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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 An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...
(a type of segmental
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...
), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī'' script, used in the northern
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
. It was developed and in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanagari script, composed of 47 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 33 consonants, is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages.Devanagari (Nagari)
, Script Features and Description, SIL International (2013), United States
The
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
of this script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of
letter case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
. It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line, known as a ''shirorekhā'', that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanagari script appears different from other Indic scripts such as Bengali-Assamese, or
Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly ...
, but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis. Among the languages using it – either as their only script or as one of their scripts – are Marathi,
Pāḷi 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'' Buddhis ...
,
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 ...
(the ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters),
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 ...
,
Boro __NOTOC__ Boro may refer to: People * Boro people, indigenous peoples of Amazonas, Brazil * A variant spelling for the Bodo people of northeast India * Charan Boro, Indian politician * Isaac Adaka Boro, a celebrated Niger Delta nationalist and Nig ...
, Nepali,
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to: Ethnography * Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal * Sherpa language Organizations and companies * Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility * ...
,
Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...
, Apabhramsha,
Awadhi Awadhi (; ), also known as Audhi (), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in northern India and Nepal. It is primarily spoken in the Awadh region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. The name ''Awadh'' is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city ...
, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Chhattisgarhi,
Haryanvi Haryanvi ( ' or '), also known as Bangru, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the state of Haryana in India, and to a lesser extent in Delhi. Haryanvi is considered to be part of the dialect group of Western Hindi, which also includes Kharib ...
,
Magahi The Magahi language (), also known as Magadhi (), is a language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives. ...
, Nagpuri, Rajasthani, Bhili,
Dogri Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Prad ...
,
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
, Konkani, Sindhi,
Nepal Bhasa Newar (), or Newari and known officially in Nepal as Nepal Bhasa, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Newar people, the indigenous inhabitants of Nepal Mandala, which consists of the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions in Nepa ...
, Mundari, and Santali. The Devanagari script is closely related to the
Nandinagari Nandinagari is a Brahmic script derived from the Nāgarī script which appeared in the 7th century AD.George Cardona and Danesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, , page 75 This script and its variants were used in the central Dec ...
script commonly found in numerous ancient manuscripts of
South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...
, and it is distantly related to a number of southeast Asian scripts.


Etymology

''Devanagari'' is a compound of " ''deva''" () and " ''nāgarī''" (). ''Deva'' means "heavenly or divine" and is also one of the terms for a deity in
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
.Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary” Etymologically and Philologically Arranged to cognate Indo-European Languages, Motilal Banarsidass, page 492 '' Nagari'' comes from (''nagaram'') a Sanskrit word which means town. Hence, ''Devanagari'' denotes ''from the abode of divinity or deities''. ' is the Sanskrit feminine of ' "relating or belonging to a town or city, urban". It is a phrasing with ''lipi'' ("script") as ' "script relating to a city", or "spoken in city". Devanagari Script known as 'Script of the divine city' came from Devanagara or the 'city of the god'. And hence interpret it as " cript ofthe city of the gods". The use of the name ' emerged from the older term '. According to Fischer, Nagari emerged in the northwest Indian subcontinent around 633 CE, was fully developed by the 11th-century, and was one of the major scripts used for the Sanskrit literature.


