language
* Burmese alphabet
* Burmese cuisine
* Burmese culture
Animals
* Burmese cat
* Burmese chicken
* Burmese (horse), a ...
, the anusvara ( ''auk myit'' (့) ) is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate a
creaky tone (with a shortened vowel). Burmese also uses a dot above to indicate the nasalized ending (called "Myanmar Sign Anusvara" in Unicode), called ''thay thay tin'' () (ံ)
Sinhala
In the
Sinhala script
The Sinhala script ( si, සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව, Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva), also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write ...
, the anusvara is not a nonspacing combining mark but a spacing combining mark. It has circular shape and follows its base letter ( ං). It is called in
Sinhala, which means "dot". The anusvara represents at the end of a syllable. It is used in fact, in the name of the
Sinhala language
Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 milli ...
සිංහල . It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ඞ ṅa in Sinhala.
Telugu
The
Telugu script
Telugu script ( te, తెలుగు లిపి, Telugu lipi), an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language, a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well a ...
has full-zero (sunna) ం , half-zero (arasunna) and ''visarga'' to convey various shades of nasal sounds. Anusvara is represented as a circle shape after a letter:
క - ka and కం - kam.
Thai
The equivalent of the anusvara in the
Thai alphabet
The Thai script ( th, อักษรไทย, ) is the abugida used to write Thai, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai alphabet itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols ( th, พยัญชน ...
is the
''nikkhahit'' (◌ํ), which is used when rendering Sanskrit and
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...
texts. It is written as an open circle above the consonant (for example ) and its pronunciation depends on the following sound: if it is a consonant then the nikkhahit is pronounced as a homorganic nasal, and if it is at the end of a word it is pronounced as the
Voiced velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
.
Anunasika
Anunasika (') is a form of
vowel nasalization
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
, often represented by an anusvara. It is a form of open mouthed nasalization, akin to the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or "m" in Parisian
French. When "n" or "m" follow a vowel, the "n" or "m" becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasal (pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part or all of the air to leave through the nostrils). Anunasika is sometimes called a ''subdot'' because of its
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...
representation.
In
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
and related orthographies, it is represented by the
chandrabindu diacritic (''example'': माँ).
In
Burmese, the anunasika, called () and represented as , creates the nasalized ending when it is attached as a dot above a letter. The anunasika represents the -m final in Pali.
Unicode
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
encodes anusvara and anusvara-like characters for a variety of scripts:
See also
*
Chandrabindu
*
Tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
*
Ogonek
The (; Polish: , "little tail", diminutive of ) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages. It i ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{Navbox diacritical marks
Brahmic diacritics
Sanskrit