History

Devanagari is part of the
Brahmic family 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 ...
of scripts of
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
,
Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
, and
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
. It is a descendant of the 3rd century BCE
Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
, which evolved into the
Nagari script Nagari may refer to: Writing systems * Nāgarī script, a script used in India during the first millennium * Devanagari, a script used since the late first millennium and currently in widespread use for the languages of northern India * Nandinag ...
which in turn gave birth to Devanagari and
Nandinagari Nandinagari is a Brahmic script derived from the Nāgarī script which appeared in the 7th century AD.George Cardona and Danesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, , page 75 This script and its variants were used in the central Dec ...
. Devanagari has been widely adopted across India and Nepal to write
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 ...
, Marathi,
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 ...
,
Central Indo-Aryan languages The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties Spoken across North India and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the ...
, Konkani,
Boro __NOTOC__ Boro may refer to: People * Boro people, indigenous peoples of Amazonas, Brazil * A variant spelling for the Bodo people of northeast India * Charan Boro, Indian politician * Isaac Adaka Boro, a celebrated Niger Delta nationalist and Nig ...
, and various Nepalese languages. Some of the earliest epigraphical evidence attesting to the developing
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 ...
Nagari script Nagari may refer to: Writing systems * Nāgarī script, a script used in India during the first millennium * Devanagari, a script used since the late first millennium and currently in widespread use for the languages of northern India * Nandinag ...
in ancient India is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
., Rudradaman’s inscription from 1st through 4th century CE found in Gujarat, India, Stanford University Archives, pages 30–45, particularly Devanagari inscription on Jayadaman's coins pages 33–34 Variants of script called ''Nāgarī'', recognisably close to Devanagari, are first attested from the 1st century CE Rudradaman inscriptions in Sanskrit, while the modern standardised form of Devanagari was in use by about 1000 CE.Richard Salomon (2014), Indian Epigraphy, Oxford University Press, , pages 40–42 Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of the Nagari-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nagari scripts. For example, the mid 8th-century Pattadakal pillar in
Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
has text in both Siddha Matrika script, and an early
Telugu-Kannada The Kannada–Telugu script (or Telugu–kannada script) was a writing system used in Southern India. Despite some differences, the scripts used for the Kannada and Telugu languages remain quite similar and highly mutually intelligible. Histor ...
script; while, the Kangra
Jawalamukhi Jawalamukhi, also Jawalaji, is a Shakti Pitha town and a nagar parishad in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Hindu genealogy registers are kept here like that of Haridwar. The Hindi word 'Jwalamukhi' literally means 'Volc ...
inscription in
Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
is written in both Sharada and Devanagari scripts.Richard Salomon (2014), Indian Epigraphy, Oxford University Press, , page 71 The Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE, and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium. The use of Sanskrit in Nagari script in medieval India is attested by numerous pillar and cave temple inscriptions, including the 11th-century Udayagiri inscriptions in
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...
, and an inscribed brick found in
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, dated to be from 1217 CE, which is now held at the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. The script's proto- and related versions have been discovered in ancient relics outside of India, such as in Sri Lanka,
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
; while in East Asia, ''Siddha Matrika'' script considered as the closest precursor to Nagari was in use by Buddhists. Nagari has been the '' primus inter pares'' of the Indic scripts.George Cardona and Danesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, , pages 75–77 It has long been used traditionally by religiously educated people in
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...
to record and transmit information, existing throughout the land in parallel with a wide variety of local scripts (such as
Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
,
Kaithi Kaithi (), also called Kayathi () or Kayasthi (), is a historical Brahmic script that was used widely in parts of Northern and Eastern India, primarily in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In particular, it was us ...
, and Mahajani) used for administration, commerce, and other daily uses. Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. An early version of Devanagari is visible in the
Kutila inscription of Bareilly The Kutila inscription of Bareilly is an inscription in the Kutila script (कुटिल लिपि) dating to 992 CE that provides crucial evidence in tracing the shared descent of the Devanagari and Bengali-Assamese scripts of Northern a ...
dated to
Vikram Samvat Vikram Samvat (IAST: ''Vikrama Samvat''; abbreviated VS) or Bikram Sambat B.S. and also known as the Vikrami calendar, is a Hindu calendar historically used in the Indian subcontinent. Vikram Samvat is generally 57 years ahead of Gregorian Calend ...
1049 (i.e. 992 CE), which demonstrates the emergence of the horizontal bar to group letters belonging to a word. One of the oldest surviving Sanskrit texts from the early post-
Maurya The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until 1 ...
period consists of 1,413 Nagari pages of a commentary by Patanjali, with a composition date of about 150 BCE, the surviving copy transcribed about 14th century CE.


East Asia

In the 7th century, under the rule of
Songtsen Gampo Songtsen Gampo (; 569–649? 650), also Songzan Ganbu (), was the 33rd Tibetan king and founder of the Tibetan Empire, and is traditionally credited with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, influenced by his Nepali consort Bhrikuti, of Nepa ...
of the
Tibetan Empire The Tibetan Empire (, ; ) was an empire centered on the Tibetan Plateau, formed as a result of imperial expansion under the Yarlung dynasty heralded by its 33rd king, Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century. The empire further expanded under the 3 ...
,
Thonmi Sambhota Thonmi Sambhota (Thönmi Sambhoṭa, aka Tonmi Sambhodha;, Tib. , Wyl. thon mi sam+b+ho Ta; b. seventh cent.) is traditionally regarded as the inventor of the Tibetan script and author of the ''Sum cu pa'' and ''Rtags kyi 'jug pa'' in the 7th cen ...
was sent to Nepal to open marriage negotiations with a
Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
i princess and to find a writing system suitable for the
Tibetan language Tibetan language may refer to: * Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard * Lhasa Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dialect * Any of the other Tibetic languages See also * Old Tibetan, the languag ...
. Thus he invented the
Tibetan script The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic langua ...
, based on the Nagari used in Kashmir. He added 6 new characters for sounds that did not exist in Sanskrit. Other scripts closely related to Nagari such as Siddham Matrka were in use in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and other parts of East Asia by the 7th to 10th centuries.Richard Salomon (2014), Indian Epigraphy, Oxford University Press, , pages 157–160 Most of the southeast Asian scripts have roots in the Dravidian scripts, except for a few found in south-central regions of Java and isolated parts of southeast Asia that resemble Devanagari or its prototype. The
Kawi script The Kawi or or Old Javanese script is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century.Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah 2020Proposal to encode Kawi/ ...
in particular is similar to the Devanagari in many respects though the morphology of the script has local changes. The earliest inscriptions in the Devanagari-like scripts are from around the 10th century, with many more between 11th and 14th centuries. Some of the old-Devanagari inscriptions are found in Hindu temples of Java, such as the
Prambanan Prambanan ( id, Candi Prambanan, jv, ꦫꦫꦗꦺꦴꦁꦒꦿꦁ, Rara Jonggrang) is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound in Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, dedicated to the Trimūrti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the P ...
temple. The Ligor and the Kalasan inscriptions of central Java, dated to the 8th century, are also in the Nagari script of North India. According to the epigraphist and Asian Studies scholar Lawrence Briggs, these may be related to the 9th-century copper plate inscription of Devapaladeva (Bengal) which is also in early Devanagari script. The term Kawi in Kawi script is a loan word from ''Kavya'' (poetry). According to anthropologists and Asian studies scholars John Norman Miksic and Goh Geok Yian, the 8th-century version of early Nagari or Devanagari script was adopted in Java, Bali (Indonesia), and Khmer (
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
) around 8th or 9th centuries, as evidenced by the many inscriptions of this period.


Letters

The letter order of Devanagari, like nearly all Brahmic scripts, is based on
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
principles that consider both the manner and
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 ...
of the consonants and vowels they represent. This arrangement is usually referred to as the ' "
garland A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance. Etymology From the ...
of letters". The format of Devanagari for Sanskrit serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages.


Vowels

The vowels and their arrangement are: # Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s, the final nasal ''
anusvāra 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 ...
'' ' and the final
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 ...
''
visarga Visarga ( sa, विसर्गः, translit=visargaḥ) means "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology ('' ''), ' (also called, equivalently, ' by earlier grammarians) is the name of a phone voiceless glottal fricative, , written as: ...
'' ' (called ' and '').'' notes of the ''anusvāra'' in Sanskrit that "there is some controversy as to whether it represents a homorganic nasal stop .. a
nasalised vowel 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 ...
, a nasalised semivowel, or all these according to context". The ''visarga'' represents post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative , in Sanskrit an
allophone 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 '' ...
of '','' or less commonly '','' usually in word-final position. Some traditions of recitation append an echo of the
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
after the breath: . considers the ''visarga'' along with letters ' and ' for the "largely predictable"
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
and palatal nasals to be examples of "phonetic overkill in the system". # Another diacritic is the ''
candrabindu Chandrabindu ( IAST: , in Sanskrit) is a diacritic sign with the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari (ँ), Bengali-Assamese (), Gujarati (ઁ), Odia (ଁ), Telugu (ఁ), Javanese ( ꦀ) and other ...
''/''
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 ...
'' . describes it as a "more emphatic form" of the '','' "sometimes ..used to mark a true
owel OWEL is an alternative indie rock band formed in Woodbridge, NJ in late 2012. The band currently consists of Jay Sakong (lead vocal, guitar, keys), Nunzio Moudatsos (bass, vocals), Seamus O'Connor (guitar, keys, vocals), Jane Park (violin, viola ...
nasalization". In a New Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is formal: the ' indicates vowel nasalisation while the ' indicates a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant: e.g., " laughter", "the
Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
". When an ''akṣara'' has a vowel diacritic above the top line, that leaves no room for the ''candra'' ("moon") stroke ''candrabindu,'' which is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot: "am", but "are". Some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations. # The ''
avagraha Avagraha () is a symbol used to indicate prodelision of an ''()'' in many Indian languages like Sanskrit as shown below. It is usually transliterated with an apostrophe in Roman script and, in case of Devanagari, as in the Sanskrit philosophical ...
'' (usually
transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit
punctuation mark Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...
for the elision of a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
in
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 ...
: ' ( ← ' + ') "this one". An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double ''avagraha:'' ' ( ← ' + ') "always, the self". In Hindi, states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout": '. In Madhyadeshi Languages like Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili, etc. which have "quite a number of
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
al forms
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
end in that inherent vowel", the ''avagraha'' is used to mark the ''non-''elision of word-final inherent ''a'', which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: ' "sit" versus ' # The syllabic consonants ' (), '','' () and ' () are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the ' of other languages. The sound represented by ' has also been lost in the modern languages, and its pronunciation now ranges from (Hindi) to (Marathi). # ' is not an actual
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
of Sanskrit, but rather a graphic convention included among the vowels in order to maintain the symmetry of short–long pairs of letters. # There are non-regular formations of ''ru'', ''rū'', and ''hṛ''. # There are two more vowels in Marathi, and , that respectively represent [], similar to the received pronunciation, RP English pronunciation of in ‘act’, and [], similar to the RP pronunciation of in ‘cot’. These vowels are sometimes used in
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 ...
too, as in ''dôlar'', "dollar". IAST transliteration is not defined. In ISO 15919, the transliteration is ê and ô, respectively.


Consonants

The table below shows the consonant letters (in combination with
inherent vowel An inherent vowel is part of an abugida (or alphasyllabary) script. It is a vowel sound which is used with each unmarked or basic consonant symbol. For example, if the Latin alphabet used 'i' as an inherent vowel, "Wikipedia" could be rendered as "W ...
''a'') and their arrangement. To the right of the Devanagari letter it shows the Latin script transliteration using
International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration 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 ...
, and the phonetic value ( IPA) in
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 ...
. * Additionally, there is ' ( IPA: or ), the intervocalic
lateral flap A lateral flap is a family of consonantal sounds, used in some spoken languages. There are four attested or claimed lateral flaps in the world's languages: * The alveolar lateral flap is quite common. *A retroflex lateral flap () is found throu ...
allophone of the
voiced retroflex stop The voiced retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. Like all the retroflex ...
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 ...
, which is a
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
in languages such as Marathi, Konkani,
Garhwali Garhwali may refer to: * Garhwali people, an ethno-linguistic group who live in northern India * Garhwali language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by Garhwali people * anything from or related to: **Garhwal division, a region in state of Uttarakhan ...
, and Rajasthani. * Beyond the Sanskritic set, new shapes have rarely been formulated. offers the following, "In any case, according to some, all possible sounds had already been described and provided for in this system, as Sanskrit was the original and perfect language. Hence it was difficult to provide for or even to conceive ''other'' sounds, unknown to the
phonetician Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
s of Sanskrit". Where foreign borrowings and internal developments did inevitably accrue and arise in New Indo-Aryan languages, they have been ignored in writing, or dealt through means such as
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s and ligatures (ignored in recitation). ** The most prolific diacritic has been the subscript dot ('' nuqtā'') .
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 ...
uses it for the
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and English sounds ''qa'' /q/, ''xa'' /x/, ''ġa'' /ɣ/, ''za'' /z/, ''zha'' /ʒ/, and ''fa'' /f/, and for the
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 '' ...
developments ' /ɽ/ and ' /ɽʱ/. (Although ' could also exist, it is not used in Hindi.) ** Sindhi's and Saraiki's
implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Ro ...
s are accommodated with a line attached below: , , , . ** Aspirated sonorants may be represented as conjuncts/ ligatures with ''ha'': ''mha'', ''nha'', ', ''vha'', ''lha'', ', ''rha''. ** notes Marwari as using for ' (while represents ). For a list of the 297 (33×9) possible Sanskrit consonant-(short) vowel syllables see
Āryabhaṭa numeration Āryabhaṭa numeration is an alphasyllabic numeral system based on Shiksha, Sanskrit phonemes. It was introduced in the early 6th century in India by Āryabhaṭa, in the first chapter titled ''Gītika Padam'' of his ''Aryabhatiya''. It attr ...
.


Vowel diacritics

Table: Consonants with vowel diacritics. Vowels in their independent form on the top and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant '' on the bottom. '' is without any added vowel sign, where the vowel '' is
inherent Inherence refers to Empedocles' idea that the qualities of matter come from the relative proportions of each of the four elements entering into a thing. The idea was further developed by Plato and Aristotle. Overview That Plato accepted (or ...
. A vowel combines with a consonant in their diacritic form. For example, the vowel () combines with the consonant () to form the syllabic letter (), with halant (cancel sign) removed and added vowel sign which is indicated by
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s. The vowel () combines with the consonant () to form () with halant removed. But the diacritic series of ... () is without any added vowel sign, as the vowel अ (a) is
inherent Inherence refers to Empedocles' idea that the qualities of matter come from the relative proportions of each of the four elements entering into a thing. The idea was further developed by Plato and Aristotle. Overview That Plato accepted (or ...
. The transliteration of each combination will appear on mouseover.


Conjunct consonants

As mentioned, successive consonants lacking a vowel in between them may physically join together as a ''
conjunct consonant Conjunct consonants are a type of letters, used for example in Brahmi or Brahmi derived modern scripts such as Balinese, Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, etc to write consonant clusters such as or . Although most of the time, letters are formed ...
'' or
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
. When Devanagari is used for writing languages other than Sanskrit, conjuncts are used mostly with Sanskrit words and loan words. Native words typically use the basic consonant and native speakers know to suppress the vowel when it is conventional to do so. For example, the native Hindi word ''karnā'' is written (''ka-ra-nā''). The government of these clusters ranges from widely to narrowly applicable rules, with special exceptions within. While standardised for the most part, there are certain variations in clustering, of which the
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
used on this page is just one scheme. The following are a number of rules: * 24 out of the 36 consonants contain a vertical right stroke ( ''kha'', ''gha'', ''ṇa'' etc.). As first or middle fragments/members of a cluster (when letters are to be written as half pronounced), they lose that stroke. e.g. + = ''tva'', + = ''ṇḍha'', + = ''stha''. In Unicode, as in Hindi, these consonants without their vertical stems are called half forms. ''ś(a)'' appears as a different, simple ribbon-shaped fragment preceding ''va'', ''na'', ''ca'', ''la'', and ''ra'', causing these second members to be shifted down and reduced in size. Thus ''śva'', ''śna'', ''śca'' ''śla'', ''śra, and'' ''śri.'' * ''r(a)'' as a first member takes the form of a curved upward dash above the final character or its ''ā-''diacritic. e.g. ''rva'', ''rvā'', ''rspa'', ''rspā''. As a final member with ''ṭa'', ''ṭha'', ''ḍa'', ''ḍha'', ''ṛa'', ''cha'', it is two lines together below the character pointed downwards. Thus ''ṭra'', ''ṭhra'', ''ḍra'', ''ḍhra'', ''ṛra'', ''chra''. Elsewhere as a final member it is a diagonal stroke extending leftwards and down. e.g. . ''ta'' is shifted up to make the conjunct ''tra''. * As first members, remaining characters lacking vertical strokes such as ''d(a)'' and ''h(a)'' may have their second member, reduced in size and lacking its horizontal stroke, placed underneath. ''k(a)'', ''ch(a)'', and ''ph(a)'' shorten their right hooks and join them directly to the following member. * The conjuncts for ' and ' are not clearly derived from the letters making up their components. The conjunct for ' is ( + ) and for ' it is ( + ).


Accent marks

The
pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
of
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 ...
is written with various symbols depending on
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 ...
. In the
Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts ('' śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one ...
, ''anudātta'' is written with a bar below the line (), ''svarita'' with a stroke above the line () while ''udātta'' is unmarked.


Punctuation

The end of a sentence or half-verse may be marked with the "" symbol (called a ''
daṇḍa In Indic scripts, the daṇḍa (Sanskrit: दण्ड ' "stick") is a punctuation mark. The glyph consists of a single vertical stroke. Use The daṇḍa marks the end of a sentence or line, comparable to a full stop (period) as commonly u ...
'', meaning "bar", or called a ', meaning "full stop/pause"). The end of a full verse may be marked with a double-''daṇḍa'', a "" symbol. A comma (called an ', meaning "short stop/pause") is used to denote a natural pause in speech.Transliteration from Hindi Script to Meetei Mayek
Watham and Vimal (2013), IJETR, page 550
Punctuation marks of
Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...
origin, such as the colon,
semicolon The semicolon or semi-colon is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought. When a ...
,
exclamation mark The exclamation mark, , or exclamation point (American English), is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, f ...
,
dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...
, and
question mark The question mark (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation mark that indicates an interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. History In the fifth century, Syriac Bible manuscripts used que ...
have been in use in Devanagari script since at least the 1900s, matching their use in European languages.


Old forms

The following letter variants are also in use, particularly in older texts.


Numerals


Fonts

A variety of Unicode fonts are in use for Devanagari. These include Akshar, Annapurna,
Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software ap ...
, CDAC-Gist Surekh,CDAC-GIST Surekh Unicode
South Asia Language Resource, University of Chicago (2009)
CDAC-Gist Yogesh, Chandas,Sanskrit Devanagari Fonts
Harvard University (2010); se
Chanda and Uttara ttf
2010 archive (Accessed: July 8, 2015)
Gargi, Gurumaa, Jaipur, Jana, Kalimati, Kanjirowa, Lohit Devanagari, Mangal, Kokila, Raghu, Sanskrit2003, Santipur OT,Sanskrit Devanagari Fonts
Harvard University (2010); se
Chanda and Uttara ttf
2010 archive (Accessed: July 8, 2015)
Siddhanta, and Thyaka. The form of Devanagari fonts vary with function. According to Harvard College for Sanskrit studies: The Google Fonts project has a number of Unicode fonts for Devanagari in a variety of typefaces in serif, sans-serif, display and handwriting categories.


Transliteration

There are several methods of
Romanisation Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
or
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
from Devanagari to the
Roman script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Ital ...
.


Hunterian system

The Hunterian system is the "''national system of romanisation in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
''" and the one officially adopted by the
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
.


ISO 15919

A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic graphemes to the Latin script. The Devanagari-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard for Sanskrit, IAST.


IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is the academic standard for the romanisation of Sanskrit. IAST is the de facto standard used in printed publications, like books, magazines, and electronic texts with Unicode fonts. It is based on a standard established by the ''Congress of Orientalists'' at
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
in 1912. The ISO 15919 standard of 2001 codified the transliteration convention to include an expanded standard for sister scripts of Devanagari.Devanagari IAST conventions
Script Source (2009), SIL International, United States
The
National Library at Kolkata romanisation The National Library of India, National Library at Kolkata romanisationSee p 24-26 for table comparing Indic languages, and p 33-34 for Devanagari alphabet listing. is a widely used transliteration scheme in dictionaries and grammars of Language ...
, intended for the romanisation of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST.


Harvard-Kyoto

Compared to IAST,
Harvard-Kyoto The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating Sanskrit and other languages that use the Devanāgarī script into ASCII. It is predominantly used informally in e-mail, and for electronic texts. Harvard-Kyoto system Prior to the ...
looks much simpler. It does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. It was designed to simplify the task of putting large amount of Sanskrit textual material into machine readable form, and the inventors stated that it reduces the effort needed in transliteration of Sanskrit texts on the keyboard. This makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than IAST. Harvard-Kyoto uses capital letters that can be difficult to read in the middle of words.


ITRANS

ITRANS The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" (ITRANS) is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for the Devanagari script. The need for a simple encoding scheme that used only keys available on an ordinary keyboard was felt i ...
is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanagari into
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
that is widely used on
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
. It is an extension of the
Harvard-Kyoto The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating Sanskrit and other languages that use the Devanāgarī script into ASCII. It is predominantly used informally in e-mail, and for electronic texts. Harvard-Kyoto system Prior to the ...
scheme. In ITRANS, the word ''devanāgarī'' is written "devanaagarii" or "devanAgarI". ITRANS is associated with an application of the same name that enables typesetting in Indic scripts. The user inputs in Roman letters and the ITRANS pre-processor translates the Roman letters into Devanagari (or other Indic languages). The latest version of
ITRANS The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" (ITRANS) is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for the Devanagari script. The need for a simple encoding scheme that used only keys available on an ordinary keyboard was felt i ...
is version 5.30 released in July 2001. It is similar to Velthuis system and was created by Avinash Chopde to help print various Indic scripts with personal computers.Transliteration of Devanāgarī
D. Wujastyk (1996)


Velthuis

The disadvantage of the above
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
schemes is case-sensitivity, implying that transliterated names may not be capitalised. This difficulty is avoided with the system developed in 1996 by Frans Velthuis for
TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...
, loosely based on IAST, in which case is irrelevant.


ALA-LC Romanisation

ALA-LC romanisation is a transliteration scheme approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, and widely used in North American libraries. Transliteration tables are based on languages, so there is a table for Hindi, one for Sanskrit and Prakrit, etc.


WX

WX is a Roman transliteration scheme for Indian languages, widely used among the natural language processing community in India. It originated at
IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...
for computational processing of Indian languages. The salient features of this transliteration scheme are as follows. * Every consonant and every vowel has a single mapping into Roman. Hence it is a
prefix code A prefix code is a type of code system distinguished by its possession of the "prefix property", which requires that there is no whole code word in the system that is a prefix (initial segment) of any other code word in the system. It is trivially t ...
, advantageous from computation point of view. * Lower-case letters are used for unaspirated consonants and short vowels, while capital letters are used for aspirated consonants and long vowels. While the retroflex stops are mapped to 't, T, d, D, N', the dentals are mapped to 'w, W, x, X, n'. Hence the name 'WX', a reminder of this idiosyncratic mapping.


Encodings


ISCII

ISCII Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman transliteration. The supported scripts are: Bengali–Assamese, Devanagar ...
is an 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 codepoints are plain
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
, the upper 128 codepoints are ISCII-specific. It has been designed for representing not only Devanagari but also various other Indic scripts as well as a Latin-based script with diacritic marks used for transliteration of the Indic scripts. ISCII has largely been superseded by Unicode, which has, however, attempted to preserve the ISCII layout for its Indic language blocks.


Unicode

The Unicode Standard defines four blocks for Devanagari: Devanagari (U+0900–U+097F), Devanagari Extended (U+A8E0–U+A8FF), Devanagari Extended-A (U+11B00–11B5F), and Vedic Extensions (U+1CD0–U+1CFF).


Devanagari keyboard layouts


InScript layout

InScript InScript (short for Indic Script) is the decreed standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts using a standard 104- or 105-key layout. This keyboard layout was standardised by the Government of India for inputting text in languages of India writ ...
is the standard
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...
layout for Devanagari as standardized by the Government of India. It is inbuilt in all modern major
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s. Microsoft Windows supports the InScript layout (using the Mangal font), which can be used to input unicode Devanagari characters. InScript is also available in some touchscreen mobile phones.


Typewriter

This layout was used on manual typewriters when computers were not available or were uncommon. For backward compatibility some typing tools like Indic IME still provide this layout.


Phonetic

Such tools work on phonetic transliteration. The user writes in the Latin alphabet and the IME automatically converts it into Devanagari. Some popular phonetic typing tools are Akruti, Baraha IME and Google IME. The
Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
operating system includes two different
keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actua ...
s for Devanagari: one resembles the INSCRIPT/KDE Linux, while the other is a phonetic layout called "Devanagari QWERTY". Any one of the Unicode fonts input systems is fine for the Indic language Wikipedia and other wikiprojects, including Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Nepali Wikipedia. While some people use
InScript InScript (short for Indic Script) is the decreed standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts using a standard 104- or 105-key layout. This keyboard layout was standardised by the Government of India for inputting text in languages of India writ ...
, the majority uses either Google phonetic transliteration or the input facility Universal Language Selector provided on Wikipedia. On Indic language wikiprojects, the phonetic facility provided initially was java-based, and was later supported by Narayam extension for phonetic input facility. Currently Indic language Wiki projects are supported by Universal Language Selector (ULS), that offers both phonetic keyboard (Aksharantaran, Marathi: , Hindi: ) and
InScript keyboard InScript (short for Indic Script) is the decreed standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts using a standard 104- or 105-key layout. This keyboard layout was standardised by the Government of India for inputting text in languages of India writ ...
(Marathi: ). The
Ubuntu Linux Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. Al ...
operating system supports several
keyboard layouts A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actua ...
for Devanagari, including Harvard-Kyoto, WX notation, Bolanagari and phonetic. The 'remington' typing method in Ubuntu IBUS is similar to the Krutidev typing method, popular in Rajasthan. The 'itrans' method is useful for those who know English (and the English keyboard) well but are not familiar with typing in Devanagari.


See also

*
Languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...
*
Clip font fonts or split fonts are non-Unicode fonts that assign glyphs of Brahmic scripts, such as Devanagari, at code positions intended for glyphs of the Latin script or to produce glyphs not found in Unicode by using its Private Use Area (PUA). ...
*
Devanagari transliteration Devanagari is an Indian script used for many languages of India and Nepal, including Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit. There are several somewhat similar methods of transliteration from Devanagari to the Roman script (a process sometimes ...
* Devanagari Braille *
ISCII Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman transliteration. The supported scripts are: Bengali–Assamese, Devanagar ...
*
Nagari Pracharini Sabha The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for Promotion of Nagari), also known as Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha, was an organization founded in 1893 at the Queen's College, Varanasi for the promotion of the Devanagari script over the more common K ...
* Nepali *
Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages Schwa deletion, or schwa syncope, is a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in Assamese, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Gujarati, and several other Indian languages with schwas that are implicit in their written scripts. Languages like ...
*
Shiksha ''Shiksha'' ( sa, शिक्षा IAST: ISO: Śikṣā) is a Sanskrit word, which means "instruction, lesson, learning, study of skill".Sir Monier Monier-WilliamsSiksha A DkSanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arr ...
– the
Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
study of sound, focusing on the letters of the
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 ...
alphabet


References


Citations


General sources

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Census and catalogues of manuscripts in Devanagari

Thousands of manuscripts of ancient and medieval era Sanskrit texts in Devanagari have been discovered since the 19th century. Major catalogues and census include: * , Medical Hall Press, Princeton University Archive * , Vol 1: Upanishads, Friedrich Otto Schrader (Compiler), University of Michigan Library Archives
A preliminary list of the Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts
Vedas, Sastras, Sutras, Schools of Hindu Philosophies, Arts, Design, Music and other fields, Friedrich Otto Schrader (Compiler), (Devanagiri manuscripts are identified by Character code De.)
Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts
Part 1: Vedic Manuscripts, Harvard University Archives (mostly Devanagari)
Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts
Part 4: Manuscripts of Hindu schools of Philosophy and Tantra, Harvard University Archives (mostly Devanagari)
Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts
Part 5: Manuscripts of Medicine, Astronomy and Mathematics, Architecture and Technical Science Literature, Julius Eggeling (Compiler), Harvard University Archives (mostly Devanagari) * , Part 6: Poetic, Epic and Purana Literature, Harvard University Archives (mostly Devanagari) * David Pingree (1970–1981), Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit: Volumes 1 through 5
American Philosophical Society
Manuscripts in various Indic scripts including Devanagari


External links


Devnagari Unicode Legacy Font Converters

Digital Nagari fonts
University of Chicago

Wazu, Japan (Alternate collection

, McGill University) * , Rudradaman's inscription in Sanskrit Nagari script from 1st through 4th century CE (coins and epigraphy), found in Gujarat, India, pages 30–45
Numerals and Text in Devanagari
, 9th century temple in Gwalior Madhya Pradesh, India, Current Science * {{Authority control Articles containing video clips Brahmic scripts Hindi Hindustani orthography Officially used writing systems of India